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Revision as of 16:36, 11 April 2022
This page highlights some of the recent changes made to the TracCloud platform, and how you can utilize them on your own instance. A list of past changes and a full changelog can be found in the tabs above.
If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to reach out to us on our helpdesk.
Getting Started / Basics
Recording Visits
Student Visits allow you to record when your students met with consultants. There are several options available for creating these visits, including real-time options like the Log Listing or Kiosk, used by staff and students respectively. Quick Visits can be used to create visits from scratch, and Batch Visits provides several tools for recording visits in bulk. There are even automated options for online appointments or when a staff mark appointments as attended manually.
This article will be going over the different options available and how you can utilize them for your system. This portion of our guide will not be covering work visits, for more information on those, take a look at our payroll tracking article.
The Log Listing can be used by staff members to log students into or out of your center, or to review who is currently logged in with on-going visits. If wait time is being tracked, this page would also be used to manage visit statuses and coordinate which consultants will be assigned to their visits.
The Log Listing can be accessed by going to the Attendance tab in your navigation bar, as seen in the screenshot below. The available choices are split up into 3 groups.
- Center Log Listing
- When you create a new center, both a kiosk and a log listing will be made available by default, unless specifically disabled in the center OR if your system only allows custom kiosks to be used. Students who are logged in on these log listings will have their visits assigned to the selected center.
- Custom Kiosks
- In addition to the default center kiosks, you can also create custom kiosks, which are already linked to a specific center/consultant/reason/etc. These are frequently used for workshops or SI events, but they can be utilized for any visit tracking where a field needs to be predefined.
- Log Listing for [Profile]
- This option operates similarly to standard center kiosks/log listings, except it includes all centers that your permission group has access to. When logging a student in on this type of log listing, the first question you will be asked is what center you want to log the student into.
After you’ve reached the log listing page, you can view the students who are currently logged in. The button can be used to sort the log listing by other fields. To log another student in, begin typing their ID, name, or scan their barcode into the box in the center of your screen.
After pressing enter or clicking on Log In / Out, you will be prompted to choose a consultant, subject, and/or reason for the visit depending on which fields are enabled in your profile. Additionally, custom questions can be configured to appear here as well. If the student is logging in at the same time as their scheduled appointment, the subject/reason/consultant will be selected automatically to match that appointment.
The following page displays a welcome message as configured in your profile preferences, and can show any announcements that have been designated as "Show on KIOSK."
After completing the log process, the student will be added to the log list with any information they entered. The information visible here is determined by your profile preferences.
If your profile has been configured to track wait time, you will additionally see a icon on this page. This is used to manage the status of the visit, either "Waiting" or "Started." After you click on this icon and change the status to "Started: [Consultant]," the icon will change to . If this icon does not appear, you will need to add "Wait Status Button" in your profile preferences. Setting the status to "Concluded" would log the student out. The "Show All" button can be used to override the linked advisor filtering on the consultant list (if enabled for your system).
To log the student out, click the icon from the list or enter their ID/Name/Barcode in the center box again. After pressing enter or Log In / Out, you will see a confirmation prompt to confirm that you want to log the student out.
After a visit has been concluded, it will be removed from the log listing and kiosk, and you will be able to find it in the student's history or on the attendance listing.
The Kiosk is used by students to log themselves into or out of your center. This page generally operates similarly to the log listing, but with much stricter permissions and fewer visit management utilities, as we're expecting students to be interacting with this page directly.
Kiosks can be accessed by going to the Attendance tab in your navigation bar, as seen in the screenshot below. The available choices are split up into 3 groups, just like the log listings.
- Center Kiosk
- When you create a new center, both a kiosk and a log listing will be made available by default, unless specifically disabled in the center OR if your system only allows custom kiosks to be used. Students who are logged in on these kiosks will have their visits assigned to the selected center.
- Custom Kiosks
- In addition to the default center kiosks, you can also create custom kiosks, which are already linked to a specific center/consultant/reason/etc. These are frequently used for workshops or SI events, but they can be utilized for any visit tracking where a field needs to be predefined.
