Preparing for 2018-19 Data Importation Before School Starts

As the 2017-18 school year wraps up and we get into summer, it’s important to start preparing for 2018-19. A key part in preparing to use Galileo is executing a successful Galileo Data Import (GDI) well before teachers and students start using Galileo. For new districts it’s particularly important to start the process as early as possible for 2018-19. For districts new to Galileo, here’s a brief overview of the GDI process:

1. District personnel export data from thier Student Information System (SIS) including students, classes, teachers, and enrollment records. This file is formatted according to the GDI instructions and uploaded to ATI.
2. ATI staff import your data into a QA Galileo environment and perform a thorough quality assurance review.  Any detected problems are resolved with the district before the data is imported into the production version of Galileo (step 3).
3. Once the file passes QA, ATI staff import it into to the production Galileo environment.
4.  Districts should use the Upload Planner to manage their data uploads, especially before and during the beginning of the school year. On the Upload Planner, you can enter the number of expected student, teacher, and class records in the file (estimates are fine). This helps the quality assurance process. The Upload Planner can also be used to communicate with ATI and receive GDI status updates. You can enter the email addresses you want automatically notified on the upload planner when the upload status changes or comments are entered. You can also contact ATI Technical Support for assistance using the Upload Planner.
5. Files can be submitted two ways: 1) Using the Upload Planner – a manual process. 2) Upload to secure FTP, which can be automated. For reasons of security (the protection of district data), ATI does not accept GDI files sent via email.

Detailed instructions for GDI can be found on the Tech Support page once logged into Galileo K-12 or Galileo Pre-K.  Importation instructions are kept updated for ease-of-use. Please review the GDI Instructions prior to your first upload of each school year. The K-12 GDI instructions are available here: http://www.ati-online.com/pdfs/ImportInstructionsK-12.pdf.

As you prepare your data for importation, please be mindful of the following:

• Be sure to include values for all required fields in the file you upload. Refer to the GDI instructions for required fields and data length requirements for each field.
• Failure to include values for required fields may result in a file being returned to district personnel for correction. For example, excluding teacher email prevents staff users from utilizing the “Forgot password” feature the first time they sign-in to Galileo. Users that don’t have an email will be prompted to enter one after their first successful login. Providing standard district email addresses in the GDI file is recommended. It’s also strongly recommended that K-12 districts use email addresses for teacher usernames to ensure uniqueness. If students have district assigned email addresses, we also recommend using email for student usernames. This is the best way to ensure a district gets all the usernames specified in their GDI file. Using a generic format such as first initial and last name will result in many usernames being modified by GDI for uniqueness. For example, if “jjones” is specified for a teacher username, GDI will likely have to append characters to ensure uniqueness (e.g. “jjones3”). Last, failure to include certain optional fields may adversely affect future report filtering or other Galileo functionality.
• Important: If ID fields such as StudentID, TeacherID, CourseCode, SectionID/ClassID change within your SIS, or you migrate to a new SIS, it’s strongly recommend you contact ATI GDI staff as soon as possible to ensure proper migration to the new IDs. Large-scale ID changes typically require extra processing time so please notify ATI as far in advance as possible, so we can help you plan accordingly and prevent problems that can occur from changing IDs (such as mass duplication of student, teacher, or class records). This also allows time for quality assurance to detect any problems, and for district personnel to correct and resubmit a file if needed.
• The QA process is typically longest during your first upload of the year. Getting uploads underway as soon as data is available will help ensure adequate processing time before teachers and students start using Galileo.
• Uploading data as soon as it’s available in your SIS is recommended, even if enrollment records are not complete (i.e. for the first day of school). Sending an initial file will allow QA to proceed so any issues can be identified and remedied well before students and teachers start using Galileo. Enrollment can simply be updated with subsequent GDI uploads.
• If you use the Instructional Effectiveness (IE) Galileo K-12 module, you should upload data for all responsible teachers. 
• Participation in No-Evaluation Importation (NEI), the process of preparing for frequent uploads (as often as nightly), requires three successive no-change imports at the beginning of each school year. 

If you have any questions about GDI, please refer to the GDI instructions at http://www.ati-online.com/pdfs/ImportInstructionsK-12.pdf or email us at GalileoDataimport@ati-online.com.

By Luke Ferris, Director of Information Technology