The Echo360 Administrator CSV Import/Export functionality ties into the Echo360 API, allowing for bulk create, update, and for many objects, delete of items in the system. The CSV Exports provide system IDs for identifying each object, and the imports use those IDs to update or delete the object, or create the related ancillary object. In addition, Echo360 supports the use of External IDs in PLACE of the internal system IDs, making interoperability with an external SIS or ServiceNow type system easier.
Scheduler CSV Import/Export functionality is identical except that their access is limited to only importing Terms, Courses, Sections, and Schedules. See Imports/Exports for Schedulers.
Support for Delegated Administration: If delegated administration is enabled for the institution, institution-level admins can see all imports and exports that have been performed on the system through the Imports/Exports tab. Organization and Department level admins can only see the imports/exports THEY initiated.
If delegated 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 as their corresponding Imports. Meaning to make CHANGES to items in a file, run the export first, make the necessary changes, then import the subset of rows you changed.
Generally this follows the below workflow:
- Generate an Export job for the item type you want to change.
- Download the export file once complete.
- Open the file in Excel or other spreadsheet program that allows for sorting.
- Use Sort or Find in Excel to identify the items/rows you want to change.
- Alternately, create a Pivot Table 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, although you can choose to 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 a Version 1 and Version 2 available. Version 2 imports use Names instead of ID 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 in them, because when using Name instead of ID for "uniqueness" it is typically in conjunction 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 don't matter if the item is being deleted. The only validation we have is to see that the ID given matches the object type you have 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.