Table of Contents
Overview
Getting Started
Cards
Question Bank and Fields
Question Settings
Template Preview
Additional Notes
Related Articles
Overview
Our powerful, dynamic form builder allows administrators to create templates that define how the section, instructor, room, and course modals will show up to the end users who ultimately fill out the form. Field options in the template are customizable, allowing admins to determine which are hidden or visible, editable or locked, and more.
Getting Started
PATH: Academic Scheduling > Settings > Templates
Overview
Follow the above path to see the templates you can create.
Options are at the top of the screen and include Section Template, Instructor Template, Room Template, and Course Template.
Select the template you would like to work on.
Saving Changes
Any edits you make to the template will need to be saved by clicking the “save” button (highlighted on right in the below screenshot).
Cards
Templates are categorized by cards.
When you first visit the Section Template, for example, the auto-generated cards will be divided into General Information, Meeting Patterns & Rooms, Instructors, Relationships, Credits, etc.
You can add custom cards by selecting the blue “+” in the upper-right corner of any card. This will allow you to add a card above the one you’re selecting.
Certain pre-built cards, particularly in the Section Template, cannot be moved or deleted because they have extended functionality that requires they remain preserved. Refer to this article for more details.
Question Bank and Fields
Overview | Custom Fields | Adding Fields | Removing Fields
Overview
With the exception of prebuilt cards, all cards can have questions added or removed from them.
Questions are divided between Custom Fields and Prebuilt Fields, as shown in the left-hand sidebar below.
The distinction between “custom” and “prebuilt” fields is made to ensure that users do not accidentally add custom fields for fields that are hard-coded in the system.
Custom Fields
If a user adds a custom field it will be clearly labeled with a “Custom Question” flag.
Custom Fields describe which format a question's answer should be in (i.e. if the answer should be text, a date, a number, etc.).
Adding Fields
To add a question/field to a card, simply drag and drop from the Question Bank into the card.
Additionally, fields can be moved to different cards within the template editor by dragging and dropping them.
Removing Fields
To remove a field entirely, select its red trash can.
Question Settings
Overview | Question Settings by Field
Overview
If you select a field within a card, a Question Settings window will appear on the left in the sidebar. This will allow you to customize more nuanced functionality related to the field.
Question Settings by Field
Most Question Types/Fields | Text & Textarea Questions | Number Questions | Dropdown Questions | “Select” Questions
Most Question Types/Fields
Is Required | Editable | Configurable
Most fields or “Question Types” include, at minimum, the following Question Settings: Is Required, Editable, and Configurable.
Is Required
Determines whether or not users will be allowed to leave this field empty.
Editable
Determines whether or not users are allowed to edit this field when they are in the section editing modal, or if it is locked. If “editable” is checked, you will have the option to further define which roles are allowed to edit this field (default setting is “all roles”).
Configurable
OVERVIEW
The “Configurable” setting is crucial to ensuring that no one removes or modifies needed fields, such as fields required for the integration.
This setting controls which users can access the left-hand navigation set of Question Settings. If a field does not have the “Configurable” box checked at all, that field is no longer configurable in any way to any user.
Users with the “Coursedog” role can check this box to allow other users to configure the field in case that box is unselected accidentally.
Alternatively, the box can be selected but with certain roles allowed to configure the field.
HOW TO SET IT
Keep the box checked to allow the field to be configured by all users.
Keep the box checked and multi-select applicable roles to determine which roles have configuration access granted for this field.
Uncheck the box to lock this field and prevent any uses from configuring it further.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
The “Section Number” field is required for an integration to run successfully.
Keeping the “configurable” box unchecked for “Section Number” will prevent other users from removing it from the template or modifying its settings.
Text & Textarea Questions
Overview | Placeholder | Minimum number of characters | Maximum number of characters | Not allowed characters
Overview
One key difference between “Text” and “Textarea” questions is that Textarea questions will wrap when viewed on the record in Coursedog, whereas Text questions will not.
Placeholder
Determines what will be displayed in the field if no value is entered.
Minimum number of characters
If this is defined on the template but a user doesn’t input at least the minimum number of characters, they will see an error message until they fix it.
Maximum number of characters
If this is defined on the template but a user inputs more than the maximum number of characters, they will see an error message until they fix it.
Not allowed characters
Input anything here that you would like to prevent end users from entering.
For example, if you input this into the question settings:
…users will then see this error if they enter any of those characters in the form field.
ADDITIONAL NOTE
The "Section Number" field doesn't filter special characters automatically but administrators can use the "Not allowed characters" option to prevent users from adding certain characters by mistake.
Number Questions
Minimum number
Maximum number
Step – This indicates the legal intervals between numbers. In other words: If a step is 0.5, users can enter 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, etc.
Dropdown Questions
Click “+ Option” to add options.
Some prebuilt dropdown settings do not allow dropdown options to be edited because they are dynamically populated based on the integration. For example, the "Part Of Term" select input does not allow users to edit the options, because the options are dynamically loaded from the available Parts of Term in the current term.
Some dropdown fields in the Section Template can be configured to use options defined at the Course level. See this article for more details.
- Learn more about configuring dropdown menu options.
“Select” Questions
If you add a “Select” Question Type to your Section Template (Scheduling), Course Template (Curriculum Management), or Program Template (Curriculum Management), Question Settings will include an option to “Set Dynamic Options from Attribute Mappings”. Learn more about setting dynamic options.
Custom “Select” questions will also give you the option to “Allow Multiple Select”.
Checking this box and creating options using "+ Option" will allow end users to select more than one option.
Checking the “Allow Multiple Select” box is required if you wish to give end users the ability to see multiple values saved within a field.
If you are working with a section where this is checked and multiple options have been selected – but then deselect “Allow multiple select” – only the first option will be displayed when viewing the field.
Template Preview
The template builder has a “Preview” tab which allows you to see what the template will look like.
The “Preview” mode does not display the default values that are set within the Section Template. However, if default values have been set in the Section Template, these values will populate appropriately in the section editing modal.
Additional Notes
This article summarizes the shared features between section, instructor, room, and course templates. There are additional features that are unique to each template; see “Related Articles” below for more information.