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RELATIONSHIPS: Creating Section Relationships

Table of Contents

Overview
Types of Linked Sections
Integrations & Section Relationships
Adding a Relationship in the Relationship Dashboard
Adding Relationships in the Section Editing Modal
Deleting Relationships
Related Articles

Overview

  • Relationships are used for defining time or room connections between sections.

  • It is very important to define Section Relationships prior to assigning meeting patterns and rooms, as relationships can impact your assignments.

  • Whether relationships are created in Coursedog by Department Schedulers or Admins varies from institution to institution.

  • What you can see and do for relationships (i.e. View, edit, and/or add) – and where – is determined by role and field permission settings configured by an Admin. 

  • This article explains types of linked sections you can set up in Academic Scheduling; how to manage them; and integration considerations.  

  • For Banner-specific instructions, go here

Types of Linked Sections

  • Linked sections are for defining time and room relationships between sections.

  • For example, two sections can have a non-overlapping relationship which means they cannot be scheduled during overlapping meeting times.

  • The below table breaks down all of the different types of linked sections.

Linked Section Type

Definition

Example

Same Day

This relationship links sections together by day and issues a warning if a different meeting day violates the relationship.

Grand Lakes University wants to ensure all Writing Across the Curriculum courses meet on the same day to ensure optimal participation at the end of term event featuring an all-day conference.


Same Time

 

 

 

This relationship links sections together by time and issues a warning if a different meeting time violates the relationship.

Grand Lakes University wants to ensure all sections of Food Prep Practicum I meet at the same time (regardless of the day) to ensure students can observe and serve in the Dining Hall.


Same Room

 

  • This relationship links sections together so they appear in the same room and issues a warning if a different room violates the relationship.

  • This relationship causes all double-booked instructors and room conflicts between the sections to be ignored.

Grand Lakes University wants to make sure all sections of Human Anatomy are meeting in the same room because there is only 1 facility for the Cadaver Lab.


Same Time Same Day

 

 

This relationship links sections together so they appear at the same time on the same day and issues a warning if a different meeting pattern violates the relationship.

Grand Lakes University has multiple sections each term that participate in a bi-annual Global Issues Conference. Each section's students must present their cases during the conference and having these courses meet at the same time and the same day will ensure optimal participation in the program.


Same Time Different Day

 

 

This relationship links sections together so they appear at the same time on different days and issues a warning if a meeting pattern change violates the relationship.

Grand Lakes University offers a cohort with a local business that offers college credit courses during lunch hours. This relationship allows the flexibility for room and day assignments but keeps the classes during set hours.


Same Time Same Day Same Room 

 

 

  • This relationship links sections together so they appear at the same time on the same day in the same room and issues a warning if a different meeting pattern violates the relationship

  • This relationship causes all double-booked instructors and room conflicts between the sections to be ignored.

Grand Lakes refers to sections with this relationship as "Cross-Listing." Sections with this relationship typically have students register for different sections but they share a room and instructor.


Same Time Different Day Same Room

 

 

This relationship links sections together so they appear at the same time on different days but in the same room and issues a warning if a meeting pattern change violates the relationship.

Grand Lakes offers Hy-Flex courses where there are live, online components as well as in-person sessions. This relationship helps preserve a sense of balance in using the physical space so that the meeting pattern is preserved and the room remains utilized.

Different Time

 

 

This relationship links sections together so they must have different meeting patterns to prevent time overlap. Coursedog issues a warning if a meeting pattern change violates the relationship.


Grand Lakes University uses this relationship to link sections in the Accounting major from overlapping times during the week.

Different Day

 

 

This relationship links sections together so they must have different meeting days to prevent day overlap. Coursedog issues a warning if a meeting pattern change violates the relationship.

Grand Lakes University uses the Different Day relationship to ensure doctoral programs in Education do not meet the same days as the undergrad cohorts, ensuring they have enough faculty capacity during the week.


Non-Overlapping

 

 

This relationship prevents linked sections from being offered on the same days at the same time. 


Note that the non-overlapping relationship does not take the start and end date of the sections into account. If, for example, there is a non-overlapping relationship between two sections with start and end dates that do not overlap, however their meeting patterns overlap, the sections will be flagged as violating the non-overlapping relationship.

