Last issue of the Training Update newsletter

The members of the ASR Training & Support Team have been reassigned within Academic Support Resources (ASR) to provide specialized support for ASR’s individual units. These units include the Office of the Registrar, Continuity and Compliance, and the Office of Classroom Management on the Twin Cities campus.

Since the reorganization of the team, we have decided to discontinue the Training Update newsletter. While you will no longer receive this newsletter, you will still receive communications about need-to-know information. We plan to use resources already available to communicate important information to the right audiences, such as ad-hoc emails and committee meetings.

Who to contact

Moving forward, please contact the unit(s) below that are relevant to your questions and comments.

Twin Cities Office of the Registrar
OTR Training and Support: Heather Micek and Sally Gutierrez

SRhelp@umn.edu or 612-625-2803

• PeopleSoft Campus Solutions - Records and Enrollment
• ECAS and PCAS
• Reporting Center
• Advisor Center
• Grades & Faculty Center

Continuity and Compliance
Renae Faunce - cctraining@umn.edu

• Training course requirements
• Access to ECAS/PCAS
• Access to PeopleSoft Campus Solutions

Office of Classroom Management (OCM)
Jennifer Selander - OCMSoftwarehelp@umn.edu

• Collaborative Class Scheduling (CCS)
• Astra Schedule

Who was the last person to register for your class?

Enrollment Request Search in PeopleSoft Campus Solutions is a page commonly used to audit a student’s enrollment history for a particular term or a particular class. Did you know that the page can also be used to see the history of enrollment activity for a particular class section? For example, you can find who was the last person to register for your class.

1. Go to Records and Enrollment > Enroll Students > Enrollment Request Search
2. Enter Academic Institution (e.g. UMNTC)
3. Enter term and 5-digit class number and then click search
4. Use the column headers to sort the data

The page contains 48 columns. The data may be easier to view by downloading it to an Excel spreadsheet via the download icon .
TIP: Select see all columns icon before you download to Excel.

Check fall term instructor assignments

You can have a positive impact on your classes when you enter complete and correct instructor information. Listing Instructors gives them access to their online class rosters, Canvas, as well as their grade rosters (at the end of the term). Students also benefit from knowing who their instructors will be as they begin their semester.

CCS schedulers should verify instructor information for fall (1199) on the Meetings tab for:

• Correct Instructor
• Accurate instruction role
• Note, all teaching assistants should be given a role of “TA”
• Appropriate grading access
• Note, undergraduate TAs may not be given grade access

Auto-enroll from waitlist reminders

Auto-enroll from waitlist stops running for each term/session on a date specified per campus. For the fall 2019 regular session, the last waitlist run for the Twin Cities campus will be at 11:58 p.m. on September 3, 2019. Staff from system campuses are encouraged to check with their Office of the Registrar to confirm campus-specific dates.

Following the last run, those classes which still have waitlists will typically have an Enrollment Status of “Closed”. A common question is, how do you fill any seats that may subsequently open due to enrolled students dropping the class? You have two options to consider, and each department can decide which option is best for their situation:

Option 1


Give students a permission number to override a closed class using the Closed Class checkbox on the Class Permissions page. This option allows you to give permission to waitlisted students, when appropriate. To assist in determining which students to provide permission, the waitlist will be available for your reference until the end of drop/add period.

Option 2


To allow any student to register for the remaining seat(s), go to the Enrollment Control tab, uncheck the Auto Enroll from Waitlist checkbox, and save. This changes the Enrollment Status to “Open” and permits registration up until the second week of term, when instructor approval is required.

New PeopleSoft Campus Solutions user guides

A library of new user guides for PeopleSoft Campus Solutions is now available on the ASR website. The guides, which are housed in Google Drive folders, document processes for staff who use Campus Solutions, including the following:

• Scheduling classes
• Updating majors and minors
• Assigning advisors
• Updating student groups

These guides will serve as a replacement for the UPK, which will be retired in the coming months. For now, the UPK continues to be available by clicking on the blue ‘help’ link on any Campus Solutions page in the top right corner of the screen.

Changes to TA role assignments in Canvas

Beginning Thursday, August 15, 2019, graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs) who need “Teacher” level access in their Canvas course must have “Grade” or “Approve” level access granted to them in CCS by the department scheduler.

Please note: CCS grade “Access” for undergraduate TAs must be left blank. They are not allowed to enter or submit grades.

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions navigation options

Updated PeopleSoft navigation was implemented on June 3, 2019. The update brought new navigation options, including the Navigator in the NavBar and Homepage tiles. A key difference between these two options is that the Navigator contains all the Campus Solutions pages that you have access to. The Campus Solutions tiles contain only the most commonly used pages. Our 2-minute Campus Solutions Navigation video demonstrates these new navigation options.

