Table of Contents
Overview
Character String Buffer Too Small
Contact/Credit/Billing Hours MisMatch
Create Course Exception
CRN Assignment
Cross-Listed Enrollment
Custom Validation / postBody
Faculty Assignments
Grade Mode
Instructional Method
Invalid Delete
Invalid Schedule Code
Invalid Value for Course Classification of Instructional Programs
Meeting Section Schedule Type
Meeting Times
Missing CRN
Primary Instructor on Multiple Session Indicators
No Data Found
Part of Term
Part of Term with Enrollments
Room Has Inactive Status
Room Conflict
Section Cancellations
Section Exists
SIS Is Not Available
Sum of Session Credit Hours
Unique Constraint
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Overview
Student Information System (SIS) platforms have certain requirements that must be met in order for data to be accepted during a merge. If those requirements are not met, a merge error can occur.
This article captures common merge errors for Banner.
Many errors can be prevented by creating a rule in Coursedog; learn more about rules here.
For a look at additional integration errors that can occur regardless of SIS, go here.
For a general overview of managing merge errors, go here.
If you are unable to resolve a merge error by following the directions noted below and you aren’t yet live, reach out to your Project Manager. If you are fully implemented, open a support ticket (and alert your Customer Success Manager as well).
Merge Issue: Character String Buffer Too Small
Name of Error in Merge Report
ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error: character string buffer too small
Explanation
This can happen for one of two reasons:
The course title has a max limit of characters that varies from school to school.
Usually, the limit is 32 characters but for some schools the max limit is 20 characters.
If you try to create or update a course with a title that is longer than the limit defined in Banner, the courses POST APIs (Create/update) will return the above error.
You are sending a description for a field option in the real-time/nightly merge instead of the SIS code.
This can happen when a new field option is created by an institution and added in Banner as well as to the template but you still need to add the attribute mapping in the Admin Dashboard.
An example of this would be if the sectionType was sent to Banner as “Lecture” instead of “LEC”.
How to Prevent Scenario #1
You can prevent this error by ensuring you have defined a “max number of characters” for the Course Title on your Course Template.
Navigate to Curriculum > Settings > Course Template; click into the “Course Title” field to open its settings; and then input the max number of characters allowed by Banner (since this varies from school to school, the number shown in the below screenshot is for demonstration purposes only).
How to Resolve Scenario #2
Review the merge report linked in the message to identify the offending property.
From the Integrations Hub under Integration Attribute Mappings, access the field.
Add the mapping, save, and then access the section and save it again to have it post immediately to Banner in real-time or else wait for the nightly sync to automatically re-send.
Merge Issue: Part of Term with Enrollments
Name of Error in Merge Report
ORA-20100: ::Cannot change Part-of-Term fields when enrollments or meeting times exist, or when section is Open Learning::
Explanation
Banner does not permit certain section fields to be modified when active enrollments exist. If schedulers are permitted to make edits to sections that violate Banner's rules, then the integration will generate an error.
How to Resolve
Address this directly within Banner with your Banner Admin team and then follow the prevention recommendation outlined below to prevent it from happening again.
How to Prevent
Set the "edit part-of-term with meetings and enrollments” default rule to both "warning" (for the “On Failure” field) and "cannot be violated" to make it required.
Merge Issue: Room Conflict
Name of Error in Merge Report
ORA-20100: ::Room conflict::
Explanation
If you have multiple meetings using the same room and the meetings overlap or even if one meeting ends at the same time as another one begins, it will be flagged as a conflict by Banner. This also applies to rooms booked by non-academic events.
How to Resolve
Edit the meetings that are using the room to adjust the meeting times or else select a different room.
How to Prevent
Adjust your standard meeting patterns to end at a time that doesn’t conflict with the start time of other meeting times. E.g. Ending at 10:59 a.m. instead of 11 a.m. if another meeting pattern starts at 11 a.m.
Require the use of standard meeting patterns.
Ensure that the double-booked room rule is enabled; set it so that it cannot be violated; and create a rule exception flow for double bookings.
Ensure the “Buffer Between Back to Back Times in a Single Room” rule is enabled.
If you wish to double book a space, ensure “ignore double bookings” (Section Dashboard > Open Section > Meeting Patterns & Rooms Card > Set Details) is set to “Yes”.
Require the Use of Standard Meeting Patterns
Double-Booked Room Rule
Buffer Between Back-to-Back Times in a Single Room Rule
“Ignore Double Bookings” Toggled to “Yes”
Merge Issue: Room Has Inactive Status
Name of Error in Merge Report
ORA-20100: ::Room has inactive status; cannot be scheduled::
Explanation
In Banner, you are unable to schedule rooms that are inactive. If you attempt to schedule a room with an inactive status in Coursedog, an integration error will occur, preventing Coursedog from successfully creating or updating the section.
How to Resolve
Edit the section.
Choose a new room that is active.
Save.
How to Prevent
You can prevent the error by using integration filters to remove rooms with inactive status in Coursedog.
Go to the Integrations Hub.
Click “Field Settings” on the left side.
Select “Rooms”.
Click “Integration Filters”.
Create the filter as follows: Remove all Rooms where “Status” equals “Inactive”.
Save
On the next nightly merge, all inactive rooms will no longer appear in Coursedog and cannot be selected when scheduling.
