Districts are living environments that are constantly changing--especially during transition times such as the end of the semester or school year. Some staff members may not be in the SIS at all such as coaches or additional district support staff. To ensure that districts can easily add these staff members into the TalkingPoints platform or add staff roles en masse, TalkingPoints is introducing the ability to bulk add staff or staff roles via .csv.
Prepare the .csv file
Compile the list of staff members who need to be added to the TalkingPoints platform. The file can be named anything you choose, but must be in .csv format and include Staff First Name, Staff Last Name, Staff Email, and a comma-separated list of Schools.
School names must match exactly with the school names that appear within TalkingPoints. Partners are advised to note any abbreviations they may have used such as Oak ES, Bay HS, etc. Additionally, all email addresses must match exactly with the email addresses that appear within TalkingPoints if staff already exist in the platform.
District-level users who hold one or more district-level roles with permission to view the district staff roster to access the Staff & Roles module and permission to manually add staff to the district can access the functionality outlined below.
Step 1: Click on 'Staff & Roles.'
Step 2: Click on 'Manage Staff.'
Step 3: Select 'Add staff by csv file.'
Step 4: Drag and drop or browse your computer for the .csv file you created.
If the file is not in .csv format or is missing any of the required fields, you will get an error message guiding you to fix the file.
Step 5: Select the role(s) that you wish to assign to the staff members in the .csv file.
Step 6: Click 'Add.'
The system will compare the emails on the file against the full staff roster within the TalkingPoints account - sis-generated and manually added staff.
If a match is found for the staff email (staff account already exists within the TalkingPoints account), the selected role(s) will be added to that staff account at the schools in the .csv file.
If a match is not found for the staff email (staff account doesn’t exist), a new staff account will be created using the information from the .csv file and the selected role(s) will be applied to that account at the school(s) in the .csv file.
A confirmation will appear when the process is completed with the number of staff successfully added to the district account.
If the system can’t find a school match during processing for that staff member, it will log an error, take no action and skip to the next staff name on the file. The Addition incomplete modal appears after the file is finished processing. Users will be able to download a report of the staff accounts that could not be added.
Any new staff member created by this process will be flagged as a manually added staff member. After the process is finished, these staff members will automatically receive an invitation email from TalkingPoints so they can log in and start using the platform. District admins can resend the invitation email at any time.
All role assignments created during this flow will be considered manually assigned. All staff members with manually assigned roles must be maintained within the TalkingPoints platform. If you wish to bulk delete staff by csv, follow the steps here.