Upload & Submit Your PDP Files (4 minutes)

Learn how to upload your PDP files and address errors and warnings using the Clearinghouse’s secure site.

This session is intended for post-secondary institutions active with the Postsecondary Data Partnership.

Transcript

Let’s go through the PDP data upload and correction process. You need to have the PDP Data Submission role. When you’re ready to upload your file, sign into the secure site and navigate to the PDP and click the “Submissions” Card. The data submission dashboard shows your institution’s most recent submissions. To get started, create a new submission. We recommend naming it related to the service line and when you’re submitting it so you know what it is. For example, PDP Fall 2025. Select the PDP service from the drop-down. Then select create submission. You’ll land on a submission overview page. When you’re ready, go to Upload data files.  Multiple files can be uploaded to this submission. Please include both your course and cohort files. PDP requires both course and cohort data to populate the dashboards and generate the analysis-ready files. Drag and drop your files. When the files finish scanning and performing structural validation, it will display in the upload log and let you know if there are errors and warnings associated with a file. You can also remove the file from submission. PDP data submission contacts will receive an email if there are structural errors. To review the errors and warnings on the file, go to Data Correction. To get a full comprehensive view of all errors and warnings, it’s recommended to download the all errors and warnings file. If you want to review individual files, select a file that has errors from the dropdown. There are two tabs, one for errors and another for warnings. The table lists what the error or warning is related to, the category, number of times it occurs in a file and the line numbers where it occurs. Here, the number of rows in the file do not match the count in the trailer row that is in row 5. After reviewing the errors and warnings, make updates to the file. On the upload data files page, reject the uploaded file that has errors then upload the newly edited file. Once you upload all desired files, ensure the files are error-free and review any warnings, navigate to finalize submission. A summary table appears with year, term, data type, and count.  Please use the submission history details to ensure you aren’t submitting any data that you’ve previously submitted to the PDP. If you’ve forgotten any data, you can return to the Data Upload page to upload it. If all your data files are displayed, then you are ready to finalize your submission. If desired, enter optional comments for your institution’s use. The comments are not provided to the Clearinghouse and our staff cannot see or respond to them. When ready, click Finalize Submission. If you have any remaining warnings on your file, a pop-up will appear that requires you to acknowledge that you are submitting files with existing warnings. If you need assistance with your submission, please reach out with your submission id. It’s located under the submission name. To review the log of previous and current submissions, in the left-hand menu, select Submissions. If you cancel submission or later inform us submitted data needs to be rolled back, any files contained in the submission will be removed and need to be reuploaded. If you need to make edits to previously submitted and processed data, you can submit an updated file through a new submission. Refer to the Updating Previously Submitted Data knowledge base article to understand what data elements can be updated through update files.