Efficiently Updating Student Records After Promotion

[AbdulKhadar]

We’re facing a challenge with our student naming system where we use a format like “Smith_Grade2324” to indicate students’ grades. As students have been promoted to the next grade, we need to update their names to reflect their new grades.

What’s the best way to efficiently update the records for all students to reflect their new grade levels? Are there any tools or processes you recommend for batch editing or automating this update to minimize manual work and avoid errors?

I’d appreciate any insights or suggestions you have!

Abdul

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @AbdulKhadar 

You said - We’re facing a challenge with our student naming system where we use a format like “Smith_Grade2324” to indicate students’ grades. As students have been promoted to the next grade, we need to update their names to reflect their new grades.

• to borrow an old Irish joke, "If I was going to Dublin I wouldn't start from here ....."

Students have a one to many relationship with many aspects of curriculum and life - their identity is a constant - by adding the grade to the identifier you have given them a different identity for each grade/year. 

I'm struggling to understand why that would be a design choice ....

In my view you need to abandon this folly and de-grade the names asap - there are a host of admin side ways to deal with this in your Student Information System, including setting identifiers within the data that feeds the delivery enrolment or course enrolment .....

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @AbdulKhadar 

You said - We’re facing a challenge with our student naming system where we use a format like “Smith_Grade2324” to indicate students’ grades. As students have been promoted to the next grade, we need to update their names to reflect their new grades.

• to borrow an old Irish joke, "If I was going to Dublin I wouldn't start from here ....."

Students have a one to many relationship with many aspects of curriculum and life - their identity is a constant - by adding the grade to the identifier you have given them a different identity for each grade/year. 

I'm struggling to understand why that would be a design choice ....

In my view you need to abandon this folly and de-grade the names asap - there are a host of admin side ways to deal with this in your Student Information System, including setting identifiers within the data that feeds the delivery enrolment or course enrolment .....

[AbdulKhadar]

Hi Paul

Eye opener!Thank you very much for your valuable feedback for my query.

I may not be in Dublin yet,but at least I know I won’t need a GPS to find my way!

Regards

Abdul

[paul_fynn]

No worries Abdul

you might be able to get support to migrate your student identities to drop the grade identifier.

best

Paul

[AbdulKhadar]

Thanks a lot for your response! I'm planning to download a provisioning report of the users, edit the grade tags, and upload it again. Could you confirm if this process is safe and follows the correct steps? Also, any suggestions on how we can label students to easily identify their grade would be really helpful.

Thanks again!

[paul_fynn · Accepted solution]

Hi @AbdulKhadar ,

I'm not involved at that level of detail so perhaps others migt be able to comment. I would assume that something could be run through API by way of updating rather than reloading the students. I'd certainly seek a second opinion before you go ahead, and preferably use your test environment to trial it.... the impacts could be major if anything isn't quite right...