Inviting parents by uploading a csv file/spreadsheet

There are 3 options for inviting a lot of parents to join Classlist. 

1. Pasting in a list of email addresses.

2. Uploading a csv file which includes names and classes as well as email addresses.

3. Creating an event so people are prompted to sign up when buying tickets. 

If you want to invite parents using their email address, go to the admin side of Classlist and choose 'Invite Parents' from the menu, then click the 'invite new parents' button. Select 'invite your email list' and you will see two tabs at the top of the page 'manual' and 'upload'

The 'manual' tab allows you to paste in a list of up to 1500 emails via the Manual process. You could do this in batches and select a class or admin status for the group of people you are inviting or you could leave these fields blank and add everyone at once. This is a really quick way to invite everyone, however, there is no option to enter the parents name - so following up with parents who didn't join can be more difficult. Those that join will add their own names and any parents that have been invited but haven't joined yet will show on the invite parents page like the below screenshot.

You can edit the parent name later to show correctly, however if you use the upload feature the invite will display like this.

If you switch to the 'upload' tab you can upload a csv file of parent details including their name, class, year and email address. This means that you can upload the whole school in one go and everyone will start to receive messages from their class and year straight away.

Below is a screenshot showing the columns you will need to fill in.

If you select this option you can upload a CSV spreadsheet with five columns for the name, email and class or year group for each parent you want to invite. This is an easy way to send out a bulk invitation to all parents in your school using a contact list from an external platform. 

If you need a sample CSV spreadsheet you can download our handy template spreadsheet. (see below for the attachment)

To upload a a CSV file

1) Create your spreadsheet with 5 columns 

Column A: First Name (of parent)
Column B: Last Name (of parent)
Column C: Year (of pupil)
Column D: Class (of pupil)
Column E: Email (of parent)

Tips for creating your spreadsheet

• You must have a header row with column names.
• The first of the 5 columns should be in column A.
• The year and class names must be written in the exact same format in your csv file that they are written in your School Structure, with the same spaces between words. Eg Year 2 21-22  
  So if you put 'year 2 21-22' without a capital Y the data upload will not be able to find the correct year group in Classlist's School Structure and the upload will fail.
• If you only have a 'single tier structure' eg one class is the year group, (and so you aren't using the Class column in the School Structure) then you can't upload a csv.  However you can copy and paste in the email addresses manually for the class to send emails invitations.

2) Export your spreadsheet as a CSV

3) Click the 'upload CSV File' button and navigate to your csv file and open it. You should get a message on the screen saying 'Your file has uploaded successfully'.

4) Next match each column from the 'choose' dropdown menus to the input fields. If you accidently select the wrong field you may need to reset all columns back to 'choose' and start again. Once all columns are matched click 'done'.

5) Write a message to parents (or retain our standard one).

6) Then click 'Send' and we will start processing the file. This may take some time if the file is large so it happens in the background. You can check the status of uploaded files on the main invite page by clicking 'upload history'.

7) When we have processed all of the emails you’ll be able to download two files. One file will contain all the emails we have successfully processed and sent invitations, and the second one contains errors ie a list of all the rows where there was a problem. Problems might be invalid email addresses or missing information, or inaccurate year or class names in one of the columns. You’ll be able to correct the problem and easily upload the file again to send those invites.

Error messages

If the Error report says 'Year or Class does not exist' - it means the class or year on the spreadsheet did not exactly match those in your School Structure.  An exact match is case sensitive and must have the same number of spaces between words.  

Error 'This parent is already a member and you don't need to invite them again'. If they are a Classlist member joining younger siblings you will need to let them know that they should add new children to their profile to be included in the class group.

Error  'Line Validation Error' there was data missing from this line such as the email address. 

File format troubleshooting

• Please note the file should only have the above 5 columns.  Extra columns will cause an error.
• The file can only have one sheet in it as it needs to be csv format.
• The file must have header labels to each column.
• The year and class names must be written in the exact same format in your csv file that they are written in your School Structure, with the same spaces between words. Eg Year 2 21-22 

If you have trouble with uploading a file and have checked the common issues above then please contact our Help staff by creating a support ticket at the top right of this page with details.