FAQ

Why import student data?

You import student data for up-dating the students’ master data in WebUntis and for creating a new student in your database.

When should I import student data?

You mainly import student data at the beginning of the school year, for exporting new students to WebUntis and for assigning the existing students to new classes. You only import student data during the year when you want to edit information on several students at once. If a student changes class, you usually do this by hand in WebUntis.

Where do I get the student file for the import?

The student file is exported from your student administration. A detailed description of how to do this is provided by the producer of your student administration.

Does the student file need to have a certain structure?

The student file does not have any fixed specifications regarding the order of the columns; they can be assigned to the WebUntis fields by hand when importing them.

The file per se is a text file in which the individual data fields are separated with one of the usual separators (e.g. comma, semicolon, or TAB). Usually the file ends with .txt or .csv.

What happens to students who leave school?

Students leaving school must not be cancelled. It is recommended to set an exit date. This date is then imported together with the student data or can be set by hand under Master data | students and by choosing the collective function 'Set exit date'.

When the exit date has passed, the student will not appear in one of the selection lists (except in the master data).

What is the difference between student and user?

When you import students this does not mean that they will automatically receive access to WebUntis. You first need to create a user for the individual student in the user administration. The name of the user can be totally different than the short name of the student.

Vice versa, you need to not only delete a student user but also his or her master data element.

How can I import departments for students?

The department automatically derives from the class of the student. You do not need to especially assign it to the different students.

Class allocation is missing with students?

If you realise that students have not been allocated to any class then you should see the appropriate error message when importing the students‘ data (e.g. 'Class could not be found'). This problem usually occurs when the imported class is not know to WebUntis. The simplest reason is that no master data were exported from Untis. Export the master data and repeat the import.

Another reason could be capitalization of class names. Please make sure that the names of the classes are the same in both systems (of the import data and in WebUntis).

Umlauts in students‘ names are not displayed correctly?

When you see strange special characters in the students‘ names (Müller instead of Müller), it is very likely that the reason for this is that the wrong character set was selected when the data was imported.

If you followed the recommended procedure for the identification of students and selected an external key, then the situation is not that bad. Just import the student file once again, however with selecting the correct character set. Since the identification is done via the external key the first and last names are simply updated to the correct spelling.

If you carried out the identification of the students by 'First name, last name, date of birth' then it is very likely that some students will come up twice in the students‘ data. For more information, read the next item, please.

My students come up twice

If your students come up twice in your data it is important to not carry out any additional imports. Further proceedings depend on the point in time when you detected that your students come up twice in your data.

You detected it right after importing the data:

If you detect right after importing the data that some students come up twice, there is a simple solution for this: just manually delete the students who come up twice. Deleting the same ‘second’ student is possible at this point in time since there are no interdependencies (absences, …) yet.

You detected it later:

If you detected later (after a day) that some students come up twice, then it is very likely that there are already interdependencies (registered absences, …).

Your Untis GmbH support team can help with a function which tries to combine the students coming up twice. However, first and last name and the date of birth must be the same.

First make sure that this prerequisite is fulfilled (manual adjustment) and then contact your support team.

How do I change the student administration?

If your student administration changes and you used an external key from the student administration for identification of the students, you need to replace the old keys by the new keys from the new student administration in WebUntis.

As a basis this change you need a student file as you use it for the regular import of student data but with the unique keys from both student administrations ('External key old' and 'External key new').

Import the students‘ data with this file as usual until you get to selecting the field allocations. Here you select the field name 'Key (external, old)' for the column with the unique key from the old student administration and the field name 'Key (external)' for the column which will get the key from the new student administration.

Then you select 'Key (external, old)' when identifying the students and click on the 'Import' button.

By choosing this procedure the students are identified by the old key and the new key is inserted. The old key is not necessary for any future imports, and the import can be carried out the usual way.

If you did not use an external key, then please check when changing to a new student administration if, for instance, students with a second first name still have/do not have this second name in the student file. If yes, then this second first name needs to be added/deleted by hand in WebUntis before the import. The same is true for a changed last name or a corrected date of birth.

Please also check the character set of the new student file since it can differ from the character set used in the old student administration. If you are not sure about this then contact the producer of your new student administration.