TracCloud: Terminology

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Getting Started / Basics

• TracCloud Terminology

• Training Resources

• Schedule Management

• Recording Visits

• TracCloud Dashboard

TracCloud Terminology

Understanding the terminology of TracCloud is important, as it can help in communicating concepts to your users and can aid when receiving help from the Redrock team. This article outlines some of the terminology used in TracCloud, with definitions and examples.

TracCloud Instance

• License

Your entire system, accessible with one URL. This includes your global preferences, student population, and IT integrations (SSO, Mail, etc). Comes with one profile, but more profiles can be added.

• Profile

Each profile acts as an umbrella for a set of centers, groups, reasons, staff, and profile preferences such appointment rules, login questions, emails, etc. Multiple profiles can exist under the same license, each with their own settings. For example, you may have a tutoring profile and an advising profile if these departments have different requirements on how their profile needs to function.

Profiles are often labeled as TutorTrac, AdvisorTrac, or FitnessTrac profiles to describe their general purpose, but these types do not restrict or dictate their configuration in any way.

• Center

Centers are typically used as locations or departments where visit and appointment data is collected. Centers are linked to a profile, which are linked to a license. For example, you may have centers for tutoring, supplemental instruction, or writing.

Account Types

• Student

Student accounts belong to the clients coming in for services. Appointments can be scheduled for these accounts and visits can be created for them. Student accounts are inherently very restricted in terms of permissions.

• Faculty

Faculty accounts are assigned as instructors to a section and can be included in various reports on student attendance and registrations. Faculty are also inherently restricted when it comes to permissions. They can be allowed to view students enrolled in their sections, run a limited selection or reports, and manage SAGE Referrals for their students. For higher privileges, a staff account must be used instead.

• Staff

Staff accounts cover all other account types in the system. This includes administrators, front desk workers, consultants, and more. All permissions are based on their permission group and user level. The latter option sets baseline rules for the account. Staff provides no administrative access, Profile Admin provides some administrative access to profiles (reasons, appointment restrictions, groups, etc), Super Admin provides limited access to global preferences, and SysAdmin provides all administrative access (global preferences, bulk changes, etc). For more information, click here.

• Staff (Consultant)

A consultant (advisor, tutor, etc) is a staff account that has been marked as a consultant. Permissions are managed the same as regular staff. Consultants can have availabilities and appointments on the schedule, be linked to student attendance, and login for work visits.

Visits, Appointments, and Availabilities

• Availabilities

Availabilities are pre-determined time slots for consultants letting students know when they are available to meet. Availabilities can be configured as 1-on-1, group, or drop-in. The latter latter cannot be booked as an appointment, students would instead be expected to drop into the center at the designated time to start their visit. Availabilities may be viewed by staff or students based on permission group.

• Appointments

Appointments represent a scheduled time between a student and consultant that has been booked in advance. Appointments include the time and date of the session, the subject and reason that the student needs help with, and the location it will take place in. An appointment can be booked for an availability that a consultant had on their calendar or a staff member can create an adhoc appointment on the staff schedule directly.

• Visits / Attendance

A visit represents that the student was present at your center at X time, for Y subject, Z reason, etc. This can include the student attending the center for their appointment, attending a drop-in availability they found, or simply visiting for independent study. If a student misses their appointment, no visit record will be created as they did not attend for that session. Visit time may also differ from appointment time. If a student has an appointment from 9am to 10am and gets there a couple minutes early and leaves a few minutes late, the visit will record that. 8:58am to 9:49am, for example.

Options to Record Attendance

• Kiosks

Kiosks are used for student-facing sign-in stations, typically on a computer or tablet. Students would be expected to log themselves in by typing their ID, swiping their barcode, or scanning the QR code on the screen depending on which options you offer. When accessing a kiosk, you (as a staff member) will be logged out of your account for security.

• Log Listing

The Log Listing is a staff-facing kiosk, typically used by front desk workers. This allows staff to view who is currently logged in or assist in logging students in or out. The QR code is no longer available on this page as students aren't expected to see this. The staff member viewing the Log Listing will remain logged in, with additional information on each logged in student available.

• Quick Visits

Quick Visits allow you to immediately create a visit from scratch. This can be used for a variety of purposes, such as recording a visit if a student forgot to log in, or a log in station wasn't available. All the information that would normally be recorded with other options can be manually entered here.

• Batch Visits

Batch Visits allow you to record visits for a group of students, rather than individually creating multiple quick visits. Additional utilities are also available to quickly create visits based on student enrollments (SI Batch Entry), QR Codes (Batch Code), or even a text field where you can paste a list of IDs or Emails to record visits for (Batch Scan). Batch Visits are frequently used for Workshops and SI Sessions.

Courses, Sections, Registrations, and Terms

• Courses

A course is the subject, course number, and title, such as "ACTG100 Introduction to Accounting." Generic/non-enrolled courses can also be created for any student to select, regardless of enrollment.

• Terms

Terms are the semester codes for your sections. Each semester, a new term code will be imported and a new set of sections will be created. E.g., 2023SP.

• Sections

Sections are linked to courses and terms and contain some additional information such as section code, CRN, and the linked faculty/instructor. Multiple sections can be linked to the same course. For the ACTG100 and example above, you might have have sections like ACTG100 01 2023SP, ACTG100 02 2023SP, and ACTG100 01 2023SU linked to it.

• Registrations

Registrations are the link between students and sections. If a student is enrolled in ACTG100 01 2023SP, they will have a registration linked to that section record. Registrations also contain grade information if available.

Navigating TracCloud

• Dashboard

The main menu/homepage for all users. The individual boxes on the dashboard (Success Plans, Status Charts, Welcome Message, etc) are called "widgets." More information on these widgets can be found here.

• Listings

These are pages with a list of records, like students and attendance. All listings in TracCloud feature a search bar called the "navigation search." Nearby you'll also find the icon, known as the hamburger menu.