- Kiosk for [Profile]
- This option operates similarly to standard center kiosks, except it includes all centers that your permission group has access to. When a student logs in on this type of kiosk, the first question they will be asked is what center they want to log into.
After you've opened a kiosk, you will notice that your navigation bar tools have disappeared, and you have been logged out. Depending on your single sign-on solution, you may be prompted to additionally open a new tab to end your SSO session. Follow the instructions on screen if this is the case.
The information shown on the kiosk is also significantly more restricted that the log listing. Our example below shows student names, but hiding all student information is also a common configuration.
A student can login by typing their ID/name, swiping their barcode, or by scanning the QR code in the center of the screen with their phone. After starting the login process, they will be prompted to choose a consultant, subject, and/or reason for the visit depending on which fields are enabled in your profile. Additionally, custom questions can be configured to appear here as well. If the student is logging in at the same time as their scheduled appointment, the subject/reason/consultant will be selected automatically to match that appointment.
The following page displays a welcome message as configured in your profile preferences, and can show any announcements that have been designated as "Show on KIOSK."
In order for the student to logout, they would need to type their ID, swipe their barcode, or scan the QR code once again. After pressing enter or Log In / Out, they will see a confirmation prompt to confirm that they want to log out.
After a visit has been concluded, it will be removed from the log listing and kiosk, and you will be able to find it in the student's history or on the attendance listing.
Quick Visits allow you to create visits from scratch. For example, if a student forgot to login, or a login station wasn’t available at the time. Maybe even if you wanted to record a phone call or email conversation with the student as attendance in your system. This utility can be found by going to Attendance > Quick Visit, as well as a few other locations listed a little further down.
Choosing this option will open a new visit form, allowing you to enter all visit information from scratch. Select your student, consultant, reason, time, and so on. Custom fields can be created and made visible here as well. You can even upload documents to these visit records after saving, or send "visit notes" emails.
Clicking Save will create the new visit record, leaving the tab open if you need to make further adjustments. Alternate save options can be found under the arrow icon next to the save button. Save and Close will create the record and automatically close the tab in your browser. Save and New will create the record and immediately open a new quick visit form so you can start creating another visit.
In addition to the Quick Visit option under the Attendance menu, you can also create quick visits from a couple other locations. These all operate the same way, but may be easier to access depending on where you are in the system.
From the Attendance Listing, you can find a "New Visit" button within the hamburger menu , and from student records you can find "Create Visit" as the very first option under the "Actions" menu. The latter option will even automatically select the student in the new visit that you create.
The Batch Visit utility is a collection of other visit tracking tools. Some of the most common use cases for these are SI sessions and workshops, but that's not a strict requirement. The visits created here are the same as the visits created from the options above, so you can use these in any scenario where you might find them useful. Batch Visits can be found in Attendance > Batch Visits.
When you begin creating a Batch Visit, you will be asked to choose a center. After making your selection, you will be brought to the following screen. Fill out the visit information that you want to record for your students, then choose what batch visit tracking option works best for you, detailed below. If you have any visit custom fields, they will appear on this screen as well.
Batch Entry
The best way to describe Batch Entry is that it's a faster version of Quick Visit. Keeping the visit information entered at the top of your screen, you can repeatedly select new students, enter new notes as needed, and create their visits one after another without having to reenter the time, consultant, reason, etc.
- Remember Notes
- If this is checked, the notes field will not be cleared after you create each visit. This should be checked if you plan on reusing the same notes for each visit you're about to create.
- If this is checked, the notes field will not be cleared after you create each visit. This should be checked if you plan on reusing the same notes for each visit you're about to create.
- Remember Student
- If this is checked, the student field will not be cleared after you create the visit. This is almost always used when recording visits to a generic student account, such as for prospective students who don't yet exist in the Trac System.
As you save visits, they will be displayed at the bottom of the screen under Similar Visits.
SI Batch Entry
SI Batch Entry shows all students enrolled in the section that you selected, including wildcard selections (like BIO210*). When recording visits with a wildcard section chosen, a matching registration from each selected student's enrollments will automatically be used. Students are separated into two lists, students who have visited for the selected section before, and students who haven't. You can select students from both lists at the same time. After you create a visit for a student, they will be shown with a icon next to their name in the list.
