Prepare Your Data

Prepare Your Data

This help article covers the very basics of data preparation. If, after reading this article, you still have questions, please refer to the other help articles listed for more in depth explanations. If the help articles listed still do not answer your questions, there are various other help articles available as well or you can contact the ARK help desk. 


  • Teacher and student data will be imported. To start importing data, please ensure that your data is in a .csv file format.  Each column should contain header information to identify the data. 
    • For Teachers, you will need: First Name, Last Name, Email, Sex (M/F), Proctor (Y/N)
    • For Students, you will need: First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, Gender, Grade, Catholic (Y/N), Gaps in Catholic Education (Y/N), English as a Second Language (Y/N), and Accommodation (Y/N). You may optionally add the unique ARK Class ID (Schools with many classes/sections per grade can export the ARK-generated class ID for those class listings in ARK. This can be added to the Student import to automatically assign students to those classes. Data must match exactly.)
    • NOTE: You MUST Include a School Student ID starting in 2025. This can be obtained from your Student information system along with the other student data. Please include a "Y" for Gaps and an "N" as default for ESL and Accommodations if not otherwise known.

      Note! Please use one file for Teachers and a separate file for Students.

      If you still have questions about preparing your data to upload or have run into any issues with uploading your file, please see the article entitled "Common Errors and How to Fix them" linked here
  • Setup of Proctors, Classes, and Testing sections will be done using the ARK interface (it will not be imported).
  • For Classes: Please ensure you have the Textbook Publisher, Textbook Name and Edition for each class you will roster in ARK. ARK utilizes a simple drop-down selection featuring the USCCB approved textbook list. 
  • For more help setting up classes please see the following help article entitled "Creating Classes" 
  • For more help setting up testing sections please see the following help article entitled "Creating testing sections" 

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