How To: Import Course Dates

Owned by Ellen Greyling (Deactivated)
Last updated: 18 Jan, 2024 by Jovan Lee (Unlicensed)
4 min read

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Warning: We highly recommend and always suggest that you run an Import Job on your test platform first, before you upload the data on live.

To learn how to complete an Import Job, click here.

Important Info regarding special characters Č, Š, Ž and Ć:

If your organisation/business operates using Languages where the following special characters are present - Č, Š, Ž and Ć - and you wish to use the importer to upload content containing these characters to the platform - you will need to contact the accessplanit Support Team.

You can contact us via the Customer Portal or by giving us a call on 01524 389 841.

Creating the Import Profile

First, you need to create an Import Profile, which provides a template for your upload. Click here for more information on how to do this.

The Destination for this import would be Course Date.

 

Updating Course Dates

To update existing course dates within your platform, the following field need to be a Key Field within your Import Profile:

  • CourseCalID - this is the unique identifying code for the Course date. This will be stored within the Attributes tab of the Course date.

The column CompanyID is mandatory and this should be the company ID of your Training Provider.

This should not be used as a Key Field.


You need to include these fields, plus any fields you want to update.

 

Creating New Course Dates

If you want to upload new course dates, you'll need to use either of the following combinations of fields as Key Fields:

  • ExternalID - this can be anything, but is commonly an ID for a course used on another platform you use.

  • Course ID

or

  • CourseID

  • StartDate - this is the start date and time of the course. (dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm for most platforms, M/dd/yyyy hh:mm for US platforms)

  • EndDate - this is the end date and time of the course. (dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm for most platforms, M/dd/yyyy hh:mm for US platforms)

 

Mandatory Fields

The following fields are mandatory for a Course Date import, as well as any previously mentioned Key Fields:

  • CCLevel - this needs to be a value of 4.

  • CompanyID - this is the ID for the Training Provider

  • StartDate - this is the start date and time of the course

  • EndDate - this is the end date and time of the course

  • Status - this is the status of the course. The Importer recognizes the following values for course status:

    • Available

    • Cancelled

    • Completed

    • Failed

    • FullyBooked

    • InProgress

    • OnHold

    • Provisional

  • Sessional - if your import contains a mixture of sessional and non-sessional courses, you will need to include one of the following values:

    • Y = Course is sessional.

    • N = Course is not sessional.

 

  • SessionalCostType - this is for sessional courses only. If your course is sessional, you'll need to enter one of the following values into the field:

    • 1= Sum of sessions

    • 2 = Course cost

    • 4 = Course cost plus optional sessions

    • 8 = Course cost plus sessions

 

Before running a new Course Date import, you will need to make sure that the Course Templates are already on your platform. If you would like to know how to import Course Templates, click here.

 

There could be other areas where it is not possible to use object IDs when importing.

Filling in the Import File

Then, you need to create your import file that you will use to upload the data. Below is a sample file showing you how to format it:

Course Date Import Template .csv

All imports should be uploaded in a CSV format, as they lack formatting that would otherwise be included within the file, any additional formatting present in a regular Excel file may prevent your import from working.

Importing Sessional Courses

If the sessional course template already exists on the system - and has its own session plan - you only need to import the head course date. The system will then automatically create the child sessions like it does when you add a head course through the datagrid, based on the offsets in the session plan at course template level.

--Please remember to test this on a test/sandbox site first before importing this on the live site.--

If the offset days, that are currently set at the course template level for these courses can't be used because it would cause scheduling issues, the best thing to do would be as you suggest:

  • Import the child session course dates

  • Schedule the head courses and make them sessional

  • Add the child sessions into the session plan for the head course date

You could import the head course dates, which would create all of the sessions automatically, and then change the dates of the child sessions so they are correct. This would be manual work, but this depends how many head courses and sessions you are looking to import.