Table of Contents
Overview
Centralized vs. De-Centralized Scheduling
Key Data Elements
Adding Rooms
Room Settings
Viewing & Editing Rooms
Blocked Out Times
Using Room Release Filters to Prioritize Room Scheduling
Using Field Options to Restrict Access to Rooms
Related Articles
Overview
PATH: Academic Scheduling > Rooms
Optimally configuring and organizing your room inventory is very important for you to get the most out of Academic Scheduling: Every assignment will use this information to determine the appropriate location for activities scheduled within the application.
This article will help you do that, but keep in mind that each institution is different, so your room configuration may require some, but not all, of these settings.
Centralized vs. De-Centralized Scheduling
Some institutions schedule rooms through a single entity (“centralized scheduling”), whereas others distribute the scheduling of rooms to departments or colleges (“de-centralized scheduling'').
Coursedog allows for the successful enforcement of either method through the use of configurations that enforce your rules automatically based on settings.
Key Data Elements
Certain data elements must be established before rooms can be fully utilized. These data elements determine options that are available for selection when adding and editing room records.
They include Room Types, Features, and Room Custom Fields.
If you are importing room records during your initial implementation from a file or from your SIS, these fields, if included, are automatically added to the database and will be available for use.
Otherwise, you must manually configure these lists to meet the needs of your institution.
Adding Rooms
Overview | Adding Rooms in Bulk via CSV | Adding Rooms to Coursedog via SIS
Adding Rooms Manually
Overview
You can add rooms in bulk during onboarding, through your SIS, or manually in the user interface (UI).
Adding Rooms in Bulk via CSV
Your Project Manager (PM) will work with you on this, but you will need to save a copy of this CSV; fill it out; and let your PM know when it’s ready.
Adding Rooms to Coursedog via SIS
If you add a new room to your SIS and want that data to show up in Coursedog, all you need to do is execute a manual Rooms merge.
Adding Rooms Manually
Navigate to Academic Scheduling > Rooms
Click “+ New Room”.
Enter in information for all applicable fields (see “Room Settings” below for more information on available options).
Click “Create Room”.
Room Settings
Overview | Room Features | Room Attributes | Allowed Sections | Departments
Exclude from Optimizer | Online Space | Hide in Scheduling/Events
Effective Start Date & Effective End Date | Room Fixed Cost, Room Hourly Cost & Owners
Overview
PATH: Academic Scheduling > Rooms > (Select Room)
Every room has a number of settings available in its profile (Academic Scheduling > Rooms > (Select Room).
The settings that appear will vary by school – it all depends on how the Admin sets up the Room Template (Academic Scheduling > Settings > Templates > Room Template).
Learn more about the Room Template here.
Room Features
Room features can be used to help Department Schedulers and the Section Optimizer determine which room(s) will meet a section’s needs.
For example, if a room contains the listed feature of “piano”, Department Schedulers and the Section Optimizer will know to use that room for a section that needs a piano.
Room Attributes
Overview | Using Attributes to Release Rooms | Room Assignment Permissions by Role
Overview
The Room Attributes field can be used to support further customization.
This is commonly used in the release rooms feature and room assignment permissions.
Using Attributes to Release Rooms
When unlocking rooms, you can release different rooms at different times depending on their assigned attributes.
Room Assignment Permissions by Role
This gives permission by role to only assign rooms with specific attributes.
For example: A Super Admin may have permission to assign any room to a section (e.g. attributes of General and Department), but a Department Scheduler may only have permission to assign rooms that have an attribute of Department.
In the below example, we see an attribute called "Pre-Assigned", indicating this is a room where we intend to allow a previously determined assignment.
Allowed Sections
Overview | Example 1 | Example 2
Overview
When trying to limit a room to a particular department or type of section, Allowed Sections must be used.
Common filter values include Department, Course Code, and Section Type.
Example 1
In the below example:
In the "Allowed Sections" area, there are a number of conditions available to help you determine which criteria you want to use for restricting access to rooms.
This room, "MH200", is currently only available to ANY section whose Course Code contains Accounting or Economics.
When a scheduler attempts to schedule sections whose Course Code does NOT contain either Accounting or Economics, this room will not appear in the list of available rooms.
Example 2
In the below example, only one department can book this room from 8a-5p, and then all other departments can book it from 5p-8a.
Departments
Adding a department to the “Department” field will not restrict the room to a particular department, and instead is used with the Room Release functionality described above.
Exclude from Optimizer
If “Exclude from Optimizer” is set to “Yes”, the room is only available for manual scheduling.
Online Space
Overview
If “Online Space” is set to “Yes”, then the room will be ignored for double bookings and will not be assigned by the Optimizer.
Banner Consideration
When a room is marked “Online Space” in Coursedog, any sections that have a meeting assigned to that Online Space will update the “Override Indicator” to “O”.
This means that in a nightly section merge, Coursedog will attempt to update all meetings with that room assignment, which can easily pass the 100 entities threshold and fail night after night.
To resolve, review the downloaded full merge report where the threshold was exceeded and make sure all/majority (and that others are expected) of the updates were as follows: "differences":[{"path":"times[0].overrideIndicator","coursedog":"O"}]}}]
Once confirmed, you can run a manual merge for that term of sections and allow the threshold to be passed and Coursedog will update the Banner meetings with the override indicator.
This mirrors Banner behavior as well, but Coursedog has to replicate it because the online room field on the Rooms is Coursedog-only and not integrated with Banner.
Hide in Scheduling/Events
If “Hide in Scheduling” is set to “Yes”, the room will not appear for a user to assign in Scheduling.
If “Hide in Events” is set to “Yes”, the room will not appear for a user to select in Events.
