Merit's achievements are fill-in-the-blank style stories that allow you to combine templatized text with a spreadsheet of personalized student data.
Each time you publish an achievement you will need a list of the students you are recognizing. Most commonly, this list will come in the form of a spreadsheet. Click here if you need help requesting a spreadsheet of students from your registrar.
This page will teach you the ins and outs of creating and managing a spreadsheet of students for Merit:
Spreadsheet Formatting
When assembling your spreadsheet, there will be certain elements you will always want and some you will want to avoid. Use the list below to verify that your spreadsheet is formatted correctly:
| File Type - Your document must be saved as an Excel (.xls or .xlsx) or Comma Separated Values (.csv) spreadsheet | |
| Headers - The top row of your spreadsheet must contain unique headers for each column. No repeating column names | |
| Tabs/Sheets - Student data must appear in the first tab of your spreadsheet. Merit will NOT use info from other tabs | |
| Special Characters - Your column headers and document name should not contain any special characters. Use only letters, numbers, spaces and dashes |
Required Student Data
Merit requires unique columns for these five fields in every spreadsheet. Use the list below to verify that your spreadsheet contains each required data set:
| First Names - Middle names or initials must be in their own separate column | |
| Last Names | |
| Hometowns | |
| Zip Codes - Used to match students up to local newspapers | |
| Campus Email Addresses - If students do not yet have a campus email, use a personal email address instead |
Note: If you've already imported all of your students, student email addresses are the only hard requirement. You can use a mix of your data and Merit's to fill in any gaps when publishing.
If you have not performed a student import yet, we advise that you also include the following data sets in your spreadsheet (if possible):
| Parent Email Addresses - Once added to Merit, any time you publish an achievement about a student, their parents will receive an email alert. Parent emails can either be in multiple columns in your spreadsheet or in one column (separated by commas) | |
| High School CEEB Codes - These six-digit numerical codes help Merit deliver alumni alerts to each student's high school |
Additional Student Data
Your achievement spreadsheet should contain columns for each set of personalized info that you plan to use in your story. For example, a performing arts story may require a column for the role the person played in the production; a scholarship story may need a column for the name of the award the student earned, and an athletics story may need a column for the name of the high school the student graduated from or the position they played.
Your spreadsheet can contain as many columns of information as you need. Make sure that each of the personalized elements that you would like to use in your achievement has its own unique column.
Review Your Data
Before uploading your spreadsheet into Merit, review the document, making sure the data is accurate. While doing so, be on the lookout for the following things:
| International Students - Give students outside the US a zip code of 00000 or 0. Merit will create online-only stories for them | |
| Duplicate Students - Students should NOT appear on multiple rows in your spreadsheet (typically due to multiple majors/degrees). Merit will ignore these duplicates | |
| All Caps - The data in your spreadsheet is added to Merit exactly as it appears in your document. Convert any names, hometowns or degrees in all capitals to title case before uploading | |
| Abbreviations - Your personalized text will be inserted into your story exactly as it appeared in your spreadsheet. Use the full name of students' majors and degrees instead of abbreviations | |
| Unused Data - Merit will not save any unused information from your spreadsheet, but regardless, you should remove columns like student ID numbers, street addresses, phone numbers, and GPAs from your document |