PeopleSoft Quick Reference Guide

If you have ever struggled remember the path to a student records page in PeopleSoft, you might find it useful to keep our PeopleSoft Quick Reference Guide handy. It provides paths to many commonly used student records pages in PeopleSoft, and with it's snazzy new design, it provides great decor for posting at your desk. It, along with all of our training manuals and quick step guides, can be found on the training team's manuals web page.

ECAS times out for security

The Electronic Course Authorization System (ECAS) is a web application that allows staff with access to propose new courses and/or update existing courses. As a security feature, ECAS times itself out after a period of inactivity. To prevent the loss of data on your new course proposal or update, we recommend that you click the save button at the bottom of the page every 15-20 minutes. If you forget to do this and are timed out, you will receive an error message, your entry will be lost, and the lost data will need to be re-entered.

Course Guide retirement

As part of the Enterprise Systems Upgrade Program (ESUP), it was decided that Course Guide will be retired. The new alternative will allow instructors to include a link to a course website or other public location to provide information to students on how the course is taught. The link will show in the Class Search results under Class Notes.

If you receive questions regarding the retirement of Course Guide, you can inform people that, while the current Course Guide is still live, they may want to consider how much time they spend on it, as it will eventually be retired as part of ESUP. You may also want to let people know that they should be mindful of where else the course information lives (e.g., a departmental or instructor website). In the future, they will be able to provide a link in Class Notes for students to access this information.

PCAS review sessions scheduled

To help PCAS editors prepare for the undergraduate catalog update, the following PCAS review sessions are scheduled:

• Tuesday, June 3, 10:30 a.m.-12 noon - 140 Nolte (East Bank)


• Tuesday, June 3, 1:30-3:00 p.m. - B25 Ruttan (St Paul)


• Tuesday, June 10, 10:30 a.m.-12 noon - 120 Blegen (West Bank)


• Thursday, June 12, 1-2:30 p.m. - 140 Nolte (East Bank)

No need to RSVP for these sessions. PCAS editors may simply attend, if interested. These review sessions are for trained PCAS editors wishing for a refresher. Any staff who need initial PCAS training should contact srhelp@umn.edu to request a training session.

Astra Schedule training update

Beginning this spring, the responsibility for providing Astra Schedule training moved from ASR Office of Classroom Management (OCM) to the ASR Training Team. Astra Schedule is the software used to reserve general purpose and departmental classroom space for events and courses throughout the University of Minnesota campus system. The ASR Training Team and OCM will continue to work collaboratively to ensure that the needs of Astra users are met. As in the past, staff may register for Astra training via ULearn, off the UMN Employee Self-Service page.