Tips & Tricks: Finding pages and adding favorites

Need help remembering the path to a Campus Solutions page? If so, please refer to our Campus Solutions Navigation Guide (Google Sheet). 

Add pages to your favorites and make them easier to find with the following steps:

1. Use the NavBar Navigator to go to the page you want to make a favorite.
2. Click the Actions List icon. 
3. Click “Add to Favorites”.
4. Select OK.

MyU and PeopleSoft outage June 1-2, 2019

On Saturday and Sunday, June 1-2, PeopleTools, the PeopleSoft development platform, will be updated. During the update, MyU and PeopleSoft will be unavailable for all campuses.

The following are specific impacts to note:

• MyU (and dependent applications)
• PeopleSoft (and dependent applications, such as ECAS/PCAS, Class Schedule)
• APAS
• Grad Planner

Access to Canvas (canvas.umn.edu) and University email (mail.umn.edu) will not be affected.

The update ensures that our PeopleSoft systems retain vendor support. We encourage you to mark your calendars for the update weekend, so you can plan around the service outage. Visit the IT Service Status page for the latest information on system availability.

After the update, it is recommended to clear your browser’s cookies and cache before logging into the affected systems. Job aids on the new PeopleSoft homepage and navigation options are linked in MyU > Key Links > PeopleSoft.

Twin Cities grades due date for spring 2019

The deadline to submit grades for the spring 2019 regular academic session and second half term is Monday, May 20, 2019 by 11:59 p.m. Grades that have been entered but have not been approved will post immediately after the due date for grades. Instructions on how to enter final grades are available.

Any grades left blank will receive a grade of “NR” (Not Reported). After that, the grades cannot be uploaded or imported from Moodle or Canvas. To change an NR grade to the grade earned, instructors or proxies must submit a grade change through MyU.

Remember, missing grades can negatively affect the following for students:

• Academic standing
• Financial aid
• Scholarship, employment, and educational opportunities

Staff from system campuses are encouraged to check with their Office of the Registrar to confirm campus-specific dates.

Reminders about system access

Staff transferring departments
When staff transfer departments within the University, a Change of Employment Status (COES) form should be submitted to remove student system access from the former department. This is the approved policy of the Student Systems Data Custodian. If system access is required in the new department, Access Request Forms (ARFs) must be submitted based on the new job responsibilities. Please talk with your supervisor if you have questions.

Student worker access over the summer
If you have any student workers with PeopleSoft access who will be gone over the summer, it is good practice to suspend their access until they return. Complete the following steps for suspending their access:

1. Open a COES form.
• In the "Indicate the employee's new status" field, choose "Leave of Absence”
• Enter the LOA start and return dates.
• Enter personal internet ID and any relevant sponsored account in Additional Information.
2. Click “Order Now” in the upper right corner.
3. Create a reminder to yourself to email x-secur@umn.edu a few days before the return date to ask for their access to be reactivated.

Note
Any training required for access does not need to be repeated if already completed.

Tips & tricks: Using multiple reserve capacities in CCS

Reserve capacities hold seats in a class for specific groups of students, such as students in a particular major or college. Sometimes, departments need to hold seats in a class for two different groups of students. To accomplish this, the CCS scheduler enters two separate Reserve Capacity Sequences. Take care to add subsequent Reserve Capacity Sequence rows in the correct place.

In the following, we see a class with two reserve capacities correctly added:



CAUTION: If a row is added incorrectly, in the Reserve Capacity Requirement Group, as shown below, the registration system will only recognize the reserve capacity group with the most recent start date and ignore the other group entirely.

Scheduling students to graduate (Spring 2019)

Twin Cities undergraduate students who have achieved 75% of their degree requirements (including completed and in-progress credits) will be scheduled to graduate by the Office of the Registrar on April 8 or 9, 2019. This means the following:

• Students will have their Degree Checkout Status set to 'Applied' on the most recent effective dated row in Program/Plan.
• The Expected Graduation Term (EGT) will not change from what each college/program has already entered for each of their students.
• Each student will receive a communication informing them that they have been scheduled to graduate.
• A comment will be written to PeopleSoft/APLUS that indicates this email was sent to the students.

To help this process go smoothly, please review student records for any missing EGT. There is a report available to you that identifies students who lack an EGT:

• Reporting Center > Student Services > Degree Clearance > Twin Cities Undergraduate Students Missing Expected Grad Term

Students missing EGTs will not be scheduled to graduate.

Twin Cities (TC) registration reminders for fall 2019 (1199)

Registration dates for fall 2019 classes are now available on the One Stop website. Below are some enrollment highlights:

• Registration began April 11 for TC admitted students.
• Students can find their appointments in the MyU: Academics tab.
• Auto-enroll from waitlist begins running on April 25.
• Open Enrollment begins May 3 for non-degree students.
• Unfilled, reserved seats will open for general registration on the Friday before the session/term begins, or August 30 for full term classes.