Grand Lakes University offers a business cohort program and all students must take a prescribed sequence of courses. The Non-Overlapping relationship ensures these classes are never overlapping so this group of students is certain to get the classes they need to graduate on time.

Different Time Different Day

 

 

This relationship links sections together so they must have different meeting patterns to prevent time AND day overlap. Coursedog issues a warning if a meeting pattern change violates the relationship.

Grand Lakes University uses the Different Time, Different Day relationship to help balance courses in the Nutrition Science Major to help students find more space for major courses.


Different Room

This is for sections that must meet in different rooms.

Grand Lakes University uses the “Different Room” relationship to offer rooms in various campus locations.


Integrations & Section Relationships

Overview | Best Practice | Additional Notes | PeopleSoft | Banner Direct
Banner Ethos | Colleague | Jenzabar One/EX | Jenzabar CX
Anthology Student | PowerCampus | Workday Student

Overview

  • For most SISs, only relationships defined as “Linked Sections” in Coursedog are supported in the integration (POST). That being said, an admin can re-name that relationship type in Coursedog to align with your preferred terminology. 

  • See the Banner section below for an exception to this. 

  • The following relationship types are not supported and must be input directly into your SIS: Stacked, Co-convening, CoRequisite, PreRequisite, and Spanned. If added in Coursedog, they will be wiped upon merge.


Best Practice

You could resolve merge errors by checking the override indicator in your SIS. This would allow double bookings so use your best judgment, as this may have unintended consequences.

 

Additional Notes

  • If real-time integration is turned on, relationships will sync in real time along with sections.

  • Relationships cannot be added before the section has been created in the SIS (otherwise the real-time relationship sync will fail). You should merge sections before relationships in real-time. An Admin can restrict relationship creation to already existing sections by configuring the Section Template. If you are an Admin, go here to see how to set that up. 

  • Once a user creates a section, if real-time integration is enabled, that section has to be sent to the SIS to generate a Call Number (also known as a Class Number or CRN).

  • Generally speaking users can save the section and relationship at the same time, and then Coursedog will sync the section before the relationship in the backend. However, as a best practice we recommend saving and merging the section before adding a relationship.

  • Within the section editing modal, Coursedog is able to indicate to users when a newly created section is syncing to prevent them from overwriting any changes while the sync is occurring.


PeopleSoft

  • What Coursedog defines as a “Linked Section” is not the same thing as "linked sections" in PeopleSoft. 

  • “Linked Sections” in Coursedog define a generic relationship type closer to "combined sections" in PeopleSoft.
  • For more information on supported relationship types in PeopleSoft, go here.

  • For additional information on setting up a linked section relationship for a PeopleSoft school, see here.


  • We support both Banner Crosslisting (ssrxlst) and Banner Linked Sections (ssrlink). 

  • For more information on supported relationships in Banner Direct, go here.

  • For additional information on setting up a linked section relationship for a Banner school, see here.


  • We support GETS of Banner Crosslisting data from ssrxlst.

  • For more information on supported relationships in Banner Ethos, go here.


Colleague

  • You will need to list the section that you want to be primary as first in the relationship. How you go about this will depend on where you’re creating the relationship: 
    • If you create the relationship in the Relationships screen/page, then the order that you add the sections to the relationship is the order that they are listed. For example, if you add ABC100-01 first, then it will be the first section in the relationship and thus will be the primary section in Colleague. 

    • If you create the relationship from within the section editing modal, the section that you're on when you create the relationship will always be the last section listed. Therefore, if you’re creating relationships via the Section Dashboard, you need to create the relationship on the non-primary section in order for the sections to be ordered properly and assigned correctly in Colleague.
  • For more information on supported relationships in Colleague Direct, go here and here.

  • For more information on supported relationships in Colleague Ethos, go here.


Jenzabar One/EX

For more information on supported relationships in Jenzabar One/EX, go here.


Jenzabar CX

For more information on supported relationships in Jenzabar One/EX, go here.


Anthology Student

For more information on supported relationships in Anthology Student, go here.


PowerCampus

For more information on supported relationships in PowerCampus, go here.


Workday Student

For more information on supported relationship types in Workday Student, go here.


