The EchoVideo Administrator CSV Import/Export functionality integrates with the EchoVideo API, enabling bulk creation, updates, and, for many objects, deletion of items in the system. The CSV Exports provide system IDs to identify each object, and the imports use those IDs to update or delete the object or to create the related ancillary object. In addition, EchoVideo supports using External IDs in place of internal system IDs, making interoperability with external SIS or ServiceNow-type systems easier.
The Scheduler CSV Import/Export functionality is identical, except that its access is limited to importing Terms, Courses, Sections, and Schedules. See Imports / Exports for Schedulers.
Support for Designated Administration: If designated administration is enabled for the institution, institution-level admins can view all imports and exports in the system in the Imports / Exports tab. Organization- and Department-level admins can only see the imports / exports they initiated.
If designated administration is not enabled for the institution, all admins can see all imports/exports run in the list on the Imports / Exports tab.
Object Exports contain nearly identical file structures to their corresponding Imports. To make changes to items in a file, run the export first, make the necessary changes, and then import the subset of rows you changed.
Generally, this follows the workflow below:
- Generate an Export job for the item type you want to change.
- Download the export file once complete.
- Open the file in Excel or another spreadsheet program that allows for sorting.
- Use Sort or Find in Excel to identify the items/rows you want to change.
- Alternatively, create a PivotTable to isolate the item types you want to obtain IDs for. This is useful for finding the system/External IDs for an item to use in a Create-action import (such as finding Course or Term ID for a Create Sections import)
- Copy the rows and/or the ID data into a NEW file.
- Change the fields whose values you want to change, or generate all (and only) the rows needed to create, update, or delete the items you want.
Delete-action imports only require object IDs, though you can keep or remove other identifying fields as desired. - Save the file as a comma-separated values file (*.csv).
- Run an Import for the object Type and Action you want to perform.
- After the import is complete, check the system to see that your changes appear.
Large imports can take some time to process. For this reason, your imported CSV file should contain only the rows being created or updated. Every row in the file must be parsed and validated, even if it makes no changes; having unnecessary rows in the imported file will needlessly increase processing time.
Currently, only Schedule Imports have both Version 1 and Version 2 available. Version 2 imports use Names instead of IDs for the objects. V2 exports, just like V1 exports, are formatted identically to their corresponding Import files (same fields, same order), making it easier to generate an export, make changes, then import the file. However, V2 imports/exports have more fields because, when using Name instead of ID for uniqueness, it is typically combined with other fields (section name + course code + term = unique, whereas section name by itself is not).
You may also find it useful to generate an Export if there are system items with similar/identical fields to the ones you want to create. For example, you are creating an Intro to Biology section in a new term but within the existing Course. You can run a Section Export, find and extract that course/section row, and replace the old Term ID with a new one (system ID or External ID), along with any other changes that might be needed.
Delete-action imports do not require any fields other than ID because the values in the other fields are irrelevant when the item is being deleted. The only validation we have is that the ID provided matches the object type you selected to delete.
You may, however, want to retain one or more other fields in the Delete-action CSV file to do your own validation that the listed items have been deleted once the import is finished.