Large file uploads

Large file uploads (more than 1000 pupil records) will be processed as background tasks. This means that your computer will not be tied up while you wait for a file to upload, and you can navigate away and use other parts of the system or perform other tasks on your computer.

1.Select pupil data

2. Browse for file and select upload.

3. You will get the following message - select yes to continue.

File upload message.

4. To view the progress of the upload select refresh the page. 

5. When the upload has been completed you will be able to download a file containing any errors select download errors. 

6. The error reason will be displayed in column W of the download file. The relevant corrections can then be made and the same file uploaded.  

7. You can confirm the upload is complete and remove from the history by selecting the tick.  

If you would like to change any of your existing records previously uploaded, you can do this via an update, uploading your data as before but with additional information. 

if you wanted to add ethnic codes to your uploaded data and have the following identifiers; NHS number, School URN, Date of Birth and gender in your own files and in the data previously uploaded, you only need upload these columns of data (without the need for all columns of data) in addition to your new (ethnic code) data, but you will need to ensure it matches the required order and column headings of the upload template (as seen on page 11), so for example, first column (ID) can be blank, NHS number populated, then pupil ref, first name, last name etc all blank but a populated ethnic code column.  

Because the identifiers are in your source file and already in place in the NCMP system, during upload, it will know to append this new material to the correct records. Also, uploading blank columns of data (blank first and last names) will not overwrite existing populated cells, only new data will overwrite existing data or previously blank cells, such as with your ethnic codes.

Please note, updating school URNs (if the child has moved schools for example), will not overwrite earlier records for this child at a different school. It will create an additional record.

Uploaded data is subjected to several checks (validation) to ensure the data uploaded is valid. The following table lists the data rules applied at this stage of the process (premeasurement). More checks will apply at later stages.

Any errors shown will need to be corrected in the staging/review area or in the source CSV file before the upload can be completed.

If you are uploading measurement data as well as pupil data using a CSV file or the NCMP offline tool, the following table shows what rules are applied to the measurement data.

Upload errors occur due to

• missing data in mandatory fields
• other invalid data in the CSV upload file

The upload file must contain valid School URNs otherwise the file will be rejected. An example of the file rejected message is shown below. 

If all School URNs are valid, but some other data is invalid (e.g. Date of Birth) the system allows you to make the required corrections in a staging/preview grid before the upload is complete. Alternatively, you can make the amendments in the CSV source file and re-upload the file into the system. There is no limit to the number of times you can upload the pupil file to the system, each upload will overwrite the previous matching pupil records. 

Any pupil record where missing or invalid data has been encountered is shown with red shading and the missing/invalid data highlighted with red borders. To find out more details about the error, hover the mouse over each individual data error.

If you are attempting to upload a large number of pupil records, some errors may appear further in the list.

1. In the staging/preview grid, click the link stating the number of errors which need correcting.

2. You’ll then be shown a breakdown of the number of errors in each field. In the example below, there are 3 errors on the Date of Birth field and 2 errors on the Sex field.

3. Clicking an error count will apply a filter to only show records with errors in that field. Alternatively, click error count for All fields to show all errors.

4. The pupil records with errors in the selected field are shown. Make the necessary corrections.

When you’ve resolved the highlighted errors, the red borders around the relevant fields are removed. If all errors for a pupil record are corrected, the red shading is also removed. 

It may take a few moments for the corrected data to show as valid. The edited field will be updated immediately upon exiting that field.

6. Click the remove filter link to return to the full pupil grid. 

7. Repeat steps 1-6 for each field with errors until all errors have been corrected.

Once the link stating the number of errors which need correcting shows 0, click complete upload. 

If, when uploading your data file, you receive an error message, please refer to the following possible explanations. The standard error message is as follows

• Your file cannot be uploaded. This is most likely due to missing, incomplete or incorrect ordering of headers. Please refer to 'Pupil Data Management' guidance doc to view an example of the correct CSV file format. If it is none of these, your CSV file has another error. If you can’t locate this error, break your CSV file down into fewer records and upload separate CSV files. It is difficult for us to assist with errors in a CSV file’ 
• If ‘blank school URN’ is: this can occur, obviously, if one your school URNs is displayed missing. However even when these have all been populated, this message may persist. Occasionally a trace may be left within your CSV file. In this case, copy the contents of your file, then (crucially) paste special, values into a new document. This will therefore not bring any unusual formatting into the new CSV file and you should be able to upload successfully.
• Any other error message: If your CSV file is very large, it may be troublesome to locate the cause of the error. In which case, break your file down into smaller files and upload them individually. This will then make it clearer where the issue lies.

If the uploaded pupil data conforms to the validation rules described above, there is still a possibility that some of the data maybe incorrect. The system will indicate these as Warnings and places a warning sign next to each record that requires attention. 

The data that the warning refers to is highlighted with an amber coloured border.

At this stage of the process, you will receive a warning if:

• the postcode of the child is empty
• the postcode of the child is the same as the school. As it possible for the child to have the same postcode as the school, you will be asked to confirm this.

If you are also including measurement data in your upload, you may receive a warning if:

• height is outside the expected range
• weight is outside the expected range
• calculated clinical BMI category (centile) is outside of normal range

If your data contains unexpected values (such as missing child postcode, identical child and school postcode or measurements outside of expected ranges) an orange border will appear around relevant data item. Please check that all data items with warnings are correct. If a highlighted data item is correct, then you can confirm this by hovering the mouse over it and supressing the warning. It will not be possible to finalise the collection until all warnings have been suppressed or data items correct (so that no warning appears).

Children with extreme BMI centiles are classified as “Very thin” (children on or below the 0.4th BMI centile) or “Severely obese” (children on or above the 99.6th BMI centile) and will have a flag added to their record on the pupil grid (to the right of the clinical category field on the Measurement tab). A tool tip will be displayed when hovering over the flag, providing the BMI classification of the child. 

Clinical category BMI centile image.  

These children are likely to have additional problems and should be referred for further assessment and support. It is therefore recommended that as a minimum duty of care, local areas proactively follow up these children to ensure they are offered appropriate specialist support and care.

Read the NCMP Operational Guidance published by Public Health England (Chapter 5, section 5.10, page 35; section 5.26, page 37), for guidance on how to support children who are flagged in the NCMP IT system with an extreme BMI centile. 

The flag for very thin or severely obese is not a warning notification and cannot be suppressed. The flag is simply additional information for users. It will not be possible to remove this red flag if the measurements remain unchanged, however it won’t prevent you from uploading your data.

As well as extreme BMI centiles flags being provided in the pupil grid, a field containing the same information is available in the enhanced extract (available at the end of the collection). If you would like to add this information to extracts available during the collection, then this can be done through add a formula to the Combined extract. See page 33 for details on how to do this.