For users to access the environment, we need to create accounts for them, which can later be associated with different courses through enrollment, allowing access to resources.

Creating users manually, one by one, is not something we do very often, but it may be necessary at some point. Usually, users are created in batches or using a data integration.

Creating Users Manually

To create a user manually, go to Admin Panel > Users > Users and click Create User.

Fill out the form, at least the required fields: First Name, Last Name, Username, Password (and repeat it to confirm).

In this same form, at the bottom, you can select if the user belongs to a node in the institutional hierarchy as well as their institutional and system roles.

When finished, click Submit to create the user.

Creating Users in Batches

Blackboard offers the option to create users in batches using a CSV file filled with the relevant data, which is then uploaded in administration.

The easiest way to create this type of file is to use a spreadsheet, such as Excel, placing one record (user) per row, and this information in each column:

Username*, Last Name*, First Name*, 
Email, Password*, Student ID, 
Middle Name, Title, Department, Company, 
Street 1, Street 2, City, State/Province,
Postal Code, Country, Work Phone, 
Home Phone, Work Fax, Mobile Phone, 
Website, Primary Institutional Role, 
System Availability, Other Name, Suffix, Title

Keep in mind:

• You can create a maximum of 500 users in a single file
• Fields marked with * are mandatory.
• If you leave any field empty, remember to leave the column empty in the file.
• The Primary Institutional Roles to use are assigned by placing the rolePk in the corresponding column, which you can see in the URL while editing the specific institutional role. It is a number (for example, the standard institutional role "Student" is 1, "Faculty" is 2, "Observer" is 8).
• If no value is provided for the Password field, the default password will be the Username for that record.
• Allowed values for the System Availability field are: S (Yes) and N (No). By default, and if not specified, this field will be Yes.

Then go to Admin Panel > Users > Users > Batch Actions and click Create Users.

Select the file and the delimiter type used, then click Submit.

Creating Users via SIS Integration

Using Learn’s integration capabilities, we can create and edit users. To create or edit users, we need to create a data integration that receives creation/edit information from external systems, which are responsible for sending a file with the necessary information to the corresponding endpoint. In this article, you can see where to locate the integration endpoints.

These are the minimum data fields to send, with the option to add multiple columns with other data, which can be seen here: Snapshot Flat file Header description

• EXTERNAL_PERSON_KEY
• FIRSTNAME
• LASTNAME
• USER_ID
• DATA_SOURCE_KEY: if not specified in the file, it will be specified in the data integration configuration.

Here is an example of the contents of an integration file with the minimum fields:

EXTERNAL_PERSON_KEY|FIRSTNAME|LASTNAME|USER_ID
person001|Maria|García|mgarcia
person002|Maria|Fernandez|mfernandez
person003|Maria|López|mlopez

You can upload files directly to the integration if you need to do it manually occasionally. Build the file in a text editor, making sure to save it in UTF-8 with BOM, and follow the instructions to upload files to the integration, making sure to choose the Persons endpoint.