What happens if a student is missing some data?

Merit lets you tell personal stories about your students by using placeholders for data that is unique to each individual. In some cases, not every student will have information in each column.

As long as the blank cell isn't in one of the required data sets (first, last, city, zip, email), you'll be OK.  When you insert a placeholder and a student has no data in that cell, Merit will simply skip it for that person. 

One common example of this is when some students graduate with latin honors. In the example below, some cells in the "Honors" column are blank. Everyone doesn't graduate cum laude, magna cum, or summa cum laude.  

In this instance, just add a placeholder for the "Honors" column after the word ‘graduated’ in the body of your story. Your text could look something like this:  

Merit will automatically add the honors information for students who have data in that field and skip it entirely for students who do not. Here's an example of what each version of this story would look like:

This logic can be applied to other examples, such as contest winners who win honorable mention, roles in a school play, a quote from the student, etc. You can even use it to include full sentences, or even paragraphs about your students' success.