File Guidelines for flat file.

 Sample File

 College Source Reference Page

Date Ranges

The vendor is recommending that you show current articulations with start dates and date ranged historic articulations for no more than seven years. Even with current articulations there should be a begin date if possible.

If you include no start dates for current articulations we will assume the articulation is valid from the beginning of time to the end of time. However there are other options to include dates:

Active Date Backfilling:
For customers who would like it/need it, College Source can upon request and after the import, dynamically determine begin dates based on a few different things: 

1. Begin date: Set to earliest course found (all Send Courses) while inst accredited.
2. Begin date: Set to earliest course found (all Send Courses) regardless of accreditation.
3. Begin date: Set to earliest duplicate (similar) EQ found.
4. Begin date: No begin dates.

Tips

• PLEASE include any military course and occupations articulations you have if possible. With military courses and occupations, you should include date ranges if you have articulations for different version or at a minimum start dates for current articulations. Military encoding information is available here.
• Use OPEID (based on FICE) codes! This will minimize errors during loading and reduce time and effort during 'normalization'! i.e. when we load the file we first normalize it by checking that the course you have an articulation for actually exists at the sending institution. If it does not, then we have to figure out why and either remove/correct the articulation or add that course to the sending institutions coursebank. This is how the vendor ensures accuracy, but it may also help you clean up your articulations as well.
  • NOTE: Generally FICE and OPEID are similar but not always. If an institution is not found this may be the reason.
• All columns must be present in the file even if they are null.
• You will be able to load this file 2 times per year without any fee.
• If you have a TES license you can maintain the file using TES and update it in an ongoing basis using TES.

Steps in the File Load:

Once you submit the file the vendor will perform a 3 part check to validate the data:

1. All sending schools in your file will be matched against schools in the database based on the OPEID supplied.
2. All receiving courses at your school will be matched against courses in your institutions TES coursebank. (You will have to opportunity to add pseudo courses at this point.)
3. All sending courses will be matched against courses in the sending institution's TES coursebank. NOTE: if you do not supply course exactly as they appear in the sending institution's transcript/catalog you will receive significant errors at this point. For example, if the sending institution's catalog and transcript list the course as ENGL 101 and you have ENG 101 the sending course will cause a not match and need to be corrected.

After each step we will receive an email report with the results and will need to work together to make adjustments.