Doing a Provider Upload and Going Live with the NSI
What is the
Provider
Upload?
Once you’ve been through the NSI test script and the Ministry of Education has
verified that you have passed the testing process, you are ready to do your Provider
Upload. The Provider Upload is a process whereby a file containing details of all
your students (the “input” file) is sent to the Ministry, so that the students can be
matched, where possible, with existing NSI records. The Ministry will then send you
an “output” file that you will use to update your Take2 records.
Provider
Upload
Utility files
To do the Provider Upload, you need two files called “NSIProviderLoad.mde” and
“NSIImportData.mdb”. Download the latest version (v1.5) from the Take2 web site
(www.Take2.co.nz) by clicking on the “NSI Provider Load” link (found by selecting
Existing Users -> Software Updates).
Merging
duplicate
records
Before you use the Provider Upload Utility, it is recommended that you merge any
duplicate student records that you may have. Doing so will improve the quality of the
data you send to the Ministry and therefore the quality of the data you get back! To
merge duplicate records, you will need to use the Duplicates and Merge Utility,
which is available on the Take2 web site as shown above. If you download the D&M
Utility, you will receive two files, one called “D&M2000.mde” and one called
“Duplicates and Merge Manual.doc”. The first file is the actual utility; double click on
it to open it. The second file is a manual that you can use to help you through the
merging process.
Opening the
Provider
Upload
Utility
To use the Provider Load Utility, double click on the file called
NSIProviderLoad.mde. A form will open, as shown below.
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Creating the
input file
To create the “input” file to send to the Ministry, click on the Create Input File button.
The following screen will appear:
The Ministry needs to know which students you have in your database and which of
those students have had their residency and identity verified.
1) The best way to start this process is to jot down a list (just write it on paper) of
every funding source that students at your institution are funded from. The list is only
for your own reference. Your list might look something like this:
01 Universal Tertiary Tuition Allowance/EFTS Funding
02 Full Fee Paying Foreign Students
03 Domestic Full Fee Paying Students
07 Youth Training
2) Now use the form shown above to select the first funding source in your list, using
the Select Funding Source drop down list. All your students who belong in this
funding category will be displayed. If you know that you verified the identity and
residency of all students in this group, click on the Set All Values for Displayed
Students button1. This has the effect of entering ticks into the Identity and Residency
columns next to every student shown (see screen shot below). If your institution has
not verified the identity and residency of all the students in this group, do not click on
the Set All Values button. If you need to, you can manually tick the Identity and
Residency fields for individual students whose details you have verified.
1
Since providers MUST have verified identity and residency for code 01 and 02 students (to comply with
Ministry requirements), it should always be safe to use the Set All Values for Displayed Students button
for code 01 and code 02 students.
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3) Now select the next funding category on your list and go through the process all
over again. Repeat until you have come to the end of your list.
4) Now you are ready to create your input file, which is done by clicking on the
Create Input File button. You will be asked to choose a name and location for the
new file. The default name that you will be offered is “UPI00000.txt”, which complies
with the Ministry’s required file name format (ie 3 letters followed by 5 digits).We
recommend that you change the last digit to a “1” so that it becomes “UPI00001.txt”.
If you make a mistake and need to create the input file a second time, simply name it
“UPI00002.txt”, and so on. Save the file to a sensible location (one that you can
remember).
Who will be
included in
the input
file?
Note that the input file will not contain details of archived students or non-active
students. It will not contain details of students who have not been enrolled in Take2,
nor will it contain a record for a student who does not have a first name and a family
name. If any of your student records contain invalid characters, such as a bracket “(“
in a student’s name, then you will be warned. You can then go back to Take2 and
correct your data before creating a new input file.
Processing
the output
file
When the Ministry returns you the output file, save it to your hard disk. The output
file will be named something like “REU00001.txt”.
Then open the Provider Upload Utility (in the same way you did to create the input
file). The main menu will open. Click on the Read Output File button. You will be
prompted to locate the output file. Once you have found it, single click on the file,
then click Open.
At this point a summary page will appear, headed “Import Summary”. Minimise this
window for now, and return to the Utility Main Menu. Click on the View and Process
NSI Data button, which opens the NSI Output form.
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The form has three tabs.