- Remember Notes
- If checked, the notes you enter will not be cleared when creating the visits for your selection of students, allowing you to reuse the note for the next selection (if needed).
- If checked, the notes you enter will not be cleared when creating the visits for your selection of students, allowing you to reuse the note for the next selection (if needed).
- Show Active Students (with Active Registrations) Only
- By default, the list of students can include inactive students/registrations. This checkbox can be used to hide them from the results.
Batch Scan
Batch Scan allows you to create visits for many students at once based on a list of identifiers. ID, Email, Barcode, etc. For example, if you were recording attendance in a spreadsheet, you could copy your identifier column into "scanned data" to quickly create those visits in TracCloud.
- Skip Duplicates
- If checked, duplicate visits will not be created for students, even if they're present more than once in the list.
- If checked, duplicate visits will not be created for students, even if they're present more than once in the list.
- Scan Type
- Use this to specify what the data you're scanning refers to. ID, barcode, etc.
- Use this to specify what the data you're scanning refers to. ID, barcode, etc.
The Student Listing also has the ability to export a list of student IDs (see the 'Selected' menu under the hamburger icon ). Using this, you can easily search for and copy your list of students, and paste that list here to create visits for all of them at once.
Batch Codes
Batch Codes can be created at the top of the batch visit form. Clicking on Generate New Batch Code will provide a QR code which you can use to track attendance for this session. Notes can be applied to visits recorded with this QR code with the Auto Enter Notes field. If you apply any other changes to the visit details, such as duration, reason, etc, you can click Update Batch Code to get a new QR code.
After clicking on the QR code, you will be taken to the following screen. As a staff member, you can enter students IDs in the box to record their attendance, or students can scan the QR code with their phone to be taken to a login screen where they can record their own attendance. Similar to a kiosk, but no logout or additional questions necessary.
Any Batch Codes that you generate can also be found at the initial batch visit creation screen. This allows you to create these codes in advance and quickly access them later. Batch codes can also be deleted from this page if needed.
Unique to Batch Codes is the Handle Overlap Visits option. This determines how batch visits deal with conflicting visits for students.
Do Nothing (or leaving the field blank) is the default. In the event of a conflict, TracCloud will not automatically modify any records. It will simply allow both visits to exist at the same time.
Logout Previous will adjust visits that are still ongoing at the time of the batch visit being created. In this case, it will automatically conclude the ongoing visit by setting the end time to the start time of the batch visit.
Lastly, Split the Visit will separate an existing visit to fit alongside the batch visit. If the conflicting visit has already concluded, it will modify/split it into two separate visits to fit the new batch visit. If the conflicting visit is ongoing, it will conclude the visit to end at the start time of the batch visit. This is similar to Logout Previous, except Split the Visit will also start a new ongoing visit at the end time of the batch visit as well so the student can be logged out later.
Workshops / Workshop enrollment and attendance tracking
Drop-in availabilities offer 2 additional visit tracking tools depending on the meeting type (online or in-person). Take a look at our schedule management wiki article for details on creating these availabilities in the first place.
Ad hoc QR codes can be created by hovering over the availability and clicking on the icon. Choose a time for the visits that this QR code will generate, then click on "Generate QR Code."
This will open a new tab where you can enter student IDs to create visits, or allow students to scan the QR code themselves to create their own visits, no logout required.
Online drop-ins found in availability search results by students can also be used to automatically create visits. When the student clicks on the "Enter Online Session" button, they will be taken to the online meeting room and TracCloud will immediately create a visit for them matching the remaining duration of the availability time slot.
By marking an appointment as "Attended," TracCloud will automatically create a visit to match that appointment. This can be useful if your campus doesn't track visits with log listings/kiosks, or even as an alternative to quick visits if your student forgot to login. After saving, you can make further changes to this new visit record by clicking on the icon.
