LaGrange College Instructional Technology Importing events into the Mentor Schedule Tool

Mentor’s schedule tool allows users to import events into the schedule tool from exported files from , Meeting Maker or from a generic spreadsheet file. A template for the spreadsheet file can be downloaded from Mentor, or a template file in Excel format can be downloaded from the IIT website.

It should be noted if errors are made in the import process; the imported events must be deleted individually. Removing the Schedule tool and then adding it back to the course site does not erase the data contained in the tool. Users should test the import process in a test course or a project site prior to bring the events into a live course site.

By default, Mentor course sites do not have Schedule Import turned on. To make this possible

 Log into Mentor and enter the appropriate course site.  Within the site, click on the Schedule tool.  At the top of the Schedule tool, click on Permissions  Add the import events permission to the Instructor role.  Click on Save to make the change effective.

Now import has been added to the list of options at the top of the schedule tool. Click on it and you will see the three options Microsoft Outlook, Meeting Maker and Import from Generic import (comma separate values).

Import using the Excel Template:

A template for importing events from an excel spreadsheet has been created from the Generic Import Template provided with Mentor. If you wish to use the template directly from Mentor (for instance if you don’t use Excel), the directions for the modifications for Excel are listed at the end of this document.

Request the template from the Instructional Technology office. It may be available on the IIT website as well. You will be provided with the template itself and the readme.txt file that was provided by Mentor. The template has some example events already entered, and for most cases, these are sufficient without needing the study the readme file. However, a reasonably complete description of each column’s purpose is made in the readme file.

Import from Microsoft Outlook:

If you have set up an Outlook calendar for the events (usually in a separate calendar for that course), you need to export the calendar into a Comma Separated Variable file.

Create the Outlook Calendar: To create a calendar in Outlook

LaGrange College Instructional Technology, Last Modified 12-Oct-2010. Page 1  Open Outlook  Click on File: New: Folder.  In the new folder dialog box enter a name for the calendar (TestCalendar) \  In the folder contains pulldown list, select calendar items.  In the Select where to place folder box, click on Mailbox … (for example Mailbox-McCoy, William).  Click on OK to create the new calendar.

Enter Events into the Outlook Calendar: To view and change the calendar, click on the Calendar folder. You will see a list of that you have available. Clear all the checkboxes but the new calendar created (TestCalendar). Enter your calendar events into this Outlook calendar.

Export the Outlook Calendar to a CSV file:

 Open Outlook  Click on File:Import and Export  In the Import and Export Wizard, click on export to a file and then click on Next.  Select Comma Separated Values (DOS) and click on Next.  Navigate to the Calendar containing the events to be exported (You may need to scroll down to the bottom of the list displayed as your calendar was recently created), click on the folder and then click on Next.  Use the browse button the navigate to the location you wish to save the exported file.  Click Finish in the next screen.  You will be prompted for the date range you wish to export. If necessary change this to encompass all the events in your calendar then click on OK.

There should be a .CSV file in the location you select that contains your events in the correct format to be imported into Mentor. Continue with Import the Events into Mentor below.

Import Events into Mentor:

From the Schedule tool of the appropriate course, select the import option.

Click on the appropriate radio button for the file being imported (Microsoft Outlook or Generic calendar import (comma separate variable) and then click on Continue.

Click on browse, in the browse window navigate to the CSV file created above and click Open to select the file. Click on Continue.

You will see a list of the events to be imported. At this time you can select and deselect individual events in this list. Click on import events to bring the events into the calendar.

LaGrange College Instructional Technology, Last Modified 12-Oct-2010. Page 2 Using the Generic Import Template from Mentor:

Log into Mentor and enter the appropriate course.

, Clicking on import, then selecting the Microsoft Outlook option and To import from a Excel file, click on the Generic calendar import (comma-separate values) option and click on Generic Import Template.

In the dialog box that pops up, click on Save. Navigate to the location you wish to work from and save the zip folder in that location.

Unzip the folder (in windows, left click on the .zip file, select Extract All and follow the prompts to unzip the folder.

Contained within the unzipped folder are two text files. One is a sample import file and the second is a readme.txt file with instructions on using the import file.

 When importing the file into Excel,open excel, open the file from within excel (you will need to select the Text files in Files of Type pulldown section near the bottom of the open dialog box).  At the import dialog box, select the delimited radio button, click on Next.  Select the Comma as a delimiter and then click on Finish.

Unfortunately, Excel does not recognize commas within imported text (enclosed in double quotes) as being part of the text, so one of the comments gets broken into two cells.

Follow the instructions in the readme.txt file and insert your schedule events into the provided template file. Once the file is complete, you can then import the events into the schedule tool.

LaGrange College Instructional Technology, Last Modified 12-Oct-2010. Page 3