Table of Contents
Overview
Custom Fields
Prebuilt Fields
Prebuilt Cards
Question Settings
Related Articles
Overview
This article captures details that are unique to the Section Template. You can learn more about details that apply to all templates here.
Custom Fields
File Input
A custom "File" input can be added to the Section Template, allowing users to attach files to sections.
URL
There is a custom URL input that can be used to create a hyperlink for the section editor.
This hyperlink also supports dynamic injection of specific fields, whose values will be dependent on each section.You can learn more about that here.
Prebuilt Fields
Part Of Term | Section Number | Preferred Rooms & Preferred Buildings
Cross Listed Courses | Allow Integration | Rule Exceptions
Part Of Term
The “Part of Term” question can default for each new section from a "Default Part Of Term" field which is specific on the term object. Currently the "Default Part Of Term" value must be specific for each term and will only happen automatically for PeopleSoft clients.
Section Number
Users can modify the default number of leading zeros for a newly generated section number.
If it is set to "0", then a new section will have a section number of (1, 2, 3....).
If it is set to "1", then a new section will have a section number of (01, 02, 03....).
Preferred Rooms & Preferred Buildings
There are also multi-select prebuilt fields available for “Preferred Rooms” and “Preferred Buildings”.
These fields allow users to specify their specific room(s) and building(s) preferences within the Section modal.
See how these work in the Section Editor here.
Preferred Rooms and Preferred Buildings are also supported by our Section Optimizer algorithm (for details on the Section Optimizer, refer to this article).
Cross Listed Courses
This is a read-only (display only) field found under “Question Bank > Prebuilt Fields”. If added to a template, it will display any existing Course Cross Listings. You can learn more about common use cases for this field in this article.
Allow Integration
"Allow Integration" is found under “Question Bank > Prebuilt Fields”. This prebuilt field and functionality allows specific entities to opt in/out of sending updates to the SIS (POSTs). Please refer to this article for an overview on behavior and supported entities.
Rule Exceptions
If you add this to your template, then whenever a rule exception is approved, it will show up in this field in the Section Editor.
Most institutions have this field hidden, but if a school would like to ensure these values aren’t rolled over, they can surface it in the editor..
It should definitely be locked/read-only though (i.e. de-select “editable” in the field’s question settings), given its intended functionality.
Prebuilt Cards
Instructional Methods Card | Meeting Patterns & Rooms Card | Instructors | Relationships
Course Materials Card (PeopleSoft Only)
Instructional Methods Card
Overview | Advanced Settings
Associating Instructional Method Records with Individual Meeting(s) and Instructor(s)
Overview
PATH: Settings > Templates > Section Template > Instructional Methods
The “Instructional Methods” pre-built card in the Section Template allows users to create various Instructional Method records (i.e. Lab, Lecture, etc.) for a given section.
This article details how to set up your card; you can see functional use cases for end users here.
Advanced Settings
Editable | Not Editable | Nested Fields | Default from Course
By clicking into “Advanced Settings”, the Instructional Methods card can be configured to be Hidden or not in the top left. The card will be Hidden by default and therefore will not be visible in the Section Editor. If the card is visible, then users will be able to see it in the Section Ed
Editable
Additionally, you may configure the Instructional Methods card to be editable or not by checking/un-checking the check-box in the first “Instructional Methods” row. If the card is editable, users will be able to add records, remove records, and alter record data (i.e. edit nested fields, assuming those are configured to be Editable by the user).
Not Editable
If the card is not editable, then users will be unable to add, remove, or edit records in any capacity.
Nested Fields
Nested fields (like “Name” and “Code”) can be individually configured to be editable, visible, and/or required by manipulating their configuration in the Instructional Methods card. “Code” is hard-coded to be a required field since it is needed for associated downstream functionality.
ADDITIONAL CUSTOM NESTED FIELDS
Additional custom nested fields (for example, “Contact Measure” or “Instructor Load” for Colleague institutions) can be added to the Instructional Methods card through the back-end. Reach out to your Customer Success implementation team or Support for assistance doing so.
Default from Course
In the top right of the Instructional Methods card in the Section Template, there is a toggle for “Default From Course”. If enabled, Instructional Method records (and associated nested field data) will be defaulted in sections from the course record upon section creation. From here, users may be able to edit these records and their nested field information depending on the card and nested field editability configuration outlined a
Associating Instructional Method Records with Individual Meeting(s) and Instructor(s)
Overview | Associating with Meetings | Associating with Instructors
Overview
Instructional Method records can also be associated with individual meeting(s) and instructor(s).
