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Importing is the quickest way to bring in a class. You fill in Lena’s template, upload it, fix anything Lena flags, and download a sheet of sign-in details to hand out. Superadmins and Academic admins can import. Set up your structure first: every student is placed in it.

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Import a class

1

Open Import

Go to Students, open More actions beside Invite, and choose Import.
2

Download the template

Choose Download template. It’s made for your school: you pick each student’s faculty, department and level from a list in the cell.
3

Fill it in

Add one row per student on the Students sheet. The Instructions sheet says what goes in each column.
4

Upload it

Drag the file onto the page, or choose it. It must be an Excel (.xlsx) file, up to 10 MB.
5

Check every row

Lena shows every student in a table. Nothing is added until every row is ready.
  • A red stop sign marks a problem to fix. A yellow triangle marks a warning. Hover over the sign to read it.
  • Correct a cell by typing in it, or remove the row with the bin icon.
  • Tick Show only rows to fix to see just the ones that need you.
The button reads Fix N rows to import until they’re all ready.
The import preview table with 12 students, all ready, showing matric number, names, email, faculty and department

Every row checked and ready to import.

6

Import

Choose Import N students.
7

Download the sign-in details

Choose Download sign-in details to save a PDF with every new student’s sign-in details. It’s only offered now, so download it before you leave the page, and keep it somewhere safe.
The import result saying 12 students added, with a Download sign-in details button

The result, with the sign-in details to download.

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The template’s columns

At a university or K-12 school, a student with no email gets a username instead. You’ll find it in the sign-in details.

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Signing in for the first time

At a university or K-12 school, imported students aren’t emailed. Give each student their own sign-in details from the PDF, privately: never post the sheet where others can see it. They sign in to Lena for Students with them. Ask students to change their password as soon as they’re in; see settings. A student who already had a Lena account keeps the password they have, and the result screen says how many did. At other schools, each student is emailed an invitation to the address in the sheet and signs in with it, so the result says “invited” rather than “added”.

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Good to know

  • Old templates still work. A sheet made from an older Lena template imports fine. Lena ignores the Section column in old K-12 sheets.
  • CSV files don’t work. Save the sheet as an Excel (.xlsx) file.
  • Made a mess of your edits? Reset changes puts the table back as it was uploaded. Download sheet saves your corrected version.
  • Rows that look like the template’s examples get a warning. Import them anyway if they’re real students.
  • Some rows may not go in. The result lists them: fix them and import a sheet with just those rows.

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Troubleshooting

A required column is missing or renamed. Download the template again and copy your rows into it.
Open the file in Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice, and save or download it as an Excel (.xlsx) file.
Two rows share a matric number or email. Remove the duplicate, or correct one of them.
The place doesn’t match your structure exactly. Pick it from the list in the cell, or add it to your structure and upload again.
Add arms to that grade in Grade Management, or add the student with Invite instead.
Lena shows the sign-in details only once, straight after the import, and can’t show them again. A student with an email address can set a new password with Forgot password? on the sign-in page; see sign in to Lena. For students without an email address, contact support.
Fill in or correct the cell in the preview. The row turns ready once it’s right.

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Next

Manage students

Edit, move and remove students once they’re in.

Lecturers

Import your lecturers the same way.