All guides
School administration

Import users from a CSV

The route for schools without an SIS connection: a spreadsheet in, accounts out.

For adminsVero help

Schools without an SIS connection load their people from a spreadsheet. It is the same Vero either way — the only difference is that you own the list rather than your SIS owning it.

The Vero CSV import panel with a template download and upload area
Download the template, fill it in, upload it. Vero reports what it did.

Importing

  1. Download the template for students or for staff. Use it rather than building your own — the column names are what Vero matches on.
  2. Fill it in from your existing records. Email, first name and surname are required; the rest is optional but worth doing.
  3. Upload the file and let it process.
  4. Read the summary. Vero reports how many rows were created, updated and skipped, and why any were skipped.

The columns

Students

email, forename, surname, year_group,house, gender, date_of_birth, mis_id

year_group and house are the two optional fields that matter most: they are what every Insights filter and cohort-scoped alert rule works from. A list without them still works, but the reporting is much blunter.

Staff

email, forename, surname, title,mis_id, is_admin

Re-importing

Uploading the file again updates existing people and adds new ones — it does not create duplicates, provided the identifying columns are stable. Most CSV schools re-import at the start of each term.

Common problems

  • Rows skipped for a missing email. Email is the identifier. A student without one cannot be imported.
  • Duplicate people. Two rows with different email addresses for one person. Fix the source and re-import.
  • Odd characters in names. Save as UTF-8 CSV. Excel’s plain “CSV” export mangles accented characters on some systems.
  • Year groups not filtering. Keep the values consistent — “9”, “Year 9” and “Yr 9” are three different cohorts as far as any filter is concerned.

Photos

The CSV carries no photos. Upload them separately under Admin → Students — it is worth the hour, because the photo is what makes a student card usable by a relief teacher.

Moving to a live connection later

Schools that start on CSV frequently move to a Wonde connection once Vero is embedded. Nothing recorded in the meantime is lost — the list simply stops being your job.