Associating with Meetings
Within the “Meeting Patterns & Rooms” pre-built card (Settings > Templates > Section Template > Meeting Patterns & Rooms), there is a single-select nested field for “Meeting Pattern Instructional Method'. This field is hidden by default. If made visible, users will be able to see the nested fields in the Section Editor (navigate to Meeting Patterns & Rooms > Set Details) and associate meetings with an Instructional Method. The Options in the drop-down correspond to the Instructional Method “Code” values defined in the “Instructional Methods” card for the given section.
Associating with Instructors
Within the “Instructors” pre-built card (Settings > Templates > Section Template > Instructors), there is a single-select nested field for “Instructor Instructional Method”. This field is hidden by default.
If made visible, users will be able to see the nested fields in the Section Editor (navigate to Instructors > Set Instructor Roles & Details) and associate meetings with an Instructional Method.
The options in the drop-down correspond to the Instructional Method “Code” values defined in the “Instructional Methods” card for the given section.
If a given Instructional Method is selected in the “Meeting Pattern Instructional Method” and/or the “Instructor Instructional Method” nested fields (i.e. “LEC”’), and that Instructional Method record is subsequently removed from the “Instructional Methods” card (i.e. “LEC” is deleted as a record), then the above-mentioned nested field values will be “wiped” since the original value is no longer one of the options defined in the Section’s Instructional Methods card. In the case of the “Instructor Instructional Method” nested field, if this field had been set to “Required”, users will be forced to input a new value before being able to save edits to the section.
Meeting Patterns & Rooms Card
Overview | PeopleSoft Only | Banner Only
Overview
Within the Meeting Patterns & Rooms card, you can select the blue settings widget to view and configure nested fields within this card.
You can learn more about the use cases for the "Ignore Relationships" label here.
You can hide “Select TBA” in the Room & Meeting Pattern Modals.
There are dedicated controls for “Room Select TBA” and “Times Select TBA”. These are intended to give users the ability to hide these inputs from the room select and meeting pattern select modals, respectively, in the Section Editor.
Note that “Room Select TBA” and “Times Select TBA” are not hidden by default (to be in-line with our legacy functionality). If “Room Select TBA” and “Times Select TBA” are hidden, the applicable button does NOT show up in the Meeting Patterns & Rooms modal within a section.
Note that when Times Start Date and Times End Date are not hidden they will show up within the Meeting Patterns & Rooms card and within ‘Set Details’
Best Practice: During POST Testing, we recommend validating with your Coursedog onboarding team whether selecting TBA for the room and/or meeting pattern assignment causes merge issues. If it does, hide the applicable button entirely in order to prevent such errors.
PeopleSoft Only
Topic | Free Format Topic | Print Topic on Transcript | Meeting Pattern Code
You may set the “Topic”, “Free Format Topic”, “Print Topic on Transcripts”, and “Meeting Pattern Code” labels to “Editable” so that PeopleSoft users may edit this information in the Section Editor. Additional guidance on these PeopleSoft-only labels is as follows:
Topic
Enter a course topic ID to link course topics to class sections.
Topic ID values are defined on PeopleSoft's Catalog Data page and map to CLASS_MTG_PAT.CRS_TOPIC_ID.
You can attach topics to specific class meeting patterns.
Free Format Topic
Enter a free format topic if a predefined topic ID is not suitable.
If a professor wants to teach Eng Lit 299 as "19th Century Novelists," but the topic had not been set up as a topic ID, you could enter it as a free format topic.
You can only link free format topics to class meeting patterns.
You cannot assign class meeting pattern topic IDs to combined sections (this would cause data integrity problems). For this reason, the system makes the Topic ID field unavailable on the Meetings page after sections are combined. Instead, only assign free format topics to combined sections.
If you combine sections that already have class meeting pattern topic IDs assigned to them, the system deletes the topic IDs.
Print Topic on Transcript
Make this editable to allow course topics to appear on the advisement report.
Meeting Pattern Code
PeopleSoft users can assign a meeting pattern code that aligns with each meeting pattern in Coursedog. Learn how to do that here.
