PART 2

 

 

FILE TRANSFER INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOADING TO PC

 

Once you have run your REPO or R101, etc., report, and have set up your WRQ File Transfer Settings, you are ready to transfer.

 

You must be out of SIS and at the main menu. Click on the Transfer icon on the tool bar (it looks like a white sheet of paper that has been ‘dog-eared’ with a few lines in front of it), or select File from your menu and drag down to Transfer. Either method will open the following window:

 

 

Click on “Show Host Files” to list all of your available files and confirm that you are connected to the Host Directory.

 

(Note: this will only show files on your default directory. If you Bunnied to another building and ran a REPO file, for example, for another building – the file will be located in that building’s directory and not in yours. If you run reports this way as a district-wide type person, you will need to type the directory name in the Host Filename before the actual file name. For example: Fairborn Special Building would type “FBD:[FBBDR]Filename.tar”. Replace FB with your two-digit district identifier.)

 

Once you locate your file, click on it and it will be displayed in the Host filename window.

 

Next you need to decide where you want to transfer the file. To your hard drive, a floppy or maybe your server if your district is networked and that’s where your files are located.

 

Start at the bottom left and choose your drive. We will use the C: drive as our example. Since the “C:” is already selected as the default, you don’t have to change the drive window. However, you may not want the file transferred to your Reflection folder – so you may want to change where on the C: drive the file is transferred. For our example, we’ll choose the “My Documents” folder. Just double click on the “My Documents” folder to choose it.

 

Now, to make it easier – enter a file name with a .txt extension in the Local Filename window. For example, if your Host Filename is STUD05095.TAR, and this file is mailing labels for 5^th grade students from a specific elementary building, you may want to name the file BLDG5.txt. It can be whatever you want, just make it easy to identify and remember where you put it.

 

Once you have everything set up, and have checked the following, you should be ready to transfer:

 

Protocol set up should read:        WRQ/Reflection

Transfer type should read:          ASCII

If file exists should read:             Ask User

 

                                                         

Click on Transfer button (top middle) with the arrows pointing to the left, indicating you will be transferring FROM the Host TO your PC. You will probably never transfer from your PC to the Host.

 

You should see a window pop up with a little bar indicating the transfer is taking place. Sometimes the file is short and the window pops up too fast to see it.

 

Open Windows Explorer on your PC and find your file, in this example you would look on your C: drive in your “My Documents” folder for your file (i.e., BLDG5.txt) to be sure it’s there. Close Windows Explorer.

 

EMIS (CSV, etc.) FILE TRANSFER INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOADING TO PC

 

 Same as above, except enter your EMIS database as the Host file name before you click on Show Host Files.

 Enter DDYYR:

DD       =          District two letter code, i.e., AN, FB, HH, VV, etc.
YY       =          EMIS year, i.e., 04
R          =          EMIS Reporting Period, i.e., K.

EXAMPLE: for CSV files in 04K for Ansonia, the EMIS database would be entered as AN04K

 

PART 3

Instructions to import text file into MS Excel

 

 

Open MS Excel.

 

Click on the Open File icon or from the menu, select File to Open.

 

This is where you need to know where your file is, as now you have to find it. For our example, we know we need to go to C:\My Documents and then click on BLDG5.TXT.

 

However, before you will be able to see your .txt file, you must select “All Files” in the “Files of type” window. Depending on how your PC is set up – you may or may not see the .txt file extension. Click on BLDG5 to select it and click “Open.”

 

 

You will get:

 

 

Just click “Ok”.

 

You’ll then get:

 

 

It should be set up like this example, although your preview may look a little different depending on what data is in your file. Click “Next>.”

Now, for my file I used a REPO report I had set up and I used the pipe symbol “|” as my delimiter. Therefore, I have to set up the following screen like this:

 

 

The default delimiter is always Tab. You’ll want to click in the box next to Tab to unselect it and click in the box to the left of Other to select it. Then click in the box to the right and enter the pipe symbol “|”. Click Next>.

 

 

 

The majority of the time you will not have to make any changes here. However, sometimes, when there’s numbers (such as zip code, for example) – you may want to change the column data format to Text so that it doesn’t change your data when you continue the import. Since we’re setting up to run labels, we’ll change the data format for the column the zip codes are in.

 

 

Scroll to the right; select the column that contains the zip codes (click on the word “General” at the top of the column). Under “Column data format” click on Text and the column heading is changed from General to Text. Click Finish.

 

 

Now you’re ready to work with your Excel file. This file has a lot more information than is needed for address labels. However, you can leave the data here, as you will select what you want for the labels when we get to Word and merging. You do need to add column headings to make things easier when you get to Word.

 

 

Select row 1 by clicking on the 1. On the Menu click on Insert and drag down to Rows and one row will be inserted.

 

 

Then just start typing in the headings.

 

 

You can bold and center the headings if you would like them to stand out a little more. You can also adjust the column width so that you can see the data in the column.

 

Now you can save your file.

 

 

 

If you wish, you can give it a different name than the filename you had when you downloaded it.

 

You will need to change the file type in the “Save as type” window. Be sure and select the file type of the version of Excel you are using. Most everyone is probably using Excel 97, but check and be sure.

 

Then click Save.

 

 

Minimize Excel to your taskbar by clicking on the “-“ (minus) symbol

 

 

 

PART 4

 

Instructions to Generate Labels using MS Word Mail Merge

 

On the menu, click on Tools and drag to Mail Merge.

 

 

Then click on Create and drag to Mailing Labels.

 

Click on Active Window.

 

 

You will be returned to this window:

 

 

Click on Get Data and drag to Open data source…:

 

 

You will have to select “All Files” in the Files of type window. Then select your Excel file you save in Part 2. Click Open.

 

You’ll get:

 

 

Click OK.

You’ll be prompted with:

 

 

Click on Set Up Main Document. Then you’ll get the Label Options window. Select your labels. For this example, I’m using Avery standard # 5160 Address Label. Click OK.

 

 

Now you need to set up the data you want on the label and how you want it to look.

 

 

I suggest you leave a blank line at the top of your label. Just hit the Enter key.

 

As you can see, you can also type anything you may want to appear on the label. For this example I typed “TO THE PARENTS OF”.

 

When you click on Insert Merge Field. A column of all of your column headings you set up in your Excel file will be listed. Just click on the one you want.

 

NOTE:  You will have to add spaces, commas, etc. in between fields. For example, after I inserted <<First_Name>> I hit the space key once. Then I inserted <<Last_Name>>. Then I hit the Enter key to move to the next line.

 

Once you get the Sample label set up the way you want, click OK.

 

Now you’re ready to Merge. When you click on Merge the following comes up.

 

 

Click on Merge and wait. It depends on how large your file is on how long it takes to merge.

 

You’ll then have a document that looks like this and all you need to do is print: