Table of Contents

Overview
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
Numeric or Value Error
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
Related Articles

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: Contact/Credit/Billing Hours MisMatch

Name of Error in Merge Report

• ORA-20100: ::Section billing hours must equal course billing hours::

• ORA-20100: ::Section contact hours must equal course contact hours::

• ORA-20100: ::Section credit hours/CEUs must equal course credit hours/CEUs::

• ORA-20100: ::Section lecture hours must equal course lecture hours::

Explanation

If credit or hours are changed at the course level in Banner, the related sections in Coursedog will need to be updated to match or a merge error will be generated.   

How to Resolve

• Your “Credit Hours” card should look like one of the below screenshots (“Example Variable Credit” or “Example Fixed Credit”).

• The value in column 4 should not exceed the max value, if specified in column 3, or the min value in column 1, if not specified.

• If all credit hours are within the displayed limits and set according to the displayed operator, compare the values from columns 1-3 and ensure they are the same in Banner and Coursedog.

• If your card doesn’t look like this, or there is a mismatch between Banner and Coursdog hours, please open a support ticket for assistance.

Example Variable Credit

Example Fixed Credit

How to Prevent

Enable the “Credit Range Conflict” rule. Once enabled, violations will be flagged in the section editing modal, as shown here.

Merge Issue: Create Course Exception

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: 

1. 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. 

2. 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.

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

1. Review the merge report with the error and scan for a readable description being sent for a field instead of a code to figure out which mapping is missing.

2. Go to Admin > Integration Attribute Mappings.

3. Click on the relevant field (most likely listed under “Courses”).

4. Look through the list of mappings to verify that you are missing something.

5. Click on “+ Add New Attribute” at the bottom of the list.

6. Fill in “Coursedog Field Option” with the same option that was added to the template.

7. Fill in “SIS Code” with the Banner code for that field option.

8. Click “Save” in the upper right corner. 

Merge Issue: CRN Assignment

Name of Error in Merge Report

• CRN already assigned to other cross list group

• CRN already assigned to cross list group

Explanation

Each course can only be in one cross-list group (you cannot have multiple groups).

How to Resolve

Delete one of the groups and add additional sections to the other group.

Merge Issue: Cross-Listed Enrollment

Name of Error in Merge Report

Cannot create cross-listed, section enrollment exceeds max enrollment.

Explanation

Enrollment for a section cannot exceed max enrollment for the relationship you are attempting to add the section to. 

How to Resolve

Review the combined maximum enrollment for the relationship as well as the enrollment for all sections and adjust as needed/able. 

How to Prevent

Train schedulers to be aware of section enrollment and the maximum enrollment for relationships you’d like for the sections to be part of.

Merge Issue: Custom Validation / postBody

Name of Error in Merge Report

\"postBody.XXXX\" failed custom validation because _______

Examples

• postBody[0].rowId failed custom validation because cannot delete a meeting time for a section with professors assigned to it

• postBody[0].roomNumber failed custom validation because room assigned to meeting must be of type Class

• postBody.subjectCode is required

• postBody.courseNumber is required

Explanation

Merge errors showing postBody.* are triggered by Coursedog’s own internal validation.  In other words, these errors are internal to Coursedog and are not being returned from the SIS.

How to Resolve

Resolution varies and might be self-explanatory based on the full error. If the resolution isn’t self-explanatory, open a support ticket.

Name of Error in Merge Report

"error": "\"postBody.role\" must be one of [Y, N]",

Explanation

If the attribute mappings aren’t configured for the professor role, when Coursedog sends data back to Banner, instead of sending the expected “Y” we send “Primary”, and the APIs will return an error. 

How to Resolve

PATH: Admin > Integration Attribute Mappings > Sections > Professor Role 

This can be fixed by configuring the Attribute Mappings for Professor Role as shown below. 

Merge Issue: Faculty Assignments

Name of Error in Merge Report

ORA-20100: ::Faculty assignment session has no meeting times defined for section.::

Explanation

This error will occur if a user edits the session indicator for a meeting once an instructor is assigned.

How to Resolve

1. Edit the section. 

2. Remove the instructor.

3. Change meeting details (session indicator).

4. Save & merge.

5. Re-add instructor.

6. Re-assign instructor to the meeting.

7. Save & merge.

Merge Issue: Grade Mode

Name of Error in Merge Report

ORA-20100: ::Invalid Grading Mode for course in section::

Explanation

Scheduler has selected a grade mode that is not correct for the section of the course they are editing.

How to Resolve

The correct resolution is to ensure that the only grade modes presented to the scheduler in the section editing modal are those that are defined for the parent course. To do this, access the Grade Mode field from Settings > Templates > Section Template and set it to “Use Course Options”.

Merge Issue: Instructional Method

Name of Error in Merge Report

ORA-20100: :: Cannot change Instructional Method when enrollments exist for a section::

Explanation

This means an attempt was made to update the Instructional Method for a section in which students are already enrolled.

