Get instant help using the UPK!

Have you had a chance to try the User Productivity Kit (UPK) yet? The UPK is a help feature which allows you to see, try, and print instructions for U of M-specific business processes at your workstation by clicking the “Help” link in PeopleSoft. In a recent survey, 96% of our users who tried the UPK reported finding it helpful. Check out our UPK guide to get started.

Whether you’ve used the UPK or not, we want to hear from folks like you about using this tool. Take our brief UPK Survey.

Improvement made to Facility ID field in Collaborative Class Scheduling (CCS)

If you are a departmental class scheduler, be aware that effective Thursday, October 29, the facility ID field (room assignment) in CCS will be automatically dropped upon page save if you make a change to the following fields:

• meeting pattern date range
• days of class meeting
• times of class meeting
• increase of enrollment capacity that exceeds room capacity

The new Class Permission page

The Class Permission page in PeopleSoft allows staff with access to fine tune the restrictions of individual permission numbers. When a user goes into the Class Permissions page, they will see this:

In the Defaults section, it appears that permission numbers have all of the available overrides checked, however, this is misleading. The Defaults section is used, rather, to indicate which restrictions any new permissions numbers generated by the user will, by default, override.

To see what each existing permission number will override, click on either the Permissions tab or the “show all fields” icon. In the example below, the permission number is set to override Requisites Not Met and Consent Required restriction.

Here, staff can alter the ‘Permission Valid For’ checkboxes for individual permission numbers. In this example to, perhaps, allow a student into a closed class or into a class outside of the student’s career restriction.

More information on class permissions can be found in the Class Permissions UPK topics, by clicking ‘Help’ from a PeopleSoft page.

Welcome new Training Update recipients

The ASR Training Update is an internal monthly newsletter of assorted Training & Support Team initiatives, general updates, and other matters of interest student records users at the University of Minnesota. The ASR Training Update has recently expanded to reach all PeopleSoft Campus Solutions users.

Saving favorite pages in PeopleSoft

When saving favorite pages within PeopleSoft it’s important to follow the correct process in order to avoid carrying a student ID number with you every time to navigate to that page from your Favorites menu. To add a PeopleSoft page as a favorite:

1. Navigate to its search page.
2. If any criteria, such as a student’s ID number, carried onto the search page criteria, click the Clear button.
3. Select the Favorites drop down menu and then Add to Favorites.
4. Change the description, if you wish, and click OK.

If you’ve accidentally set up a favorite page so that a student’s ID number carries onto it, you may take the following corrective action:

1. Go to Favorites > Edit Favorites.
2. Delete the Favorite page and Save.
3. Clear your Internet browser’s history.
4. Log back into PeopleSoft and save the page as a Favorite again, using the above instructions.

Reminder: ECAS Short Title Appears on Transcript

 “Course Title Short” is a required field in ECAS. It is limited to 30 characters, including spaces, and will appear on student transcripts. Because it appears on the transcript, ECAS editors should be thoughtful about any word abbreviations used in the short title of a course. For example, if the title of the course contains the word “Consumers,” you may want to avoid abbreviating that word as “Cons.” Doing so might suggest the class is about convicts rather than consumers.

New Effective Date procedures on Student Program Plan page

Following the PeopleSoft upgrade, a change was made to how effective dates are used on the Student Program Plan page once a student applies to graduate. The Effective Date for the “DATA” row added when a student applies to graduate now defaults to the current date, rather than the first day of the term. Staff should also use the current effective date for any changes that take place after the student has applied to graduate. Continue to use the first day of the term for Program Plan changes (major/minor declarations, sub-plan additions, etc.) when they occur prior to the student applying to graduate.