This lesson provides an overview on successfully importing your Site data into DnA. Without this import, all other imports will fail.
About Sites Data
In DnA, sites are schools or buildings. You should have one DnA site for each of the schools in your installation. When loading historic data, sites that are currently inactive but have historic data should also be loaded.
Importing your site data should be the first of data imports you complete.
About Importing Sites
The sites.txt file holds special significance because it is the very first file that is imported into your system. The sites file creates all of your schools and those sites are the foundation of your installation moving forward. Without a successful sites.txt file load, the rest of your data imports will not work well. If the sites aren't loaded, then there are no schools for students to be enrolled into, no schools to load schedules into, etc.
After the initial import, site data is managed entirely through the UI via the Site Management page. For ongoing data automation in DnA Data and Assessment (DnA) or DnA Special Education (ISE) there is no reason to add sites.txt to your automation process since it will not be imported again.
Required Fields
- Site ID
- Site Name
- State Site ID
- Start Grade Level ID
- End Grade Level ID
- Site Type ID
- State
Non-Required, but Highly Recommended Fields
Whether or not a field is required refers to basic, minimal operation of the system. With only the required fields your DnA installation will work, however, it may not be configured optimally. Additionally, beyond minimal functionality and basic reporting, in an DnA Student Information (ISI) installation as much data as can possibly be provided should be imported. Many non required fields are used in basic reports and compliance reporting.
- Address 1
- Address 2
- City
- Zip
- Parent Site ID
Non-Required Fields
- Local Site Code
- Annual Hours of Instruction
- Annual # Weeks of Instruction
Local Site Code is a rarely used field but it is an optional local identifier for each site. If there is a different identifier for a site that users may be accustomed to using, it can be provided here. This number should be different from theSite ID in column 1. It is recommended that this field is left blank as it is not widely supported in the UI.
Annual Hours of Instruction and Annual # Weeks of Instruction are fields that are only used in ISE. If is not part of your installation these fields should be left blank. In an ISE installation these two fields are used to track the annual hours and weeks of instruction at each site and are critical for compliance related reporting.
Common Issues
The first three fields that are listed on the data spec are: Site ID, Site Name, and State Site Id. These three fields are the key identifiers for each unique building or site.
The Site ID is a unique identifier that is used by a Student Information System (SIS) to identify a site. The site name would then be the actual name of that site. So, for example, you might have Site ID of 123 and then a Site Name of Central elementary school
State Site ID is the numeric or alphanumeric value that the state has assigned to your site. This is the value that is typically used in any state reporting that references your site.
Start Grade Level ID and End Grade Level ID identify the grade levels are served by this site. Start Grade Level ID represents the lowest grade level served. End Grade Level ID represents the highest grade level served. For a K-5 school, for example, the start grade level would be K and the end grade level would be 5.
Site Type ID identifies the type of site (elementary school, middle school, high school, etc.). There is a specific set of site types that are preinstalled in your DnA installation. These values can be found in the DnA Core Data Spec. It is recommended that you align your data to the preloaded site types, that is the quickest way to get your sites loaded. If your sites do not align to the preloaded site types, feel free to use your site types, but make sure to let the DnA data team know that you need some revisions to your site types.
If any of the required fields are not provided or if any of the required fields do not align to the designated field types or values, the entire record will not import. Problems with required fields will generate import errors.
Next Steps
To learn more about available files to import into DnA, visit Optional Datasets.