Importing
Three comma delimited text files
Information about the classes and students can be imported into SM-Marks Online with the Import command and by selecting the Delimited files in the Enable box.
This section details the required format of the files required for the Import command to work correctly with comma delimited files that follow a special format that requires three separate files that include all the information (and more) required to determine the students in each class.
There must be three files.
- ASTUDENT.CSV contains the students.
- ACLASS.CSV contains the classes.
- ASTUDY.CSV contains the classes each student is in.
These files can be created from scratch by entering information into an editor, or with a conversion utility supplied by SMPCS.
ASTUDENT.CSV format
The delimited text file with the students must have 8 fields. Each line of the file must have the following fields.
Family name, Given name, Preferred name, Gender, Street, Suburb, Postcode, Key
The field must appear in this order. For example, one line in the file ASTUDENT.CSV could be as follows.
Garland,Judith,Judy,Female,1 Yellow Brick Rd,Sydney,2000,#1
Some of the fields can be empty if the information is not required on the printed Marks. For example, if the student's address will not appear on the report, there is no need to import that information.
Garland,Judith,Judy,Female,,,,
Here is another valid student line.
Wright,Tony,,M,"Unit 6, 12 Station St",Stanmore,2048,
Note the preferred name field is empty, but still included. Also there are quotations around the street because the street address has a comma in it. The gender field can be Male, Female, M, or F. If the preferred name field is empty, it is assumed to be the same as the given name.
There must be exactly 7 comma delimiters on each line.
ACLASS.CSV format
The delimited text file with the classes must have 6 fields. Each line of the file must have the following fields.
Name, Teacher, Subject, Year, Unit, Key
The field must appear in this order. For example, one line in the file ACLASS.CSV could be as follows.
12M2,Ms Green,Mathematics,Year 12,3,#1
The only fields that can be empty are the unit and key fields. Here is another valid class line.
7PH1,Mr White,"Health, Physical Education",7,,
Note the preferred unit and key field is empty, but still included. Also there are quotations around the subject because the name has a comma in it. At a minimum there should be the class name, subject, teacher, and year.
The year field can be either a numerical value such as 7, 8, 9, or Year 7, Year 8 and so on.
The key field is not used by SM-Marks Online and generally can be left empty. It is included for when the information from SM-Marks Online must be exported to another system that has a unique numerical key for each class.
There must be exactly 5 comma delimiters on each line.
ASTUDY.CSV format
The delimited text file with the students' classes must have at least 2 fields. Each line of the file must have the following fields.
Student family name, Student given name, Class name1, Class name2, Class name3, .
The field must appear in this order. For example, one line in the file ASTUDY.CSV could be as follows.
Wright,Tony,12E1,12M2,12PHY2,12EC3,12GSA
The lines in the ASTUDY.CSV files can have a variable number of fields. There is an additional field for each class. The spelling of the student names, and the class names must be the same as those in the ASTUDENT.CSV and ACLASS.CSV files.