Administrators can efficiently add Units to their institution’s Collaboratory using the bulk import feature. Units are a critical organizing framework for your Collaboratory reports. It is important to take the time to enter them, and the unit reporting hierarchy comprehensively and correctly.
REMINDER: Units must be imported first, before adding courses or sections. While you can import Units in stages, it’s recommended to complete the bulk import of units during onboarding to establish a comprehensive organizational structure and reporting hierarchy.
Unit FAQs
Units may be nested to reflect hierarchical relationships (for example, 9 departments, 3 offices, and 1 center report to a college/school; or 1 center reports to a department).
Once a unit is created (entered as a line in the import .csv), it may then have other campus units report to it. Be sure to list units from the top-most levels of your institution's hierarchy down.
All units (including colleges/schools, which are likely created as divisions) will have a public landing page created for them (see image, below).
A unit's landing page will only appear publicly once that unit has been affiliated with an active, published activity. Blank unit pages are not displayed publicly.
The activities that appear on a unit landing page will reflect where a member has identified that unit specifically as a unit collaborator on step 2 of the Activity Entry form.
How Bulk Importing Works
Administrators should work with their institution to complete the Units Bulk Import Template. We suggest starting with the institutional research, budget, or planning offices).
Once the .csv template has been completed, email it to your Customer Specialist.
Our development team will handle the import, and your Customer Specialist will keep you updated on the timeline and any further details.
Once the bulk import process is complete, your Units will be available in your Collaboratory Portal.
NOTE: It is helpful to find a copy of your institution's organizational hierarchy to assist with the hierarchical reporting structure. These are often housed within the Offices of the Chancellor or Provost.
Formatting Guidelines for .csv Import
Complete the Units Bulk Import Template with the following fields. During the import process, we will match each column in your file to a field in our database. We've provided example data to help you communicate field formats to your campus data managers who are helping you generate your Unit export file. Follow these guidelines to format each column in your file to get the best import results. Please maintain the column labels and order of columns. This is critical to a successful upload.
The following table defines each data point requested in the .csv template file (unless otherwise noted all fields are alphanumeric with no character number limitations):
Field | Definition | Formatting Requirements | Required or Optional | Publicly Visible |
Unit Name | Name of unit | Alphanumeric string, up to 125 characters | Required | Yes |
Unit Type ID | Type of unit | Integer, one of these allowed values: 4 = Academic Dept. or Prog. 5 = Office 6 = Center or Institute 7 = Division 8 = Museum 9 = Clinic 10 = Network or Coalition 11 = Co-Curricular 12 = College or School | Required | Yes |
Reports To | External ID (column J) of the unit an individual unit reports to | Alphanumeric string | Required | No |
Description | Description of the unit, often in an engaged context | Free form | Optional | Yes |
Website | Unit's website | http:// or https:// | Optional | Yes |
Contact First Name | Person a Collaboratory admin might communicate with about data entry and sharing | Alphanumeric string | Optional | No |
Contact Last Name |
| Alphanumeric string | Optional | No |
Contact Email |
| Must validate as email (e.g., [email protected]) | Optional | No |
Contact Phone |
| Must validate as phone number (e.g., xxx-xxx-xxxx) | Optional | No |
External ID | Copy Unit Name (column A) and paste here | Alphanumeric string | Required | No |
Course Codes | Course codes assigned to this unit (e.g., BIO; LIT; HIST-A) | A semicolon-delimited list of alphanumeric strings; can only be connected to one unit. | Not required, but critical to import courses | No |
Unit and Course Code Connection
Data entered into the Unit course code field is an important precedent for creating courses and sections. The unit course code represents the prefix or abbreviation that your institution typically uses in the Course Bulletin.
Courses are nested within institutional units and are connected to the unit via the course code. In order to bulk import or manually create courses/sections, the course code must be assigned to a specific unit in your Collaboratory.
REMEMBER! A unit may house multiple course codes. However, a course code may only be connected to one unit.
Video Tutorial: How to Bulk Import Units