Online visit tracking is unique compared to the other options here, as no manual actions are required to create these visits. When students join an online appointment in TracCloud, their appointment will be marked as attended and a visit will be created to match the appointment details (unless you have specifically disabled this).
You may have noticed that the hyperlink on the dashboard or the {{Appointment.OnlineLink}} twig tag doesn't actually contain the online link you entered for the appointment, but instead a long TracCloud URL. Tracking attendance is the reason for this. When the student clicks on that link, TracCloud knows that they have joined the session and creates a visit record, then quickly redirects them to their Zoom, Webex, etc invite as usual.
See Also
Profile Preferences
Prefs
Resources
Resources are items that may be checked in and out of your Center(s) and lent to students or staff. The borrowing of resources at your center(s) can be tracked, recorded, and the data collected can be displayed through Reports. Resources can be utilized in many ways, but common examples include Laptops, Calculators, or Books that users can reserve, checkout, and return.
To begin creating a resource, go to Other > Resources > Resources > Hamburger menu > New Resource. Custom fields can also be added to this page.
- BarCode is the unique identifier for this item. Can be used to log resources in and out via a barcode scanner or swipe system, in addition to manually entering the value.
- Title is the name of this resource.
- Profile is the linked Profile for this resource.
- Checked Out To shows which user currently has this item checked out (if applicable).
- Collateral will store the collateral item collected due to the option below being enabled. This should be left blank when creating a new resource, as it will be automatically filled in when the item is checked out and collateral is collected.
- Collateral Logic enables Collateral functionality if checked. This will ask the staff member logging the resource in/out whether or not collateral has been gathered/returned.
- Reserved For shows who currently has this resource reserved.
- Always Available indicates that this resource doesn't need to be individually checked out or reserved, multiple users can check out the same resource at any time.
- Reserved Date, Last Date Out, and Due Date display the exact times of reservations, checkouts, and when the resource is due to be returned.
- Resource Type allows you to categorize this resource into a type for reporting purposes, or to restrict certain students from accessing this resource.
- Length of Checkout determines how long an item can be checked out for before an overdue notification is sent.
- Arbitrary Due Date allows the staff member checking out the item to choose a due date during checkout.
- Due by end of semester will be based on your current semester end date. If chosen, a new field will appear to add a buffer before the end of the semester (i.e., to require the item be returned X days before semester end.)
- Days / Hours / Mins will automatically set a due date based on the amount of time specified. If chosen, a new field will appear to set the maximum of number of times the checkout can be renewed.
- Not Available to Students / Staff allows you to restrict this resource to one user type or the other. By default (both unchecked), the item is available to either user type.
- Description is an internal description of this particular resource.
- Keywords are the related words for this resource, delimited by commas or semicolons. For example, if you have a Laptop as an available resource, you may want to create keywords like "Computer, PC, Macbook" to make this resource easier to search for.
- Pickup/Return Instructions can be entered and displayed in resource confirmation/return reminder emails as a twig tag.
Resource Types can be used to group resources together for the purpose of reporting or to block certain students from accessing certain resources. These can be managed by going to Other > Resources > Resource Types. Click the hamburger menu > New Resource Type to begin creating a new type.
After creating a new resource type or clicking on an existing one, you will find the following options.
- Resource Type Name
- The type/category for your resources.
- The type/category for your resources.
- Resource Type Description
- Information about this resource type.
- Information about this resource type.
- Linked to Profile
- Allows you to link this Resource Type for use in a specific profile.
- Allows you to link this Resource Type for use in a specific profile.
- Allowed Student List
- Allows you to only allow students on this list to checkout this resource, blocking everyone else. If left blank, anyone can checkout this resource (assuming they aren't blocked from resource usage entirely).
- Allows you to only allow students on this list to checkout this resource, blocking everyone else. If left blank, anyone can checkout this resource (assuming they aren't blocked from resource usage entirely).
- Display Notice and Require Initials when Checking Out Resources of this Type
- If enabled, a prompt will appear during checkout requiring that the user agree to terms and conditions before continuing. Terms can be entered in the Logout Notice to Student field (HTML & Twig supported), and a copy of the terms can be automatically forwarded to the student by checking Send Terms and Conditions as Email to Recipient.
