Students import template

Every column of the students sheet, what goes in it, and what people get wrong.

Step 5 of 6 in the setup workbook. Before this: Buses. Next: Mappings.

The columns

Column	Needed?	What goes in it	Example	Common mistake
Parent email	Yes	The address the family signs in with. Their account is created from it, with a password shown once when the import finishes - nothing is emailed, so keep that list.	`parent@example.com`	A shared school address on every row - every child then belongs to one enormous family. Use the real address for each family.
Parent name	Yes	Who the family is, as you would greet them.	`Parent Name`	Leaving it blank on the second child of a family. Repeat it on every row.
Student name	Yes	The child.	`A Child`	Putting the class in here too. That is what Notes is for.
Student ID	No, but do	Your own admission or roll number. It is what later imports match on.	`STU-001`	Two children given the same ID. The import stops and tells you which rows.
Notes	No	Anything the office wants on the record - a class, a medical note.	`Class 3A`	Nothing much. It is free text and may be left empty.
Route	No	The bus this child rides, by the name you gave it on the Routes sheet. Naming the morning route is enough: the way home is worked out from it.	`Morning Route A`	A route that does not exist yet. The child is still created - only the stop is left unset, and the import says so on that row.
Stop	No	The corner they wait on, by the name you gave it on the Stops sheet. It must be a stop that route actually calls at.	`Main Gate`	Filling in one of Route and Stop and not the other. Both or neither.

Keep the first row exactly as it is. The column names are how the file is read - the order does not matter, but the names do.
Type into the first sheet. The Example sheet is only there to be looked at; it is not imported.
One row per thing. Do not merge cells, do not add a title row above the headings, and do not leave blank rows in the middle.
Nothing is saved until you press the button. You upload the file, read what each row would do, untick anything you do not want, and only then commit.
Uploading the same file twice does not create everything twice - a row that already exists is matched and updated instead.
A parent account is created from the email address. Two children with the same parent email become two children of one family, sharing one login - which is what you want for siblings.
Matching is on Student ID where you give one, and on the child's name within the family where you do not. Give IDs if you have them; it makes every later import safe.
Route and Stop are optional and save you the Mappings sheet. Name the route the child rides in and the corner they wait on, and the way home is taken to be the route going the other way that calls at the same stop.
Use the Mappings sheet instead for a child who rides one way only, gets off somewhere they did not get on, or rides a route that runs more than once a day. The import tells you on the row when it cannot work the afternoon out.

The stops sheet: every column explained, with the mistakes to avoid.

The routes sheet: every column explained, with the mistakes to avoid.

The drivers sheet: every column explained, with the mistakes to avoid.

See The School Bus Tracker with your own routes in a short, friendly demo.