How to Resolve

Undo the change made by the scheduler. If the edit is required, then go to Banner and remove any enrollments first.

How to Prevent

Enable the "Section - Instructional Method with Enrollment" rule and ensure "This rule cannot be violated" is checked. If the rule doesn't exist in your environment, create and enable it as shown below.

Recommendation and Long-term Fix

If possible, train schedulers to perform all section edits before enrollment opens. Coursedog pulls fresh enrollment numbers from the SIS during the nightly sync process. However, for schools who do active enrollment during scheduling, an enrollment done during the day might cause Coursedog to be temporarily out of sync and can lead to this error.

Merge Issue: Invalid Delete

Name of Error in Merge Report

• ORA-20100: ::Invalid Delete; Instructor will exist with no meeting times::

• ORA-20100: ::Cannot find record using primary or unique key for faculty assignment::

• ORA-20100: ::Cannot delete, record does not exist for faculty assignment::

Explanation

This error occurs if a meeting is deleted that an instructor was assigned to leaving the instructor no longer assigned to any meeting.  Additionally, this error can occur if Coursedog is not in sync with instructor assignment by session indicator.

How to Resolve

PART 1

1. Take a screenshot of the current section meeting and instructor assignments.

2. Take a screenshot of the current meeting and instructor details.

3. Remove all meetings and instructors from Coursedog.

4. Save.

5. Confirm merge is successful.

PART 2

If the merge is unsuccessful and instructors and meetings are now blank in Coursedog:

6. Remove instructors and meetings from your SIS.

7. Edit section again in Coursedog and save (no edits required).

8. Confirm merge is now successful.

9. Edit section again and re-add instructors and meetings.

10. Save.

11. Confirm merge is successful.

How to Prevent

Ensure that the default “Instructors without meetings” rule is enabled and set to “cannot be violated”.  This is required to ensure instructor assignments flow correctly to Banner.

Merge Issue: Invalid Schedule Code

Name of Error in Merge Report

ORA-20100: ::Invalid Schedule Code for course in section::

Explanation

Scheduler has selected a Schedule Type (also called Schedule Code or Section Type) that is not correct for the section of the course they are editing.

How to Prevent

The correct resolution is to ensure that the only schedule types presented to the scheduler in the section editing modal are those that are defined for the parent course. To do this, access the schedule type field from Settings > Templates > Section Template and set it to “Use Course Options”.

How to Resolve

Access the section and set the schedule type to a value that is permitted for the course and re-save.

Merge Issue: Invalid Value for Course Classification of Instructional Programs

Name of Error in Merge Report

"p_status_msg": "Create course exception - ORA-20100:::Invalid value for course classification of instructional programs::"

Explanation

• This error message occurs when an invalid value is sent for the field “CIP Code”.

• This is likely due to the description for the attribute mapping in the admin panel being different from the field option value set on the course template.  

How to Resolve

Update the attribute mappings for CIP Code in the admin panel to ensure all of the descriptions align with the field options on the course template/forms.

Merge Issue: Meeting Section Schedule Type

Name of Error in Merge Report

ORA-20100: ::Invalid code for course for meeting section schedule type::

How to Resolve

Delete the time and re-create it.

Merge Issue: Meeting Times

Name of Error in Merge Report

1. ORA-20100: ::Missing meeting time begin and/or end time::

2. ORA-20100: ::Begin time and end time must be four digits and within range 0000 to 2359::

Explanations

Your meeting time doesn’t match Banner’s required format. 

How to Resolve

Access the meeting in Coursedog and set the time field.

How to Prevent

Enable the “Start time must exist if end time does” rule and ensure “This rule cannot be violated” is checked. If the rule doesn’t currently exist for you, you can create it by using the below screenshots as a guide.

Name of Error in Merge Report

ORA-20100: ::Meeting times conflict within section::

Explanation

This error could occur for one of two reasons: 

1. The meeting times associated with this section in Banner don't match the meeting times associated with this section in Coursedog.

2. If you have multiple meeting times in a section and one meeting ends at the same time as another one begins, it will be flagged as a conflict by Banner.

How to Resolve

Edit the section meeting times to ensure they don’t start and end at the same time (a 1-minute buffer is sufficient).

How to Prevent

• A long-term solution is being worked on by Coursedog; however, if you encounter this error in the meantime, you can 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.

• Additionally, consider requiring standard meeting patterns and disallowing custom meeting patterns by setting the “Non Standard Meeting Pattern” Rule to “required” and either issuing a warning or sending the scheduler to a section change request flow.

Name of Error in Merge Report

"postBody.start" must be less than or equal to ref:end

Explanation

The meeting end time is prior to the meeting start time (this is typically caused by an input error).

How to Resolve

Review your meeting times for accuracy and ensure the start time is before the end time. 

