Note: This document references views and actions that are only available to Echo Administrators
Echo allows individuals like parents or teacher advisors to be associated with a student as an "observer". An observer can quickly access the courses and grades of the "observee" to track the students they are supporting. Observers use the Observer App that provides read-only access to all pages and views that are visible to the student.
In addition to individually associating observers with observees, this document describes using exported data from an SIS to create a bulk import file. The file requires a unique identifier for both the observer and observee. The ease of creating the file depends on what data was used to create the parent/observer accounts and what data can be exported from the SIS.
Note: Student and parent accounts must already exists in Echo before they can be associated as observer and observee. For guidance on creating accounts, see How do I import users? in the Echo Help Center.
Creating an Import File
An import file that associates the parent observer with the student observee requires two pieces of data: 1) a unique identifier for the parent (observer) and 2) a unique identifier for the student (observee). A unique identifier can be either the Username, the External ID, or the User ID.
In the following example, column "A" defines the action to "add" an observation record. Column "B" defines the parent account that will be associated with the student. In this case, the school has used the parent's email address as their Echo username. Column "C" is the student's username.
In this second example, the file uses an External ID for both the parent (column "B") and the student (column "C"). Because the school used External IDs from their SIS when creating the student and parent accounts, exporting the needed data from the SIS to create the import file was relatively simple.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If a separate parent domain is used, or if the parent is in a different domain than the student, an additional "Observee Domain ID" (the domain ID of where the student is located) column may be required.
Column Options
Echo provides three options for identifying the target parent and student accounts. Because most SISs already associate the student and parent, the simplest way to create an observer/observee association file is to export the data from the SIS. Choose the data options based on what can be exported from your SIS. In some cases, it might be necessary to update user accounts or use spreadsheet formulas to convert the exported data into a formula that can be used for the import file.
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Username: This is the most straight forward option if the username is defined in the SIS or if a formula can be applied to the data exported from the SIS to produce the username for parents and students. Use "Observee Username" as the students' column header.
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External ID: If user accounts contain a unique External ID (typically the student ID number), it can be used to identify the target accounts. Use "Observee External ID" as the students' column header.
- User ID: Because the Echo UserID is generally not stored in the SIS, this is least favorable option. The UserID data can be exported using the Echo Admin Console. Creating the import file would require manually matching parents and student IDs which can be tedious and more likely to have errors. Use "Observee ID" as the students' column header.
Note that it is possible to mix and match the chosen fields. For example, you can use the Username to identify the parent account and use the External ID to identify the student account.
Importing Observation Records Using a .csv File
- Open the Admin App and navigate to the domain "Details" page.
- Click on "Import Observers" from Settings (Three Dot's) on the right side page
- Browse to the file you just created
- The interface will provide a preview of the data that will be imported. Review to makes sure it has correctly identified the columns and data.
- If correct, click "Import"
- To verify that the import work, either open a parent's account and view the "Observed Users" tab, or open a student account and view the "Observers" tab.
The attached association file is for reference.
Echo is constantly being improved based on the feedback from users and we strive to keep our documentation up to date. If this document doesn’t match what you are seeing in Echo, please let us know
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