Once you download your Gradebook, you can work on your Blackboard Gradebook on your computer and upload the edited spreadsheet back into Blackboard to allow students to see their current grades.

We recommend that you first download your Gradebook to ensure that the data matches when you re-upload the edited grades.

How to Upload a File to the Gradebook

  1. Go to your course.
  2. Click on Gradebook along the top menu.
  3. At the top right of Gradebook, click Upload Gradebook.
    Click Upload Gradebook
  4. Click Upload Local File or Drop your spreadsheet into the “hot spot” of the upload panel.
    Click Upload Local File or Drop your spreadsheet in the dotted area to upload
  5. Click Select All or review the list of columns that you changed in the file and only select the ones you want to upload. If there are no changes in a column, it will not appear in the list.
    Note: Only select the columns you want to upload grades.
    Click Select All or select individual columns
  6. Select Upload to post the grade changes.
    Click Upload

NOTE: Any file you upload that contains a blank for a grade entry will be set to null, with no grade or text displayed.

File format guidelines

You can only upload a file in a comma-delimited (CSV) or tab-delimited (XLS) format. Reminder: To upload a correctly formatted file, download the gradebook. Then, edit the file with the data you want to upload.

To synchronize external data to gradebook data, unique identifiers are necessary for each student and for each column in the gradebook. The unique identifier used for each student is the student’s username. The unique identifier for each column is a column ID number. Column ID numbers are generated by the system and shouldn’t be changed or deleted.

You can add a column without a column ID number in the file you upload to create a new column in the gradebook. However, you must add at least one student’s grade so the column is recognized and uploaded. The system adds a column ID number. You can edit the column after it appears in the gradebook to add the points total.

Example Messages: When you upload a file with blanks and Attempts exist.

You’re about to clear some grades with attempts. Select a result:

  • Preserve grade
  • All attempts appear as submitted but not graded

You’re about to clear some override grades with attempts. Select a result:

  • Use the attempt grades
  • All attempts appear as submitted but not graded

For some errors, you can continue to upload with a warning that some data with errors may result in unwanted effects.

Upload Gradebook attempt errors