Unique
Records
The Unique tab displays records where you submitted a record and no match
could be found in the NSI, so a new NSI record was created. Note an existing
RoL is not used for matching purposes during the provider load process.
The Possibles tab displays records where you submitted a record and one or
more possible matches was found in the NSI.
The Errors tab displays records that show where the data that you supplied in
the input file was defective (e.g. there was an invalid character such as a
bracket in a surname).
On the Unique tab you will see a datasheet at the top, listing individual students. The
records are sorted by the name of the students but you can change the sort order
using the options provided namely: Internal ID, Previous Name and RoL ID.
You can select a specific student by clicking on their record and, having done so,
you will see that the bottom part of the form displays the full details for the single
record returned for the student.
You can accept or reject the returned record for an individual student by entering
either an “A” or “R” in the Process column in the top part of the screen. However you
will probably find it quicker to use the Accept All button to accept every student and
then you only need to enter “R” for any records that you do not want to accept.
Watch out for alternative names when accepting/rejecting (see below).
When you have completed assigning “accept” or “reject” values for all students you
click on the Process button in order for the data in Take2 to be updated. See below
for information on precisely what happens when you accept NSI records.
Alternative
names
It is possible in Take2 to store two names for a student; the standard first name/
family name combination which you see of the Students form plus, where they differ,
a NSI forename/ surname combination.
However, when you create the NSI input file Take2 uses the standard name
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combination because until you go live you will not necessarily have NSI names for
your students – unless you have entered them all manually.
The NSI database stores the NSI name combination but it can also store what are
called “alternative” name combinations for the same student. An alternative name
can be marked in the NSI as being a student’s “preferred name”. The standard name
you send in the input file may match on the NSI name combination but, if not, it
might match on an alternative name combination held in the NSI.
Accordingly, when you receive the output file it is possible that there are two
returned records with the same NSI number. Watch out for this when accepting or
rejecting records.
Possible
Records
On the Possibles tab you will also see a datasheet at the top, listing individual
students.
Select a student by clicking on the record and the bottom part of the form, which is
also a datasheet, will display all of the matches found for the selected student.
Notice that there is a Ranking field to show how good a match the record has.
Records are displayed in descending ranking order.
You can view the detail of any specific record in the bottom part of the form by
double clicking on the record selector. Return to the datasheet by clicking on the
Datasheet button.
There is a Process field in the top datasheet and a Select field in the bottom
datasheet. If you do not want to accept any possible match, enter “R” (or leave it
blank) on the top datasheet. If you do want to accept a record, place tick in the
Select field of the relevant record of the bottom datasheet and an “A” will be
automatically inserted in the top datasheet.
Repeat this process for each student and then click on the Process button in order
for the data in Take2 to be updated.
Multiple
Records
The bottom datasheet on the Possibles tab will often show multiple records. It is
even possible (though, one hopes, highly unlikely) for two or more records to have
rankings of 100. The question is then, which record do you accept?
Check to see if the Hook On Paid field displays “Y”. If it does in one record but not in
the other, grab the “Y” record. It will save you $20.
If you believe two records relate to the same person you should make a note of the
NSN values and, later, send a merge request to the NSI – see section 14.7
Error
Records
You can view or print error records by clicking on the appropriate buttons. You
cannot process error records; rather you have to go to the Students form and correct
the error before processing each student’s NSI individually using the standard NSI
method – see section 6.3.3 of the Take2 manual.
Accepting
NSI records
When you click on the Process button Take2 does two tasks:
It updates fields in the Take2 database with data from the NSI (Appendix C4
lists the specific fields).

It changes the Process value to “D” for “done”. The purpose of this is so that
you can work through the output file over a period of time, processing a set of
records at the end of each session. “Done” records will not be displayed the next

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time you open the NSI Output form.
Telling
Take2 you
have Gone
Live
Once you have completed the provider load process you need to tell Take2 that you
have gone live with the NSI. You do this using the Go Live button on the Main Menu
of the Provider Load Utility.
Click on the button to open the Go Live form. Change the value in the NSI
Implemented field to “Live”. Note – there are three possible values for this field: “No”,
which is the default; “Upload” which is set by the system when you have created an
NSI input file, and “Live”. You enter “Live” only when you have processed the NSI
output file.
The reason why Take2 needs to know if you have gone live with the NSI is because
it affects the way Take2 exchanges hook-on data with NZQA.
If you are going to use the COM interface, tick the Use COM Interface field.
Enter the correct web site addresses for both the Web interface and the COM
interface. The addresses are:
Com: http://www.nsi.govt.nz/xml/COM_ACCESS.WSDL
Web: http: http://www.nsi.govt.nz
Select an
NSI
interface
The Ministry offers a number of interfaces to the NSI but only two are implemented
in Take2: the Web interface and the COM interface. The Web interface is available
to all users. Essentially it is just a hyperlink on the Students form.
The COM interface is only available if you select it from the System Management
menu. Doing this will enable certain features in Take2.
You can learn more about the interface types from the Ministry’s documentation.
Using the
COM
interface
Sections 6.3.3 and 14.7 of the Take2 manual explains how the COM interface is
implemented in Take2. There are two main areas:


From the Students form you can search the NSI.
From the System Management menu you can perform a number of
housekeeping tasks associated with the NSI.
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