Saral Students database - Simple way for Offline Data Entry

Maharashtra Government has started a project eSchool for maintaining database of schools, teachers &  students on there website https://education.maharashtra.gov.in. Now a days every school is busy for feeding data in the Saral software.

Students data has to be entered online, it is very time consuming process to enter the students data online as most of the time connection to the website is poor and also website crashes frequently. 

Offline data entry of students already provided, an Excel file download option is available for offline data entry.  But it is also time consuming as you have to enter data through form. While entering data through forms, for every students entry you have to select Date of Birth, Gender, Division, Medium, Date of admission, Initial Admission Standard and Admission type from popup which is time consuming.

Another reason is that you may have the students data already typed in different format of excel / other but you have to retype the same data as the data has to be entered in forms.

Here you can find the details about how to enter students data directly in Excel sheet without forms. The benefit of entering data directly in excel sheet is the speed of data entry is very fast and also you can use your previously typed data. But while entering data directly in Excel sheet, you have to cautious about the field (column) validations.

File Name : As the offline data entry in Excel is through forms, some fields are related with filename. You dont need to download the excel file for every class or division. Just download only one excel file for anyone class or division.  By renaming the filename you can use that file for another class/division.

Ex. -->  MINI27040705346-12-01-2-2015.xls

Character position	Total Characters	Description
1-4	4	Fixed word (MINI)
5-15	11	Udise No. (27049725949)
16	1	Fixed char (-)
17-18	2	Class (01 to12)
19	1	Fixed char (-)
20-21	2	Division (01 to 10)
22	1	Fixed char (-)
23	1	Stream (0-Not Applicable, 1-Arts,2-Commerce,3-Science,4-Composite,5-Vocational)
24	1	Fixed char (-)
25-28	4	Year (2015)

Thus
MINI27040705346-12-01-2-2015.xls indicates 12th standard division 1 of commerce stream
MINI27040705346-11-01-3-2015.xls indicates 11th standard division 1 of science stream
MINI27040705346-11-01-4-2015.xls indicates 11th standard division 1 of composite stream
MINI27040705346-11-02-3-2015.xls indicates 11th standard division 2 of science stream

Just change the name and use the file as per class and stream.

Columns data type and validataions :

Excel sheet columns

Column No./Cell	Content	Type
1.[A]	General Register No.	Character
2.[B]	Stream	Character
3.[C]	Admission Academic Year	Character
4.[D]	Standard	Character
5.[E]	Division	Numeric
6,7,8.[F,G,H]	Name of Student (First Name Middle Name Last Name)	Character
9.[I]	Date of Birth	Date
10.[J]	Gender	Character
11,12,13.[K,L,M]	Mother's Name (First Name Middle Name Last Name)	Character
14.[N]	UDISE Number	Character
15.[O]	Medium	Character
16.[P]	Semi English	Character
17.[Q]	Date of Admission	Date
18.[R]	Standard of Admission	Character
19.[S]	Admission Type	Character
20.[T]	UID Number	Character

Column 1.  [A]  :  This column is for General Register No. It is a Character field column, but mostly the data entered is numeric. so to convert your numeric data to Text you can use the formula
   ex. Text(A3, "0") - converts the numeric value in column A3 to Text. But you can not enter formula in the Excel sheet which you have to upload, so just copy the cell content and paste the value from paste special option (by right click in cell where you want to paste value menu appears for different paste options, select values from menu and click ok) in other column and copy that value to the downloaded excel sheet

Column 2.  [B] : This column is for Stream.
                           (Not Applicable,Arts,Commerce,Science,Composite,Vocational)
                           Cautious about spelling must be same from above list. if any character mismatch you may    get error in uploading.

column 3.  [C] : This column is for Admission Academic Year. Ex. 2015-2016

column 4.  [D] : Standard or class.
                          Cautious : it must be exact string from the following list (Dont alter any character or space    & dont include quote mark)
               "1st Standard"
               "2nd Standard"
               "3rd Standard"
               "4th Standard"
               "5th Standard"
               "6th Standard"
               "7th Standard"
               "8th Standard"
               "9th Standard"
               "10th Standard (SSC)"
               "11th Standard"
               "12th Standard(HSC)"
column 5.  [E] : This column is for Division, it is between 1 to 12.