How to Prevent

Enable the "Meeting Start Time must be prior to Meeting End Time" rule and ensure "This rule cannot be violated" is checked. If the rule doesn't exist in your environment, create and enable it as shown below.

Merge Issue: Missing CRN

Name of Error in Merge Report

ORA-20100: ::Missing mandatory CRN for faculty assignment::

Explanation

An instructor assignment is being made to a section that does not yet have a CRN in Banner.  

This error should no longer occur as Coursedog has resolved the root cause, but if you encounter it, please enter a support ticket. 

The issue previously occurred in the following specific scenario:

• Add course from curriculum inventory.

• Create a section of the newly added course.

• Section creation event sent to Banner in real time fails.

• During the nightly sync the section creation was not re-attempted but the instructor assignment operation was sent, resulting in this error.

How to Resolve

• Re-add the course from the curriculum inventory to reveal the problem section.

• Hit “save”, and the section creation event will be sent to Banner followed by the faculty assignment.

Merge Issue: Primary Instructor on Multiple Session Indicators

Summary of Issue

A section has multiple meetings with different session indicators and an instructor is marked as “primary” on more than one.

Explanation

If an instructor is set to primary on multiple meetings and those meetings do not all have the same session indicator, it represents a business rule violation in Banner that is not prevented by the Banner API.

How to Resolve

Overview

Enable the "Primary Instructor Assigned to Multiple Session Indicators" and "Session Indicators Not Set on Meetings" rules and ensure "This rule cannot be violated" is checked for both. 

Looking for Violations

To see if any sections are currently violating these rules, select "Test Rule" or else run it from the Reports > Conflicts screen where you can then click on each section to access it and resolve the issue.

Example

Clicking on ACC399 in the below screenshot would allow you to access the section and either remove the meeting assignments that are causing the error or else adjust the session indicators on the meetings to ensure they are all the same.

Additional Note

While the above rules should prevent duplicate primary instructors from appearing for any CRN, note that the Banner Instructor Assignment API has a flaw that allows such violations.  Opening a ticket with Ellucian may result in a patch being issued to your Banner environment.

Merge Issue: No Data Found

Name of Error in Merge Report

Invalid input parameters. ORA-01403: no data found

Explanation

Meetings within Coursedog and your SIS have become out of sync.

How to Resolve

1. Remove all meetings from Coursedog.

2. Save & merge.

3. Verify all meetings have been removed from your SIS.

4. Re-add meetings and instructor assignments in Coursedog.

Merge Issue: Numeric or Value Error

Name of Error in Merge Report

ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error: character string buffer too small

Explanation

An Integration Attribute Mapping configuration is missing from your Coursedog environment causing Coursedog to send the description instead of the code for a field that is linked to a validation table in Banner. An example of this would be if the sectionType was sent to Banner as “Lecture” instead of “LEC”.

How to Resolve and Prevent

Step 1: Review the merge report linked in the message to identify the offending property.

Step 2: From the Admin console under Integration Attribute Mappings, access the field.

Step 3: 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.

Related Article

See also the Freshdesk article for maintaining integration attribute mappings.

Merge Issue: Part of Term

Name of Error in Merge Report

• ORA-20100: ::Term Control prohibits update of Part-of-Term information, Census Dates, and Schedule Type for section::

• ORA-20100: ::Term Control requires default Part-of-Term information and Census Dates for creating section::

Explanation

This error can occur if the Term and Part of Term date information in Coursedog is not in sync with Banner.

How to Resolve

Step 1: Ensure the Term entity is enabled in your admin console Merge Settings. 

Step 2: Ensure term dates default to “Always Institution” and are not configured in a field-specific exception.

Additional Note

If you have questions or a very large number of impacted sections, contact your Coursedog Customer Success representative or open a support ticket for assistance. 

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

1. Edit the section.

2. Choose a new room that is active.

3. Save.

How to Prevent

You can prevent the error by using integration filters to remove rooms with inactive status in Coursedog.

1. Go to the Admin Dashboard.

2. Click “Integration Filters” on the left side.

3. Select “Rooms”.

4. Click “Add Filter”. 

5. Create the filter as follows: 

   1. Filter Type: Value Filter

   2. Filter Key: Status

   3. Filter Values (You can manually type this in if it doesn’t already appear in the dropdown): Inactive

6. 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 

1. Training – Train schedulers to remove meetings and instructors prior to canceling a section.

2. Rules – Set up a rule that requires meetings and professors to be removed when setting status to “Canceled”.

3. 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

1. Check with your IT Team or the group responsible for uptime of your SIS.

2. 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

1. 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).

2. 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.

3. 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

1. Remove the instructor from the section.

2. Save & merge.

3. Validate instructor is removed from Coursedog and Banner.

4. If instructor still exists in Banner, remove from Banner; add instructor again in Coursedog; save & merge.

Related Articles

• Managing Integration Errors

• INTEGRATION ERRORS: FAQs & Troubleshooting

• Banner Rules for Meetings

• Banner Rules for Sections