There are a couple settings of note within your permission group(s) relating to Resources.
Other > Other Options > Groups > [Your Group] > Log In/Out
- Allow user to log resources in and out provides users in this group the ability to record resource usage.
- Allow user to view what resource the student has logged out provides users in this group the ability to view a student's currently logged out item.
Other > Other Options > Groups > [Your Group] > Admin/Modules
- Table Access provides access to the Other > Resources view of resources. You can also assign Resource Types here to allow this group to view and edit these as well.
After creating your resource and updating your groups, you're ready to start checking out resources. This option can be found by going to Other > Log Resource.
You will then be brought to the following screen with two text entry areas available. The first is where you select a resource (searching by Barcode, Title, or Keywords), the second allows you to select a student or staff member. Once one or both fields are selected, additional options become available to check out, return, or reserve this item. The button can be used to full-screen the resource checkout pop-up, allowing you to leave it open to continuously checkout and return items.
In the event that Collateral Logic is being utilized, more options will be required in regards to collecting/returning the collateral item before and after checkout.
Students can be allowed to reserve resources from their dashboard if configured in global preferences. To enable this functionality, go to Other > Other Options > Preferences > System Preferences > Resource Management.
- Choose to Block Students on List
- Show resources widget on the student dashboard
- Adds a widget to the student dashboard to review currently reserved or checked out resources.
- Allow students to reserve a resource via the dashboard
- Expands the above functionality to allow students to reserve resources for themselves.
- Expands the above functionality to allow students to reserve resources for themselves.
- Maximum # outstanding reservations overall
- How many total outstanding reservations can a student hold for your resources?
- How many total outstanding reservations can a student hold for your resources?
- Maximum # outstanding reservations for one resource
- How many total outstanding reservations can a student hold for a single resource?
- How many total outstanding reservations can a student hold for a single resource?
- Maximum # of days for an individual reservation
- How many days can a student reserve a resource for? For example, allowing the student to reserve the resource from the 11th of the month to the 17th, but no longer, would mean this preference needs to be set to 7.
- How many days can a student reserve a resource for? For example, allowing the student to reserve the resource from the 11th of the month to the 17th, but no longer, would mean this preference needs to be set to 7.
- Minimum time needed (days hrs:min) prior to reservation
- Choose the minimum amount of time in advance needed in order to reserve a resource. This is to prevent students from reserving items in the very near future.
- Choose the minimum amount of time in advance needed in order to reserve a resource. This is to prevent students from reserving items in the very near future.
Resource emails can be customized to inform students of the due date of their checked-out resource, or if the resource is overdue. These options are part of your profile preferences, in Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Prefs > Emails > Resource Checkout Emails.
Similar to your other Profile Emails, you can write a subject line and body of your email, an additional SMS text, and choose when this email is sent.
- Send Overdue Emails
- Disable this email, or choose what time it should be sent. This email will send if a student has an overdue checkout.
- Student resource overdue email subject
- The subject line of the email, supports Twig Tags just like the body of the email.
- Resource overdue email
- The body of the email to be sent to Students.
- Resource overdue SMS Msg
- A separate message sent to the Student's phone. Requires TextAlerts Module.
- CC the Profile on Resource overdue emails
- This option will send a copy of this email to your Profile email address if available.
- Send additional overdue emails daily
- Resend the above email on a daily basis until the item is returned.
- Student resource confirmed subject
- This email is sent immediately upon resource checkout. This option affects the subject line of the email, which supports Twig tags just like the body of the email.
- Resource confirm email
- The body of the email to be sent to Students.
- Resource confirm SMS Msg
- A separate message sent to the student's phone. Requires TextAlerts Module.
- CC the Profile on confirmation emails
- This option will send a copy of this email to your Profile email address if available.
- This option will send a copy of this email to your Profile email address if available.
- Send Resource Reminder Emails (Pickup and Return)
- Choose when reservation and overdue reminders are sent. The reservation email will notify the student that an item they reserved is available for pickup based on the first day of their reservation. The return reminder will send prior to the item becoming overdue.