column 6-8.  [F,G,H] : Name of Student
                                    Column 6 [F] - First Name
                                    Column 7 [G] - Middle Name
                                    Column 8 [H] - Last Name

        Caution : Name must be consists of only alphabetically character [A-Z, a-z].
        No special character can be accepted i.e. dot(.) or any other character. Also First Name & Middle
        Name can not be empty. If Lastname is empty, you can type - (dash) in that column.
       
column 9.  [I] : This column is for Date of Birth. Its format must be DD-MM-YYYY ex. 18-09-1999
                         If your column displays date as 18/09/1999 then you can change the format from
                         format cell option. Choose Custom option and select DD-MM-YYYY option. If the  
                         list does not display DD-MM-YYYY option, you can type DD-MM-YYYY in that option.


column 10.  [J] : Gender [Male,Female,Transgender]

column 11,12,13.  [K,L,M]  : Mother's Name (First Name Middle Name Last Name)
                   Same as per Name of Student.


column 14.[N] : This column is for UDISE Number, It is same as per General Register No. as  udise no. is numeric and column is character field. Use Text formula and paste  special option.

column 15.[O]  : This column is for Medium, It must be from the list
              [Marathi,Hindi,English,Sindhi,Tamil,Telugu,Urdu,Bengali,Gujarati,Kannada]

column 16.[P] : This column is for Semi English.
            It may be [Yes,No,-]
            If the semi english option is not applicable you can use - (dash).

column 17.[Q] : Date of Admission, same as Date of Birth. [DD-MM-YYYY]

column 18.[R] : This column is for Standard of Admission i.e. Initial Admission in the school.
                          Cautious : it must be exact string from the following list (Dont alter any character  or space & dont include quote mark)

               "Playgroup (4 Year Before 1st Std)"
               "Pre KG (3 Year Before 1st Std)"
               "Junior KG (2 Year Before 1st Std)"
               "Senior KG (1 Year Before 1st Std)"
               "1st Standard"
               "2nd Standard"
               "3rd Standard"
               "4th Standard"
               "5th Standard"
               "6th Standard"
               "7th Standard"
               "8th Standard"
               "9th Standard"
               "10th Standard (SSC)"
               "11th Standard"
               "12th Standard(HSC)"
       
column 19.[S] : This column is for Admission Type
                          [Regular,RTE 25% Quota,Age Appropriate]

column 20.[T] : UID Number  [Aadhar No.]
             It is same as per General Register No. As UID [Aadhar] no. is numeric and  column is character field. Use Text formula and paste  special option.  If you format cell as Text, it may display a scientific value ex.7.72326E+11 because of 12 digit value. Format cell as numeric and use Text formula.


It is the best way to create new excel workbook and enter the students data as per above sequence. Then copy the data and paste (only values) to the downloaded Excel file.

You can download here the Excel file for the data entry.

Download Excel File

After data entry and checking
1.  select data from cells D3 to W(Last row of data)
2. copy data (Ctrl+c)
3. Open downloaded excel file
4. In cell A3 right click, select paste special
5. select values and click ok
6. Align all columns as Center except Name of Student (F,M,L) & Mothers Name (F,M,L)
7. Save the file

Your downloaded file is ready for upload.

Note : Initially try the above procedure with just a single student name & try to upload.
Steps to verify :
1. Open the excel file (ready for upload)
2. Select Update option,
3. Click on General Register No. [It will display list of General Reg. Nos, if no list displayed check data and retry again.]
4. Select any G.R.No. and click on Get Data.
5. It will display data for that G.R.No. Check all data appeared in fields. If it is correct, your excel file is ready for upload.

Uploading Errors :
Filetype : Sometimes it may give the error message - File type must be xls. Try the file to upload from usb pen drive, if same problem exists, rename the file before uploading.

Duplicate General Register No. : Same Gen.Reg.No. exists in same file or already uploaded file.
              [It is recommended that before uploading any files, combine  Gen.Reg.No. from all files in a new file, sort them and check if  same no.exists.

Student Name/ Mothers Name :  Check if special characted in the name or empty first or middle name

Date of Birth / Adm Date : Check date & year.

UID / Aadhar No. : Aadhar No. must be 12 digits with No spaces.
                              Ex.   123484521254    >> correct
                                      1234 8452 1254   >> wrong
                                      12348452125      >> wrong