Adding a Relationship in the Relationship Dashboard

PATH: Academic Scheduling > Relationships

Overview

  • The Relationship Dashboard is visible on the left-hand navigation bar at the above path. 

  • Not all users will be able to see the Relationship Dashboard – that will depend on their Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) permission settings.  

  • Relationship names and functionality varies somewhat by SIS.


Step 1: Click “+ Add Relationship” to open the “Add Relationship” modal.

 

Step 2: 

  • Input a name for the relationship. 

  • Best practice is to name it what it is called in your SIS (they typically have a set format).

 

Step 3:

  • Choose the overall type of relationship.

  • For most SISs, only "Linked Sections" are supported (see “Banner” section above for the exception).

 

Step 4:

  • If you want the “combined max enrollment” to be different from the sum of the max enrollment capacity for each section, enter that here.

  • If you leave this blank, the combined max enrollment will be the sum of the max enrollment for all sections in the relationship.

  • Depending on settings, you may be able to view the max enrollment for each section in the relationship after they’ve been added to the relationship (see Step Ten below).

 

Step 5: 

  • Define the specific type of linked relationship using the “relationship” dropdown.

  • In the above example, we defined the linked relationship as “Same Room”.

 

Step 6: Add detailed notes about the relationship.

 

Step 7: Establish the preferred room capacity.

 

Step 8: Choose the courses that contain the sections you want to be in the relationship.

 

Step 9: 

  • Use the “Sections to add” drop-down menu to view available sections.

  • If there are no available sections, you must go back to the Section Dashboard and create the sections.

 

Step 10: 

  • Click the “+” sign to add a section.

  • If you don’t click the “+” sign, the section will NOT be added when you click “save”.

  • Depending on advanced relationship settings, at this step you may be able to view the max enrollment capacity for each section by hovering over the “i” icon.


Step 11: View and confirm the sections you’ve added to the relationship are correct.

 

Step 12: Repeat steps 8-10 as needed to add more sections to the relationship.

 

Step 13: 

  • When you are done, click "Save".

  • When creating or editing a section relationship within the Relationship Dashboard, you will be able to see the conflicts of the underlying sections associated with the relationship before fully saving the relationship. If there are conflicts, they will automatically display in a pop-up module after you click “Save”. Required rules are not enforced in this view, as required rules are only enforced when saving sections, and not when saving relationships in the Relationship Dashboard.

 

Additional Note

Admins can choose to show or hide this section information, including the max enrollment tooltip, in the Section Template (Academic Scheduling > Settings > Templates > Section Template > Relationships Card > Advanced Settings Icon). You can learn more about Relationships Advanced Settings here.

 

Adding Relationships in the Section Editing Modal

Overview | How To Do It | Section Editing Modal View

Overview

If field-based permissions and institutional practices allow, Department Schedulers can add or edit relationships in the Section Editing Modal. 

How To Do It

PATH: Academic Scheduling > Section Dashboard

 

Step 1: Find a section you want to add to a relationship.

 

Step 2: Click into the section to open it.

 

Step 3: 

  • Locate the “relationships” card.

  • The below screenshot shows the field options are set so that “Linked Sections” is an available option.

 

Step 4: 

  • Click on "+Linked Section" to open the relationship modal.

  • This is the same modal seen in the Relationship Dashboard.

 

Step 5: Follow the same steps outlined above under “Adding a Relationship in the Relationship Dashboard”.


Section Editing Modal View

Once a section relationship is created, it will appear in the Section Editing Modal as follows:


Deleting Relationships

  • You can delete a Relationship entirely by either: 

    • Opening it in the Relationships Dashboard and selecting the “Delete” option at the bottom of the “Edit Relationship” modal. 

    • Opening one of the Sections; clicking into the Relationship; and then selecting “Delete” on the Edit Relationship modal”. 

  • You can remove a section from a relationship via the section editing modal or Relationship Dashboard by selecting the trash can next to the section name at the bottom of the “Edit Relationship” modal. 

  • If you delete a linked section, the relationship will be deleted for the sibling automatically. 

  • If you delete a relationship from a section, the relationship will be deleted from the other section as well. E.g. If BIO1300 - 001 and BIO2200 - 001 are linked, and you delete the relationship from the BIO1300 - 001 section editing modal, it will automatically be deleted for BIO2200 - 001. 

 

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