Check your data imports

Introduction 

Your data imports in Communicate provide the important function of establishing your system contacts and other information that you can use in your broadcasts. You may need to check certain parts of the imports for various reasons.  

Typically, only System Administrators or other top-level Users have access to see the imports. In order to proceed with the following steps, you will need access to the Admin tab and the Imports sub-tab. If you do not have this access, you will not see one or the other, and you will need to refer to your System Administrator.  

You can check the File Date and Last Run Date (including times), the imported file itself, and the mapping of that file to fields in Communicate. 

Check the file and last run dates/times 

The File Date refers to the date and time that the last file was imported into Communicate.  

The Last Run date refers to the date and time that the last known file was run in the live Communicate database to be available for use.  

In other words, if a file is uploaded but not run, then the contacts will not be updated until it is run.  

Check the dates/times 

Navigate to the Admin tab, then the Imports sub-tab.  

Below, the imports will be listed.  

You will see a table of each import with the following information: Names of the imports, their descriptions, types, methods, statuses, last run and file date. 

Force an import to run 

If you see that the File Date is much more current than the Last Run date, you probably need to run the data in most cases. You may also simply have made a change to the import that you need to push into the active data. You can force an import to run from the Imports sub-tab, if desired. 

Important: Imports can be simple or complicated, and there are numerous different situations surrounding imports. If you are not sure that you should run the import manually, contact support for assistance. 

Navigate to the Admin tab, then the Imports sub-tab.  

Find the file you wish to run and look in the Actions column.

To force the import to run, first ensure that you are accessing the options for the correct import by following the import name from left to right 

Click Run Now.  

If you wish to monitor the import’s progress while it is running, you can click Refresh to see the current status of the import. 

When the import has finished, the status will go back to Idle.  

Edit data import files

You can now include recipients on broadcasts. The data import file must have the Viewable By and the Include on Viewable Broadcasts columns.

To edit and update a data import file:

1. Login to SchoolMessenger.

2. Click Admin.

3. Click Import.

4. Click Download for the user category you want to edit.

5. Manually enter the Viewable By and Include on Viewable Broadcasts column headers in your downloaded data import file.

6. Enter TRUE in the Viewable By column for the username you want to include in the broadcast. Copy the username. This is optional and, if left blank, will allow you to add a recipient to a broadcast manually.

7. Paste the username in the Include on Viewable Broadcasts column for the username that will send broadcast messages.

8. Save the data import file.

9. Click Upload within the Import tab.

10. Click Choose File to attach the data import file.

11. Click Upload.

To validate, click Users and click View for the user category you edited. The Include on Viewable Broadcasts checkbox will be selected, and Viewable Users will have the usernames you chose selected.