TracCloud: Terminology

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TracCloud Terminology Understanding the terminology of the Trac System 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, Import). Comes with one profile, but more profiles can be added. Each License can be used as a production site or a test instance. Profile An additional configuration base where you can manage appointment rules, center reasons, permission groups, emails, and more separately from other profiles. Can be shared on the same license. For example, you may have a Tutoring profile and an Advising profile if these departments have different requirements on how their profile needs to be configured. Center Centers are typically used as locations or departments where visit and appointment data can be collected. Centers are linked to a profile, which are linked to a license. For example, you may have a Math Center and a Biology Center, or a Peer Tutoring Center and a Writing Center. Centers can be created at any time and are not an additional cost. Profile Types TutorTrac TutorTrac profiles are more commonly used to track visits by subject and reason. Students may be allowed to book with any tutor who is assigned to their enrollment, and tutoring sessions may be hosted as drop-ins, 1-on-1 appointments, or groups. AdvisorTrac AdvisorTrac profiles are more commonly used to track visits by consultant and reason. Students are typically only allowed to book with their assigned advisor, and schedules are more likely to be appointment-based. FitnessTrac FitnessTrac profiles are more commonly used to track drop-in visits from students, comparing total time in the center to student required hours. The Trac System can even calculate grades based on total hours and additional assignments. It's important to note that profile types are effectively a set of defaults for how a profile will operate and a label on the profile listing. Choosing one profile type over another will never lock you out of any options. A FitnessTrac profile can be configured to operate just like an Advising profile, if you set it up that way. 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 very restricted when it comes to permissions. They can be allowed to view students enrolled in their sections and manage SAGE Referrals for their students, but 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 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), and SysAdmin provides all administrative access (global preferences, bulk changes, etc). For more information, click here. Staff (Consultant) A consultant (or advisor, tutor, etc) is a Staff account that has been marked as a consultant. Permissions are managed in the same way, but consultants can be assigned availabilities and appointments on the schedule, and they can be assigned to student attendance records. Visits, Appointments, and Availabilities Availabilities Availabilities are pre-determined time slots for consultants letting the 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 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/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 (online or in-person), attending for a drop-in availability they found, or simply visiting for independent study (not linked to an availability or appointment at all). 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 is visiting for their 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 student-facing sign-in stations, on a computer or tablet. Students would be expected to log themselves in by typing their ID/username, 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, but the staff member viewing the log listing will remain logged in and additional information on each student is 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 would be a subject, course number, and title. E.g.,ACTG100. Generic, or 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 always linked to Courses and Terms, and contain more information, such as Section Code, CRN, and Linked Faculty/Instructor. Multiple sections can be linked to the same Course. For the ACTG100 and example above, you might have have sections ACTG100 01 2023SP, ACTG100 02 2023SP, and ACTG100 01 2023SU linked to it. Registrations Registrations are simply a 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 the Trac System Dashboard - The main menu/homepage for all users. The individual boxes on the dashboard (Success Plans, Status Charts, Welcome Message, etc) are called widgets. Listings - Pages with a list of records, like Students and Attendance, are called "Listings." All listings in TracCloud feature a search bar called the "Navigation Search". Nearby you'll also find the icon, also known as the hamburger menu.