Manage Team Memberships via CSV Upload

Manage Team Memberships via CSV Upload#

Tags: educator reference

Initial Setup#

There are cases where an instructor may want to manage team membership within a course (e.g. assigning groups for team assignments). To do this, an instructor must configure a team-set as public_managed or private_managed by following the Teams Configuration guide.

When this condition is met, an instructor can navigate to the Teams tab where the Manage sub-tab will now be available alongside the My Team and Browse sub-tabs. Clicking the Manage tab opens the Manage page where team membership can be viewed and modified.

The Manage Teams tab on the teams Page, which lets you download and upload a csv describing the team memberships for a course

Membership CSV File Schema#

Team membership assignments are done through a CSV file upload. The membership CSV is formatted as follows:

user,              mode,              <team-set>,           <team-set>,           <...>
<user-identifier>, <enrollment-mode>, <team-name-or-empty>, <team-name-or-empty>, <...>
<user-identifier>, <enrollment-mode>, <team-name-or-empty>, <team-name-or-empty>, <...>
<...>

The header row contains the headers “user”, “mode”, and an entry for each team-set within a course. For example, a course with 2 team-sets (discussion-teams and case-studies) would start like this:

user, mode, discussion-teams, case-studies

Each additional row is a user row and has a user-identifier (which, in priority order, is the student-key, username, or email), enrollment mode (one of audit, verified, or masters), and the team assignment for the matching team-set in the header row. For example, here are 8 students assigned across different teams in the 2 team-sets:

user,            mode,     discussion-teams, case-studies
alice,           verified, Team 1,           Team A
bob@example.com, verified, Team 1,           Team B
mitx_39181873,   verified, Team 1,           Team C
derek,           verified, Team 2,           Team A
edith,           verified, Team 2,           Team B
felicia,         verified, Team 2,           Team C
garrett,         verified, ,                 Team C
hannah,          masters,  Team A,           Team 1

Note

Since teams are only unique within a team-set, the “Team A” that hannah is a member of for the “discussion-teams” team-set is different from the “Team A” in “case-studies” that Alice and Derek are assigned to.

Managing Teams#

Note

Prerequisites: at least one managed team-set configured for course.

From the Teams > Manage page, an instructor can use a CSV file, formatted per the schema above, to manage team memberships.

An instructor should first get current memberships by going to the View Current Team Memberships section and clicking the Download Memberships button. This downloads a membership CSV file showing all enrolled students and configured team-sets for the course.

Staff can then modify this document (as below) before browsing to the file and uploading it in the Assign Team Memberships section.

Actions#

A user can be added or moved to a team by adding the team-name in the appropriate team-set column. If the team does not already exist within the team-set a new team will be created.

Note

team-name and team-set are case sensitive.

A user can be removed from a team by removing the team-name from the appropriate team-set column, leaving the entry empty.

Note

team-sets cannot be created from within the Manage tab. They must be created by following the Manage Teams.

Users and team-sets that are not included in the uploaded CSV are not altered.

Examples#

Initial Setup#

Remus Lupin is setting up his course, Defense Against the Dark Arts and wants to assign groups for his students to write about different dark creatures and curses. Following the Teams Configuration instructions, he sets up two managed team-sets, dark-creatures and curses.

Next, he goes to the Teams > Manage page and clicks Download Memberships to get the following membership CSV:

user,      mode,       dark-creatures,  curses
harry,     verified,                 ,
ron,       audit,                    ,
luna,      verified,                 ,
draco,     verified,                 ,
hermione,  masters,                  ,
cho,       masters,                  ,

Lupin splits his students into several teams, making sure to not put masters and non-masters students on the same team, and edits the CSV accordingly:

user,      mode,       dark-creatures,  curses
harry,     verified,   Dragons,         Mimble Wimble
ron,       audit,      Dragons,         Morsmordre
luna,      verified,   Werewolves,      Morsmordre
draco,     verified,   Werewolves,      Mimble Wimble
hermione,  masters,    Basiliks,        Expulso
cho,       masters,    Basiliks,        Expulso

In the Assign Team Memberships section, Lupin browses to his updated membership CSV and clicks Upload Memberships. The new teams are created and his students are assigned to the corresponding teams: Harry and Ron are assigned to the “Dragons” team for the dark-creatures team-set. Harry is assigned to the “Mimble Wimble” team in the curses team-set, while Ron is on the “Morsmorde” team, and so on.

