Assign students to cohorts via CSV file in Open edX

If you have many students you would like to manually add to specific cohorts, sometimes the easiest way to do this is by uploading a .csv file. This is how it is done!

From the LMS, navigate to your Instructor Dashboard. 

Click on the Membership sub menu.

Scroll down to the Course Management section, and click on the Assign students to cohorts by uploading a CSV file link. 

You should now see an image like the one below. Simply click Choose File, and navigate to the .csv file you wish to upload and click Upload File and Assign Students.

IMPORTANT: CSV File Rules

Your CVS file must follow some important rules. For a list of full rules,  check out this doc. For now, following these few simple ones and you should be fine.

• You must have a header row containing "email" and/or "username" AND "cohort"
  • All other columns will be ignored, so it's okay to upload a file with more than this.
• File must end in .csv
• The specified cohort must already exist in Studio

Here's a simple example of what a spreadsheet might look like: 

If you have followed all the CSV rules correctly, you should have just successfully assigned or reassigned students to specific cohorts. Any previous cohort assignments will have been overwritten at this point.

To make sure your students have been correctly assigned to the right cohorts, you can always go to the Data Download section of the Instructor Dashboard, and  download student profile information.