- Student resource pickup/return reminder email subject
- The subject line of the email, supports Twig tags just like the body of the email.
- Resource pickup/return reminder email
- The body of the email to be sent to Students.
- Resource pickup/return reminder SMS Msg
- A separate message sent to the Student's phone. Requires TextAlerts Module.
- A separate message sent to the Student's phone. Requires TextAlerts Module.
- Resource Return Confirmation
- This email allows you to send an email to the user confirming that they have returned the resource.
- Student resource return confirmation email subject
- The subject line of the email, supports Twig tags just like the body of the email.
- Resource return confirmation email
- The body of the email to be sent to the user.
- Resource return confirmation SMS Msg
- A separate message sent to the user's phone. Requires TextAlerts Module.
- CC the Profile on resource return confirmation emails
- This option will send a copy of this email to your Profile email address if available.
- This option will send a copy of this email to your Profile email address if available.
There are two resource reports available in TracCloud. These can be found by going to Reports > Management > Resources. Resources provides information on resource utilization, while Resources Listing provides information on the items themselves.
Resources
This report exports resource usage, showing the students who have checked out a particular resource, the checkout date and time, as well as total hours. This can either be run on overall Utilization, or specifically on Past Due resources.
- Time Frame
- The date range for the data in this report. Beyond entering a date range manually, you can also choose a preset date range (Today, This Month, This Semester, etc) from the dropdown list above.
- Show Inactive Resources
- Include resources in results that have a status of 'Inactive.'
- Show Summary
- Only show data totals, excluding details of individual records.
- For Past Due, Show All Checkouts
- If this is checked, currently checked out resources will be included in report results. Unchecked would exclude these.
- Include Checkout Notes
- Adds the checkout notes field as an additional column in report results.
- Show Totals Bar Chart
- Adds a visual bar chart of totals to your report data.
- Include Email in Utilization
- Include the email address of the user who checked out the item.
- Group by
- Group records by the selected field. Some reports allow you to add secondary and tertiary groupings as well.
- Student ID, Resource Type, Resource Title, Barcode, Keywords, Profile
- Search by Student ID, Resource Type, Resource Title, Resource Barcode, Keywords, or the Profile of your resources.
- Output format
- Use HTML to view report data in your browser, or export this report to a CSV file (available for most reports). Some reports offer additional CSV options depending on if you want to include totals and/or data grouping in your export.
- Deliver to
- Display this report immediately in your browser ("Screen"), or send the report to a specified email address ("Email"). Multiple email addresses can be specified, use ; to separate them (example@example.edu;sample@example.edu).
- View Utilization or View Past Due
- Utilization will show all checked out resources and the individual checkouts. Past Due will only display overdue checkouts, items that were not returned soon enough, filtering out checkouts that were returned in time.
HTML
CSV
Resources Listing
The Resources Listing report will show you a list of resource records along with information about the item and how many times it's been checked out. Data can be grouped by Resource Type if set in the Sort by field.
- Sort by
- Choose how the selected data is sorted.
- Show Inactive Resources
- Include resources in results that have a status of 'Inactive.'
- Show Current and Future Reservations
- Include current and upcoming reservations in report results.
- Resource Type, Resource Title, Barcode, Keywords, Profile
- Search by Resource Type, Resource Title, Resource Barcode, Keywords, or the Pofile of your resources.
- Additional Search
- Filter your results by a selected field.
Use * as a wildcard (Subject: MAT*)
| as "or" (Major: Mathematics|Biology)
# as "Not" (Status: #Inactive)
&& as "And" (Major: #Mathematics&&#Biology)
blankornull as a keyword to find records where the field is blank (Reason: blankornull)
Multiple fields can be added to further narrow down your results.
- Filter your results by a selected field.
- Output format
- Use HTML to view report data in your browser, or export this report to a CSV file (available for most reports). Some reports offer additional CSV options depending on if you want to include totals and/or data grouping in your export.
- Deliver to
- Display this report immediately in your browser ("Screen"), or send the report to a specified email address ("Email"). Multiple email addresses can be specified, use ; to separate them (example@example.edu;sample@example.edu).
