Trouble with new bulk importing of photos feature

Hi, I am new UK user to Idoceo, signed up the day before version 3 was released. I am working on importing student data currently including photos to set up classes. Student data is imported by class from XLS files per class with students in the name format "surname, forename". I have also got photos extracted in jpg format from a major UK MIS database called SIMS and photos have been stored in folders for each class, also with the name format "surname, forename". I am expecting that when I bulk import the photos to the seating plan for the class via the photo folder for that class in Google Drive I will get matches based on choosing the name field for import.

Unfortunately this doesn't happen. All photos appear the bottom and none of them are matched. All photos have a grey semi-transparent name over them which is in the format "surname,_forename". This would lead me to believe that the comma between surname and forename could be a possible problem. But, those names are also often incorrect. They are being swapped round and I am finding that boys photos have girls names attached to them etc.

I could possibly assign photos to students manually post-import, albeit time consuming, but the problem with this is that I am in a new school, at the the start of a new academic year, and having only met the students a few times I can't yet remember 200 odd names never mind remember what they look like! This just wouldn't be feasible.

Advice is welcome on this as it has taken me time to get the photos with the correct file name in the first place so that they can be matched - this was difficult enough. I am disappointed to discover that after my efforts so far it is not working. I could possibly provide screenshots from the iPad if needed but would have to set up dummy data first instead. Hope someone can help!

Smiffy,

I am also a UK Sims user. Is there an option for the photos to be renamed using their Admission Number? We request this from our photogrpaher and it makes the import process much more accurate.

Also for the classlist, we use a template to produce a full classlist csv, split the into separate classlist with a !ID header for their admission numbers. All done via a shared Google Drive account.

OK so I have worked out a resolution. The comma may have been causing a problem but it turns out that it still didn't match the photos using the name field even with the comma not present in the student name.

So I went with your advice Sebip. I do import the SIMS admission number as the ID field when setting up the class. The photos do originally come out of SIMS with file names as admission number. My problem at the time was that it I was only able to get whole year group photos at a time and therefore manually constructing the photos for my classes from an entire year group was not really feasible.

I have had to do some more Excel and batch file trickery to get a this going so that I don't have to do it manually, but I have succeeded in building class photos by admission number file name now. And, when bulk imported into Idoceo with ID as the match field, bingo! It works and matches them perfectly.

There is obviously some possible issues with name based matching which I never got the bottom of. What I know is that matching by ID does work.

Thanks for your help (and to Bert too).

Thanks for posting it Smiffy. We'll keep working on that name based bulk import

I've also got files from SIMS - so the files are called 1856.jpg and similar. Does my column of photo id need to include the .jpg part? Or just the number part? Not having much success!

Thanks

Peter

Hello mathsast,
The ID should only include the number, in this case 1856, not the jpg part.
Are those photos at least appearing below the seating plan when imported?

All imported photos appear below list - which is a real pain for a whole year group - but manageable at this point in the year (in the UK we've got just 6 weeks until the end of our school year) - but I'd hope I could get it working better for the start of the next year.

Thanks

Peter

Of course, It should be imported automatically.

Make sure that the ID field you're working with is the actual ID iDoceo is expecting its data from.
From the gradebook view > double tap on a student > Data > Now tap on the small gear on top > System parameters > And make sure ID is enabled in this list.

Make sure this field is where you've inserted your ID
Let me know how that worked for you. We're about to release a new update, and if there's something wrong with the current version we would be able to solve it pretty soon.