Later, Lupin goes back to the Teams > Manage page to download new memberships and finds that Fred and George joined the class after the initial team assignments.

user,      mode,       dark-creatures,  curses
harry,     verified,   Dragons,         Mimble Wimble
ron,       audit,      Dragons,         Morsmordre
luna,      verified,   Werewolves,      Morsmordre
draco,     verified,   Werewolves,      Mimble Wimble
hermione,  masters,    Basiliks,        Expulso
cho,       masters,    Basiliks,        Expulso
fred,      audit,      ,
george,    audit,      ,

He decides he wants to add them to the “Werewolves” and “Dragons” teams for the dark-creatures team-set but wants them on a new “Confringo” team for curses.

user,      mode,       dark-creatures,  curses
harry,     verified,   Dragons,         Mimble Wimble
ron,       audit,      Dragons,         Morsmordre
luna,      verified,   Werewolves,      Morsmordre
draco,     verified,   Werewolves,      Mimble Wimble
hermione,  masters,    Basiliks,        Expulso
cho,       masters,    Basiliks,        Expulso
fred,      audit,      Werewolves,      Confringo
george,    audit,      Dragons,         Confringo

Uploading this updated CSV, the new “Confringo” team is created and Fred and George have been assigned to their respective teams.

Error Conditions#

  • Header must contain column ‘user’ / Header must contain column ‘mode’

    The CSV is improperly formatted: the first row must contain the headers “user” and “mode”, in that order (see Membership CSV File Schema).

  • Teamset with id [ID] is duplicated

    A team-set cannot be listed more than once in the header of the CSV file. Remove the duplicated column and confirm desired team mappings before re-uploading.

  • Teamset with id [ID] does not exist

    Team-sets must be configured in Teams Configuration before teams can be assigned. Teams, however, can be created directly from the Membership CSV.

  • Team(s) [team] don’t have matching teamsets

    The team was entered in a column without a team-set, often caused by a column number mismatch or stray comma. Correct the typo and re-upload.

  • Username [name] listed more than once in file

    Users within a file should be unique. Remove the duplicate row and confirm desired team mappings before re-uploading.

  • User name/email/external key: [ID] does not exist

    The ID in the “user” column (which could be a username, email, or external key) did not map to a user in our records. Correct any typos and re-upload.

  • User [username] is not enrolled in this course

    Users must be enrolled to be assigned to teams in a course. Remove or enroll the unenrolled user before re-uploading.

  • User [username] enrollment mismatch

    The user “mode” specified in the CSV file does not match the user’s actual enrollment mode. Downloading memberships should automatically populate the correct enrollment modes for each enrolled user. Alternatively, correct the user’s enrollment mode making sure that team assignments do not mix masters and non-masters enrollment modes and re-upload.

  • Team [team] cannot have Master’s track users mixed with users in other tracks.

    FERPA protections prohibit masters and non-masters (audit and verified) enrolled students from being on the same team.

    If the team already exists, the enrollment mode of the first member assigned to that team sets the team’s protection level. For example, if the first member assigned to a team is a non-master’s student, masters students cannot join. If this team will be newly created through the CSV upload, the team makeup must be exclusively masters or non-masters students to pass validation. Edit team mappings to create designated teams for masters and non-masters students and re-upload.

  • New membership for team [team] would exceed max size of [max-size]

    Team-sets have a max-team-size configured in Teams Configuration. The newly proposed team memberships would exceed the capacity of the given teams. Increase the team-set size or redistribute users to different/more teams and re-upload.

See also

About Teams (concept)

Teams Configuration Options (reference)

Manage Teams (how-to)

Connect Teams to Content Groups (how-to)

About Managing Teams Discussions (concept)

The Learner’s Experience of Teams (concept)

Maintenance chart

Review Date

Working Group Reviewer

Release

Test situation
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