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"Multi Year" College and High School Name List

Forums: Questions and Answers About Building Your Site
Created on: 02/23/09 12:10 PM Views: 1388 Replies: 7
Monday, February 23, 2009 at 12:10 PM

First,Thanks for all you do Brad in helping everyone and providing this site.

I want to launch a multi year site 1952-1992. We were a college all of those years co-joined with a high school for about 20 of those years. We're talking about 3000 alumni total. Both schools are now closed.

My questions:
1. Can I start entering names using your Excel spread sheet template .csv format one year at a time until I get all 40 years entered? How do I find the template?

2.Can I seperate college graduates from high school graduates, after clicking on a specific year, perhaps by adding the word "High" before or after the students name in a seperate column on the spreadsheet, and still maintain the alphabetic listing by last name. Essentially, I want two lists of names to appear on any specific year....one for college and one for high school. I was thinking I could do a "sort function" on the key word "high" that would seperate my list of names into two lists. How would you do this? Maybe there is an easier way.

3. I would like to have my site 90 percent finished before I purchase a domain name and launch it to the public. Can I build my site in the "background" until I'm ready. It will take a long time to enter all those names and I haven't a clue what I'm doing or what I am going to run into.

I have read all the forum topics and haven't came across a situation like mine. I'm sure I will have many more questions. I'm trying to do my "homework" in advance to save time and not "do" anything that I can't "undo" at a later time.

Thanks, Larry Noller

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Monday, February 23, 2009 at 12:23 PM - Response #1

Welcome Larry.

1) To download the xls template, click your Manage Classmates link, then click the Upload Classmates button. On that page you'll find a link to download the import template. Yes, you can batch import 1 year's worth of names at a time. Please carefully read the instructions on the import page though, because you'll see once you've uploaded a Classmate, you can not upload that same Classmate's name again (changes have to be made inside the system once uploaded).

2) Yes, you'll need to put some type of prefix in the First Name field so the names are grouped together as you desire. We've heard this type of request from a few other schools, we may be able to build another level into the system in the future to better categorize these names. But yes for now, a prefix should be sufficient.

3) Yes, just password protect all pages of your site, including your home page. That way nobody will be able to see anything until you're ready.

Glad to see you're making use of the forums in advance! Smile


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Monday, February 23, 2009 at 12:54 PM - Response #2

Thanks Brad.

Do I have to enter the data by consecutive years, or can I skip around and do random years as year books become available?

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Monday, February 23, 2009 at 1:49 PM - Response #3

Brad,

When you say I can only enter a classmates name once. Is that "per year"?

Taking myself as an example. I graduated from high school in 1965, and college in 1969. (There will be many more like this.) Can I enter my name under 1965 with a "High" prefix to seperate myself from the college graduates list of that same year, then enter my name again under 1969 with "no" prefix, which would put my name in the college listing?

Thanks.

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Monday, February 23, 2009 at 3:19 PM - Response #4

You can only enter a classmate once by that spelling, but you can use variations.

One possibility would be to preceded the lastname with "*" and a space on all the high school names, repeated for the college without the extra character. The system will think they're two different people. All the "*" names will sort first, alphabetically. They'll also be there that way in the Manage Classmates list. Somewhere on your site you can say that a single "*" denotes High School. Experiment with different characters & see what you like the looks of on the pages. Some don't display as nicely.

To create separate logins for the two, you can use the same email but have to have a different password for both. Only problem comes when you request a forgotten your password, enter the email and it doesn't know what to give you.

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Edited 02/23/09 4:37 PM
Monday, February 23, 2009 at 6:45 PM - Response #5

Larry Noller wrote:

Thanks Brad.

Do I have to enter the data by consecutive years, or can I skip around and do random years as year books become available?

You can skip around all you want. The only thing you can't do is upload the same Classmate twice, so make sure all data is in place for a Classmate prior to uploading.


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Monday, February 23, 2009 at 6:46 PM - Response #6

Larry Noller wrote:

Brad,

When you say I can only enter a classmates name once. Is that "per year"?

Taking myself as an example. I graduated from high school in 1965, and college in 1969. (There will be many more like this.) Can I enter my name under 1965 with a "High" prefix to seperate myself from the college graduates list of that same year, then enter my name again under 1969 with "no" prefix, which would put my name in the college listing?

Thanks.

Not if you upload the same name with the same email address, no. However, you can put your name into the system a second time if you enter it manually.


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Monday, February 23, 2009 at 6:50 PM - Response #7

Mary Smith wrote:

You can only enter a classmate once by that spelling, but you can use variations.

One possibility would be to preceded the lastname with "*" and a space on all the high school names, repeated for the college without the extra character. The system will think they're two different people. All the "*" names will sort first, alphabetically. They'll also be there that way in the Manage Classmates list. Somewhere on your site you can say that a single "*" denotes High School. Experiment with different characters & see what you like the looks of on the pages. Some don't display as nicely.

To create separate logins for the two, you can use the same email but have to have a different password for both. Only problem comes when you request a forgotten your password, enter the email and it doesn't know what to give you.

This is actually a better idea than what I just told you, as you could vary the name, batch upload, and modify later if you want to. Beats having to add duplicate names manually. Thanks Mary. Smile


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