How to assign students to sections

You are able to have students assigned to sections within your community one of two ways:

1. Assign Students to Sections in Bulk
2. Assign Students to Sections Individually

Assign Students to Sections in Bulk 

Along with including your students' emails, first and last names, and grading/LMS IDs, you can now add a Section column to your roster file which will assign students to the corresponding section names. Putting students into their small groups is completely in your control!

Before Uploading the Roster File

To ensure that your students are assigned to sections successfully, there are a couple preparation steps you will need to take first.

Step 1: Create Section Groups in your community 

You'll first need to make sure your community is set up with the section names you'd like for students to be assigned to. Follow these steps to do so:

1. Login to Packback and access your community
2. Go to your Instructor Tools box (located on the left hand side of your Community Feed)
3. Click the Community Setup button
4. Select Create Section Groups from the dropdown list that appears
5. On this page you'll be instructed to enter the names of each section you'd like in your community. Click Add Section after each entry.
   
   • NOTE: Make sure to uncheck the box next to I'm not using section groups in this course in order to enter the section names.
6. Once you're done, click Save and Continue.

Step 2: Prepare the Roster File for upload

Section assignments occur through our roster upload process, which is also documented in our How to Invite Students to Your Community article in our Help Center. Before you can continue assigning students to sections, you'll need to prepare a Roster File to upload. 

All roster files must be a CSV, XLSX, or DOC containing the following student information in order to upload successfully:

• Email
• First Name
• Last Name
• Grading ID (Optional)
• Section

You can also download our roster template attached to the bottom of this article for further assistance!

How to Automatically Assign Students to Sections

Once you've prepped your community with Sections and created your roster file, you are now ready to upload it to your community to have your students automatically assigned to sections/small groups!

Step-by-Step Instructions for Assigning Students to Sections

1. Go to your Instructor Tools (found in the left hand sidebar of your community), select Community Setup, and then Invite Students.
2. Select a File to upload, selecting the CSV file you just created.
3. Click Continue to Preview to review your uploaded file. If there is anything wrong with the file, you have the option to go back and edit it. 
4. On the next page, confirm that the columns in your file correspond with the information you are uploading to your community roster.
   • For example, make sure that the heading above the column containing student emails reads "Emails." And so on.

5. Select the desired action that should be taken on upload

   • Add students: Add new students and update records 

     • This option will not remove any students from the roster, only add them

   • Replace roster: Add new students and remove students not included in this file 

     • Students who have already completed registration (with the role of Student in your Packback roster) will not be removed with this option

   • Remove students: Students in this file will be removed from this community

     • This option will not add any students to the roster, only remove them

6. Select Yes when asked if you would like to automatically put students into a section.
7. You'll then be prompted to Match Section Names. Click the button and make sure the section names in the Roster File Sections and Community Sections match up! Click Confirm.
   
   
   
   
8. Click Continue to Confirm
9. On the next page, you'll be asked to confirm the information you've inputted including the date you'd like for invitation emails to be sent out.
   • NOTE: If your students have already received their invitations, assigning them to sections will not resend their emails!
10. Click Save and Continue to finalize the section assignments!

Assign Students to Sections Individually

If you need to reassign individual students to sections, follow the instructions in the section below for assistance. If your community currently has no students on the roster (either because one was not uploaded or students have not registered yet), you'll want to make sure to do that first before individually assigning them to sections. 

Step-By-Step Instructions for Individually Assigning Students to Sections

1. Access your Packback community and go to your roster by clicking View Roster on the left-hand side panel.
2. Make note of the Section column of the roster and search for the student's name.
3. Click the section name and a popup menu will appear prompting you to Update Section. Select the new section name you'd like the student to be assigned to and click Confirm.

Having trouble?

Please reach out to our Support Team at help@packback.co for further assistance. If you are receiving any errors or running into technical issues, please make sure to include screenshots or videos of what you see to help our team get a better idea for what might be causing the trouble.