Merge Issue: Section Cancellations
Name of Error in Merge Report
ORA-20100: ::Meeting times exits, cannot inactivate section::
Explanation
Banner requires that all meetings and instructors be removed from a section when changing the status to canceled. Marking a section as “canceled” without removing the meeting and instructor assignments will result in a merge error.
Note the error in the report includes a typo (“exits” should be “exists”).
How to Resolve
Remove all meetings and instructors before setting the section status to “canceled”.
How to Prevent
Training – Train schedulers to remove meetings and instructors prior to canceling a section.
Rules – Set up a rule that requires meetings and professors to be removed when setting status to “Canceled”.
Guidelines – Ensure there are notes in the section template to help guide schedulers, e.g. To Cancel/Inactivate a section, please submit a request and ensure all meeting patterns and instructors have been removed.
Merge Issue: Section Exists
Name of Error in Merge Report
ORA-20100: ::Section exists with same subject, course, and section number::
Explanation
This means an attempt was made to create a section with the same subject code, course number, and sequence number as an existing section in Banner. This is not permitted unless the sequence number equals 0.
If through a sequence of edits, you have deleted a section and renumbered another to use the same section number as the deleted section, then you can ignore this error as it will automatically resolve after two nightly synchronizations have been completed.
Coursedog does not send delete operations to Banner in real-time and after the first nightly sync the section deletion will have completed and then during the second nightly sync the section renumbering will be processed without issue.
How to Resolve
Review section information for the sections in question to determine if they are in fact duplicates or if section information is incorrect. If the error is due to a section deletion followed by renumbering, then you can ignore the error as it will automatically resolve after two nightly synchronizations.
How to Prevent
Consider moving section renumbering to a request flow so a single approver can execute them carefully.
Create and enable a Section Re-Numbering rule as shown below.
Merge Issue: SIS Is Not Available
Name of Error in Merge Report
Bad Gateway
SIS did not give a valid response
Explanation
SIS is not available. This could be due to scheduled maintenance of the SIS or unplanned downtime
How to Resolve
Check with your IT Team or the group responsible for uptime of your SIS.
The next nightly synchronization will re-attempt to merge and the error should resolve on its own.
To force the operation to execute right away, access the section in the Coursedog UI and hit “save” or else run an Execute Merge. Otherwise, wait until the next nightly sync and the issue should automatically resolve.
Merge Issue: Sum of Session Credit Hours
Name of Error in Merge Report
ORA-20100: ::Sum of session credit hours exceeds the maximum credit hours allowed for the course::
Explanation
Another way to look at “Sum of Session Credit” is "Is the sum of session credits for all of my meeting times greater than the credit value configured on my section (or inherited from the course)?” See the below example for an illustration of this.
Example
In the first image below, there are two meetings with session credits being 4 + 1 = 5. However, the credits defined for the section in image 2 are “3”. In other words: The sum of session credits (5) is larger than what is defined for this section (3) and would result in a Banner business rule violation.
How to Resolve
If the sum of session credits for all of your meeting times is greater than the credit value configured for the section, adjust session credits under Meeting Pattern Additional Information (Section Dashboard > Open Section > “Meeting Patterns & Rooms Card > Set Details).
Our suggestion is to set full credits on one meeting and zero credits on all the rest, i.e. change one of these to zero.
If the numbers match up but you are still receiving the error, please submit a support ticket.
How to Prevent
Step 1:
Ensure the “Sum of Session Credit Hour Exceeds Credit Hours” rule is enabled and the Session Credit Hours field is visible on the section template.
If this rule is not set up or the field does not exist on the section template, reach out to the Coursedog support team to have them set this up.
Having the rules in place will prevent schedulers from making mistakes in the Coursedog UI when creating and editing meetings.
Filter Used to Create the Rule
Step 2:
Even if you have the right rules defined, Banner can mess things up when we send meeting creations and may duplicate the session credits across meetings.
This can occur if you are creating two or more meetings at the same time.
In this case, there are two possible options for how to handle incorrect session credit hours.
Option 1
Recommend that the scheduler manually set the session credit hours while adding multiple meeting patterns.
Customers can make the field required and train schedulers how to fill it in.
Option 2
Utilize the conflict reports in the Reports tab to identify the sections violating the rule as well as how to use the Integration Errors Dashboard to quickly drop into the sections and fix the credit issues for sections that are experiencing merge errors.
CONFLICTS REPORT
PATH: Scheduling > Reports > Conflicts
INTEGRATION ERRORS DASHBOARD
PATH: Scheduling > Reports > Integration
You’ll only see sections here that someone edited and we tried to POST after the sum of session credits were violated.
There will be lurkers in the above conflicts report where Banner accepted our post of meetings but then nobody ever went back to the section to make any subsequent meeting edits so we are sitting with bad data that never results in a merge error.
Rule Violation Example
If you create and enable the rule noted above – and then someone violates that rule – that violation will be flagged in the section editing modal. An example is captured below.
Merge Issue: Unique Constraint
Name of Error in Merge Report
ORA-00001: unique constraint (SATURN.PK_SIRASGN) violated
Explanation
Instructor assignment for this section and the meeting session indicator already exist in Banner.
How to Resolve
Remove the instructor from the section.
Save & merge.
Validate instructor is removed from Coursedog and Banner.
If instructor still exists in Banner, remove from Banner; add instructor again in Coursedog; save & merge.
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