RELATIONSHIPS: Setting Up Section Relationships

Kristan Northrup

Modified on: Mon, Mar 27, 2023 at 5:45 PM

Table of Contents

Overview
Types of Linked Sections
Integrations & Section Relationships
Viewing the Relationship Dashboard
Adding a Relationship in the Relationship Dashboard
Accessing Relationships in the Section Editor
Adding Relationships in the Section Editor
Related Articles

Overview

It is very important to define Section Relationships prior to assigning meeting patterns and rooms. This article explains types of linked sections you can set up in Academic Scheduling; how to manage them; and integration considerations.

Types of Linked Sections

Linked sections are for defining time 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 pattern 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 pattern 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 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 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 patterns 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 relationship links sections together so they cannot be in the same room, over any meeting pattern selected. Coursedog issues a warning if a meeting pattern change violates the relationship.	Grand Lakes University uses the Different Room relationship to ensure the Organic Chemistry sections do not use the Physics lab spaces.

Integrations & Section Relationships

Overview

Only relationships defined as “Linked Sections” in Coursedog are supported in the integration (POST).
What Coursedog defines as a “Linked Section” is not the same thing as "linked sections" in Banner.
“Linked Sections" in Coursedog define a generic relationship type closer to "combined sections" in PeopleSoft and "Crosslisted" sections in Banner.
The following relationship types are not supported and must be input directly into your SIS: Stacked, Co-convening, CoRequisite, PreRequisite, and Spanned.

Recommendations

Where a relationship such as linked sections exists in the schedule, the department scheduler should review the SIS to ensure the sections are not set as overlapping (preventing enrollment) and the enrollment caps (especially for linked sections, e.g. labs) are set correctly.
It is recommended to investigate if adding Time, Instructor, and Room override flags in your SIS is advised to eliminate errors.

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).
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).
Within the Section Editor, 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. Users should wait until “Syncing section with SIS” stops displaying in the Section Editor before adding relationships.
For additional information on setting up a linked section relationship for a PeopleSoft school, see here.

Viewing 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.

Permission Settings

PATH: Academic Scheduling > Settings > Roles > (Select Role) > Relationships

Access to the Relationship Dashboard is managed by Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC). Adjusting the RBAC per role, you can determine which roles have access to this tool. There is a section labeled "Relationships" for each role at the above path. The Super Admin has the ability to enable viewing, editing, and adding of relationships as seen in the screenshot below.

Adding a Relationship in the Relationship Dashboard

PATH: Academic Scheduling > Relationships

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

Step Two:

Input a name for the relationship.
Best practice is to give the relationship a descriptive name so those who have access to the Relationship Dashboard can easily find and understand the relationships available during the term.

Step Three:

Choose the overall type of relationship.
Currently only "Linked Sections" are supported.

Step Four:

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 Five:

Define the specific type of linked relationship using the “relationship” dropdown.
In the above example, we defined the linked relationship as “Same Room”.

Step Six: Add detailed notes about the relationship.

Step Seven: Establish the preferred room capacity.

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

Step Nine:

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 Editor and create the sections.

Step Ten:

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

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

Step Thirteen: 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 clicking “Save” after creating or editing the Relationship. 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 below.

Accessing Relationships in the Section Editor

Overview

The Relationship Dashboard is not the only place to view relationships. You can also access and configure relationships from within the Section Editor. In order to do that, you need to first configure field options.

Configuring Field Options

PATH: Academic Scheduling > Settings > Templates > Section Template

Step One: Navigate to the above path.

Step Two:

Scroll down until you find the "Relationships" card as shown below.
Click on the gear icon to open the Relationship Advanced Settings modal.

Step Three:

The modal contains three sub-tabs of configurations: Parent Fields, Nested Fields, and Field Option Settings, as shown below.
Configure fields on the “Parent Fields” tab.
Under Parent Fields, the Super Admin has the capability to configure the fields found in the Relationships Modal using RBAC. You are able to make these fields editable by role and/or by term.
It is best practice to hide the "Cross Enrolled Sections" relationship, as this functionality has been discontinued.
Users can click into the “label” field to change the display name of the relationship. This display name is shown in “relationships” and “edit relationship”.

Step Four:

Configure fields on the “Nested Fields” tab.
Under Nested Fields, the Super Admin has the ability to hide the different options found in the Relationship modal to customize the functionality to match your business practices.

Step Five:

Configure fields under “Field Option Settings”.
"Field Option Settings" is where you can customize which relationships are available to schedulers or users of the Relationship Dashboard.