Adding a new course in ECAS

When adding a new course to ECAS, it is critical that editors fill out all seven fields on the Set Up tab before navigating out of the course proposal.

If you find that the Grade Basis field (on the General tab) contains no selection options, this indicates that some field(s) on the Set Up tab are incomplete. You can return to the Set Up tab to review all seven fields and complete any that are missing. Once the Set Up tab is complete, the Grade Basis field will offer the options, which are valid for your college and career, and ECAS will save your work for future editing.

If any Set Up field is left blank, ECAS will not auto-save your work when you navigate away from the course page, and you will be unable to find your new course on the main page. If you do find this happens to you, please wait overnight for ECAS to purge the unsaved course data in its nightly process. You may then start a fresh proposal the following day.

Twin Cities registration for fall 2019 (1199)

Registration begins Thursday, April 11, 2019 for Twin Cities students admitted to degree or certificate programs. Students will be able to find their specific registration times beginning Thursday, March 21 by logging into MyU, selecting the Academics tab, and going to the Registration sub-tab.

Students readmitted for fall 2019 will now need their appointments manually added until open enrollment begins on May 3, 2019.

PeopleTools 8.56 update

The PeopleTools 8.56 update weekend has been changed from April 6-7 to June 1-2, 2019 to allow more system testing time. All PeopleSoft users will start receiving messages about one month prior to the go-live date with more information on what to expect. The update includes new homepage and navigation options. Please note that PeopleSoft and MyU will be down during the update.

Editor note: This post has been updated on March 21, 2019 to reflect the new PeopleTools 8.56 dates.

Housekeeping tip for Astra event schedulers

Events in Astra Schedule must have an event status of “Scheduled” in order for them to appear on the Astra calendars. Events with a status of “Incomplete” (i.e., those missing Event Type, Customer, Customer Contact, or a room assignment on any meeting) will not display on the calendars, making the room appear available. Therefore, if the scheduler attempts to book that room for another event, they will find the room is actually unavailable, because the “Incomplete” event is holding the room.

When creating events, schedulers should take a moment to ensure the event record status is “Scheduled” and the event displays on the calendars. Additionally, schedulers can proactively find and resolve“Incomplete” events they may have unintentionally created by filtering for “Incomplete” events. Instructions for how to find incomplete events in Astra are available at the Astra iCoP website.

Mid-term grade rosters are available

Mid-term grade rosters are now available in MyU for spring 2019. Mid-term grades should be entered between now and the withdrawal deadline for the class. The withdrawal deadline for full-semester classes is Monday, April 8, 2019.

University policy requires instructors of 1xxx-level classes to provide mid-term grades for students who appear to be in danger of receiving a D, F, or N grade. However, instructors are encouraged to submit mid-term grades for all students.

Instructors with questions may be referred srhelp@umn.edu or to the following resources:

• How to Enter Mid-term Grades (pdf)
• Mid-term grades FAQ
• Registration and withdrawal deadlines
• In-progress notifications policy

Auto-enroll from waitlist reminders

Auto-enroll from waitlist stops running for each term/session on a date specified per campus. For the spring 2019 regular session, the last waitlist run for the Twin Cities campus is January 22.

Filling seats after auto-enroll stops running

Following the last run, classes that still have waitlists will typically have an Enrollment Status of “Closed.” How do you fill any seats that may subsequently open due to enrolled students dropping the class? You have two options to pick from based on the best option for your department.

Option 1 Give students a permission number to override a closed class using the Closed Class checkbox on the Class Permissions page. This option allows you to give permission to waitlisted students, when appropriate. To assist in determining which students to provide permission, the waitlist will be available for your reference until the end of drop/add period. Option 2 On the Enrollment Control tab, un-check the Auto Enroll from Wait List checkbox, which changes the Enrollment Status to “Open” and allows any student to register for the remaining seat(s) up until instructor approval is required.

Permission number expiration reminder

Permission numbers expire and are deleted at the end of the term/session’s add and drop period. After this time, unused permission numbers will no longer permit students’ enrollment.

Check spring term instructor assignments

You can have a positive impact on your classes when you enter complete and correct instructor information. Entering instructors in CCS gives them access to their online class rosters, Canvas or Moodle site, and their grade rosters (at the end of the term). Students also benefit from knowing who their instructors will be as they begin the semester.

CCS schedulers should please verify instructor information for spring (1193) on the UM CCS Maintain Schedule of Classes, Meetings tab including:

• Correct Instructor
• Accurate instructor role 
• Appropriate grading access

Note, all teaching assistants should be entered with a role of “TA.”  Additionally, undergraduate teaching assistants can not have grade access.