Banner Only
The following fields are available to be surfaced within the Meeting Pattern & Rooms card, and will be displayed in the Section Editor Meeting Patterns "Additional Details" modal. Please contact your Coursedog onboarding team for assistance surface the following fields, if needed:
Session Credit Hours
Weekly hours
Session Indicator
Instructor Ignore Double Bookings (Override Indicator)
Instructors
What you configure via advanced settings (gear icon) here will impact what appears in the Section Editor under Instructors > Set Instructor Roles & Details.
As noted above under “Associating with Instructors”, the “Instructor Instructional Method” field can be used to associate meetings with an Instructional Method.
You can see how the “Instr. Meeting” field works in the Section Editor here.
Relationships
Renaming Relationships
The types of various "Relationships" can also be re-named. In The Section Template, users can navigate to Relationships > Advanced Settings and specify a custom display name for each relationship option.
These options will show up in the relationship modal when users are adding/editing relationships.
Course Materials Card (PeopleSoft Only)
The Course materials card can be added to the Section Template to support storing textbook and related information on a section. This card matches with what is contained in the SSR_CLASS_TEXTBOOK page in PeopleSoft. This card is hidden by default.
Question Settings
Overview | Visible | Editable by Terms | Editable in Requests | Set Reference Value
Set Default Value | Dynamic Actions | Question Settings for “Select” Question Types
Overview
Many potential question settings are outlined in our All Templates article. See below for additional settings that you might see for certain fields in the Section Template.
Visible
Determines whether or not the field is visible to users. If “visible” is checked, you will have the option to further define which roles are allowed to view this field (default setting is “all roles”).
Editable by Terms
Determines whether or not the field is only edible for certain scheduling terms. If checked, you will have the option to further define during which terms this field can be edited. If no specific terms are selected but the “Editable by terms” box is checked, the field will be editable for all terms.
Editable in Requests
Determines whether or not fields in the Section Template are editable in requests. Learn more here.
Set Reference Value
Overview | How to Do It | Referencing Course Code | Referencing Custom Fields | Additional Note
Overview
This feature allows display of a value referenced from a course from within the section editor.
This differs from the behavior of the "default" configuration, as using "default" will actually persist the value to the section object on creation, while the "Reference Value" solely displays a value but does not impact the contents of the section, and is not persisted in the section.
This use case is to cover instances where a user wants to display something from a course for informational purposes, but not actually allow it to be edited on the section object.
Common examples of course fields that are used as reference fields are: Course Code, Course Departments, and Course Credits.
Because Reference Values do not exist in the section, they cannot be used for filtering purposes (e.g. to filter sections in the Section Editor, Actions, etc.). These fields are locked and uneditable. Additionally, they will not show up in any CSV exports of the data.
Reference fields can be included in rule filters to create custom rules. Learn more here.
They can also be used to create Meeting Pattern filters.
How to Do It
Add a Custom Field to your template.
Click into it to edit its Question Settings.
Click into the “Set reference value” dropdown.
Select the applicable source of this reference (options are Course, Term, and Part of Term).
Under “Set reference value key”, enter the ID of the field you wish to reference from the Course Template in Curriculum Management (this can be found by locating the field on the Course Template in Curriculum; clicking into it; and locating the “Question Id” at the top of Question Settings).
Referencing Course Code
“Course Code” exists on the back-end but not on the Course Template (it’s a combination of Subject Area + Course Number).
If you wish to use Course Code as a reference value, the input will be “code”, as shown below.
Referencing Custom Fields
If the Course Template field you are referencing is a Custom Field, you will need to add “customFields.” before the custom question id when inputting a value for “Set reference value key”.
If a Question Id for the Custom Field is “kkcP6”, for example, the value you input for “Set reference value key” would be “customFields.kkcP6”.
Additional Note
If the field you wish to reference is added to the Course Template after the course was already imported into Scheduling, the field can’t be referenced unless you import the course again.
Set Default Value
The majority of fields allow a custom default. Some fields allow defaulting from the parent course.
You can learn more about this feature here.
Dynamic Actions
Actions generally work the same in Curriculum Management, Academic Scheduling, and Catalogs.
You can find a general overview of how Actions work – and how to set them up – here.
When using the “Instructor” field for an Action on the Section Template, note that it references the Instructor ID rather than the instructor's name.
Question Settings for “Select” Question Types
If you add a “Select” Question Type to your Section Template (Scheduling), Question Settings will include an option to “Set Dynamic Options from Attribute Mappings”.
You can learn more about setting dynamic options here.