Effective Start Date & Effective End Date
“Effective Start Date” and “Effective End Date” define when the room will show up in results (i.e. if a section takes place outside of these dates, the room will be unable to be selected / assigned to the section and its meeting patterns).
In cases where a term / session date is being applied to sections, you must ensure that rooms you wish to be used for that term / session fall within the date ranges of that term / session as well or the rooms will be unable to be assigned to sections using those dates.
Although you can add effective start and end dates for rooms, note that Coursedog does not currently support room versioning. If you need to accommodate room effective dated changes for multi-term scheduling, this troubleshooting entry could help.
Room Fixed Cost, Room Hourly Cost & Owners
These fields have no downstream effect in Scheduling.
Viewing & Editing Rooms
Overview | How to Edit a Room | If Unable to Edit Rooms | Updating Room Settings in Bulk (Workaround)
Overview
PATH: Academic Scheduling > Rooms
When you click to view or edit a room, its profile will include everything you saw during setup, along with the courses and exams that the room has been assigned to for the selected term. There is a calendar view option for this as well.
In addition to editing its settings and viewing assigned sections, you will have the option to add blocked out times (for directions on that, see “Blocked Out Times” below).
Note that inactive rooms will be filtered out by default in the ‘Rooms’ tab. Inactive rooms will still be included in the ‘Rooms List’ export.
How to Edit a Room
Navigate to Academic Scheduling > Rooms.
Select the room you wish to edit. This will open its Room Profile.
Make direct edits into settings. Changes will be saved automatically.
If Unable to Edit Rooms
If the field options are not listed as “Editable” on the Room Template, you will not be able to edit, and the room details will appear as shown in the below screenshot. Steps to help you fix this are outlined below.
Step 1: Navigate to Academic Scheduling > Settings > Templates
Step 2: Select “Room Template”.
Step 3: Click any fields that were not editable in the room profile, and check the box under “Editable”.
Step 4: You may also decide which roles will be able to edit room forms in the field below the editable check box.
After checking and making each field “editable”, each room’s form should look like this:
Updating Room Settings in Bulk (Workaround)
Currently, there is no functionality to mass update room settings within the UI. For example, reducing the room capacity for all rooms across the board to accommodate distancing requirements. To achieve this, Coursedog recommends the update be made in the SIS which will then push to the UI. Alternatively, a CSV upload could be utilized.
Blocked Out Times
PATH: Academic Scheduling > Rooms > (Select Room) > Blocked Out Times
Overview
Rooms and Buildings have a “Blocked Out Times” tab which allows users to define the times when a room or building is not available for scheduling. If a user is assigning rooms to a section, and that section's time overlaps with a room's blocked out times, that room will not show up in the list of available rooms.
Related Rules
A “Room Blocked Out Time Conflict” and “Building Blocked Out Time Conflict” rule can be turned on to see if any sections with existing room assignments violate the block out time restrictions.
Using Room Release Filters to Prioritize Room Scheduling
Overview | Click to Release Rooms | Rooms Have Been Released for Assignment | Releasing or Locking Rooms
Overview
When you select Rooms on the left-side navigation bar, you will see one of two options under the header: “Click to release rooms” or “Click to edit or lock rooms”.
Coursedog will default to allowing rooms to be used.
Once rooms are locked, they will not be available (and will need to be released to become available again).
This functionality is useful if schools want to follow the process of “releasing rooms” vs making rooms editable or not editable in the Section Template.
Click to Release Rooms
This means your rooms are locked from assignment and Coursedog will display "No rooms found" (shown below) if someone tries to assign a room to a section in the section editing modal.
Rooms Have Been Released for Assignment
If you see "Rooms have been released for assignment" this indicates some or all of the rooms are released for scheduling.
Releasing or Locking Rooms
When you select “Click to edit or lock rooms”, you will have the ability to release or lock rooms based on three options in the “What types of rooms should be released?” dropdown: “department rooms”, “all”, and “none”.
Department Rooms
Selecting "Department Rooms" releases rooms that are owned by departments, as defined by the Departments field for that room.
In the below example, we are releasing rooms to departments based on the Attribute of "Pre-Assigned."
You can also release on “Room Type”; this would allow you to release labs before lecture halls, for example.
All
Selecting "All" releases all rooms.
If you wish to ensure visibility for ALL rooms, you must select “None” under “Select Room Filter Type”. Otherwise, if you have any item selected under “Select Room Filter Type”, Coursedog will treat this as an empty filter value and not release any rooms.
None
Selecting "None" locks all the rooms.
Using Field Options to Restrict Access to Rooms
Overview
You can use field options to restrict access to scheduling rooms so rooms can only be selected based on a role or a term.
How To Do It
PATH: Academic Scheduling > Settings > Templates
Step 1: On the "Section Template", scroll down to the "Meeting Patterns & Rooms" card.
Step 2: Click on the gear icon to open the "Meeting Patterns Advanced Settings" modal.
Step 3: Scroll down to the row labeled "Times Room", where you will have the ability to make some changes to how these fields are edited using Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).
Step 4: Determine how you would like to adjust settings based on the following:
Make the Field Editable – When making changes to this field, note that only the role listed in this field can make room assignments in the section editing modal. If this box is marked "Editable" but no roles are selected, this means any account that can edit sections will be able to make room assignments. In the example below, only the Coursedog Super Admin can make room assignments.
Make the Field Editable by Terms – When making changes to this field, note that only the term listed in this field is eligible for room assignments in the section editing modal. If this box is marked "Editable" but no terms are selected, this means any term with open, editable sections will be able to make room assignments. In the example below, only the Spring 2021 term allows room assignments.
