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Standard Meeting Patterns

More flexibility with Standard Meeting Patterns would be nice!  We should be able to set up standard meeting times based on terms, sessions, academic orgs, and even individual courses.  Summer terms are shorter than a fall and spring, therefore the standard meeting pattern needs to be longer.  Same thing for sessions within a term.  Some academic orgs require their classes to be longer than others based on the content of the class.  A 1 hour credit course does not need to meet as long as a 6 hour credit course.

Great start...more needed

I think this is a great start, but that there are more gaps in the functionality that can be identified.

-Enforce row level security to facilities.  The facilities table has the ability to tie a facility to an organization.  Allowing insitutions to enforce that for the Schedule component would be nice.

-Add time based (time periods?) security.  We frequently need to turn off access to the schedule for 1) optimization and 2) once the term starts (prevent class cancellations).

-Combined section improvements.  Departments should be able to combine sections on the Maintain Class Schedule compoenent itself.  Once combined their should be a section designated as primary and changes made to the meeting pattern and/or combined enrollment capacities should be able to roll to the other sections.  This should be configurable to allow departments to determine whether or not to lock the instructors together or allow different instructors per combined section.  

I will keep brainstorming to come up with other issues we frequently run accross.

Agree!

We encounter many of the same issues as are mentioned in the paper and comments.

Meeting patterns and attributes being the primary problems that cause us to loose productivity time or not be able to reflect accurately in PS what is going on. 

We do not yet use 3rd party but are going to be in the exploratory stage very shortly. For us the capacity to pull more data out of a system is key - in viewing scheduling more strategically. Not being able to have correct meeting patterns in the system means it always needs editing before we pull anything out to put in printed format. 

How we can get at the data by view, as was mentioned, really is cumbersome now so functionality that allowed flexibility in this would be outstanding. We currently have our own customized reports but the maintainence of them requires effort when changes come through - so delivered functionality that allows better sort options would be most welcomed. 

Scheduling Consultation Paper

Some key issues were raised in the paper regarding the inflexibility of meeting patterns. Yes, we definitely need a way to enter courses that meet every other week, that meet in multiple rooms, or in one room one day, and a different room the next, etc. The attributes not linking to the catalog is also a major headache. I agree with Tanya that we do need a better way to view class/event schedule by room & by week - not just by day. A calendar view would be great!

scheduling

Paul, what are the 3rd party systems you refer to as handling these issues well?  I have heard from others that use Resource25 and AdAstra, but I am not hearing that these software programs are handling all the issues.  What other software is being used?

Scheduling Consultation Paper

Thinking "big picture" I think the reality may be that with many institutions running 3rd party Space Scheduling Software (for academic as well as non-academic room utilization) as well as 3rd party Learning Management systems (with Online Events that have no physical space needs, as well as Online components of physical classes), there is a breakdown or fundamental question of what unique capabilities PeopleSoft should offer.  

In other words if these 3rd party systems are now handling most of the "time and place" needs of the university, why should PeopleSoft try to duplicate that?  

Bottom line, maybe what is needed in PeopleSoft is a toggle where an institution that uses 3rd party space software can "turn off" Meeting pattern usage in PS entirely and instead only import space/time information from 3rd party into some tables in PS that would be used only for reference purposes such as Reporting and Self-Service view.

This solution is probably not perfect but you see the point I'm making, the last thing we want is PeopleSoft trying to replicate functionality that 3rd party systems already absorb very well.

Scheduling Consultation paper

Thank you for writing this paper.  Our institution currently has not purchased additional scheduling software to use with PeopleSoft.  We are exploring these options now.  However, I do like the idea of Oracle fixing some of the issues we have with Scheduling within Campus Solutions.

We struggle with a way to enter events that are non-class related (ie: Student Life events, community events, staff training, optional tutoring and orientations, etc.) If we use Events, we can only enter an event for one day and in one room, we need to be able to add events for multiple days and in more than one room and include setup information.  How do other schools do this?

I agree that the options for meeting pattern entry are limited and unflexible. We also need a way to view a Class Schedule by Room, Class Schedule by Instructor, and Class Schedule by program in a block "calendar" type view.  Do any other schools have a way to do this?

Thank you for sharing,

Tanya Schwartz, Scheduling Coordinator, Northcentral Technical College, Wausau, WI.

scheduling changes

How about delivered security so you can control which areas/orgs can update which courses at different times of the years?