HTML
CSV
- Choose to Block Students on List
- Show resources widget on the student dashboard
- Adds a widget to the student dashboard to review currently reserved or checked out resources.
- Allow students to reserve a resource via the dashboard
- Expands the above functionality to allow students to reserve resources for themselves.
- Expands the above functionality to allow students to reserve resources for themselves.
- Maximum # outstanding reservations overall
- How many total outstanding reservations can a student hold for your resources?
- How many total outstanding reservations can a student hold for your resources?
- Maximum # outstanding reservations for one resource
- How many total outstanding reservations can a student hold for a single resource?
- How many total outstanding reservations can a student hold for a single resource?
- Maximum # of days for an individual reservation
- How many days can a student reserve a resource for? For example, allowing the student to reserve the resource from the 11th of the month to the 17th, but no longer, would mean this preference needs to be set to 7.
- How many days can a student reserve a resource for? For example, allowing the student to reserve the resource from the 11th of the month to the 17th, but no longer, would mean this preference needs to be set to 7.
- Minimum time needed (days hrs:min) prior to reservation
- Choose the minimum amount of time in advance needed in order to reserve a resource. This is to prevent students from reserving items in the very near future.
- Choose the minimum amount of time in advance needed in order to reserve a resource. This is to prevent students from reserving items in the very near future.
Getting Started / Basics
Schedule Management
The TracCloud schedule is where you can create and manage your consultant’s availabilities. The availability blocks created here will appear when staff or students are searching for appointments based on the criteria chosen during the search process. This article will walk you through how to utilize these features, from creating availabilities to booking appointments.
The schedule can be reached by clicking the “Schedule” button at the top of the dashboard. Click the "Expand" options below to view more information on different parts of the schedule management process.
Navigating the staff schedule is a crucial part of managing your Trac System if you host appointment-based sessions. This is where you can create new availabilities/time slots, review past and future appointments, and even book new appointments on behalf of students.
Starting at the top of the schedule view, you'll find options for changing your date range and selected consultant. The date field can be clicked on so that you can select a specific day or week (depending on your current consultant selection), and you can cycle through past/upcoming dates using the arrow buttons. The "Today" button will always take you to the current date.
Following this is the consultant menu. Your consultants will be grouped by the centers they're assigned to (or profiles then centers for systems with 5+ profiles). Selecting an individual consultant will display their schedule for the selected week. You can alternatively select "All of this center" to view all of your consultant schedules for a single day. This option also allows you to hide unavailable consultants with a checkbox along the schedule settings bar. You can also choose your selected center, which applies to both the "all of this center" view as well as individual consultants who work across multiple centers.
Lastly, you will find your Schedule Display Options. These can be used to change your visible time on the calendar, as well as hide certain record types. Changes made here will only affect your own account, and only in your current browser session. The icon indicates whether or not you have the ability to modify availabilities, and the icon indicates the same for appointments. Consultant accounts can also see a button, which will return them to their personal calendar.
After selecting the consultant you want to create an availability for, click-and-drag to begin creating an availability block in an open space on their schedule. Before you let go of left-click, tapping the 'a' key on your keyboard will cycle through different options. Adhoc appointments (white), reserve blocks (red), and standard availabilities (green). Standard availability is what you'll want to select to create a new time slot on your consultant schedule.
Once you release left-click, you will be brought to the availability entry window where you can configure the time slot.
In the top-right corner of the availability, you can choose the block type. Availability is a regular availability linked to a single center. A Stacked Availability can be linked to multiple centers, essentially allowing you to create multiple overlapping availabilities at the same time. When stacking an availability, you can choose which fields are ignored and not shared between stacked blocks. For example, you can ignore the Meeting Type field so that the Learning Center block can be online and the Writing Center block can be in-person, otherwise non-ignored options will be shared across the entire stack. Reserve Blocks are covered further into this article.
Subject and Reason allow you to restrict what this time slot can be utilized for. If left blank, which is a typical choice, the consultant and center course lists will be used. If you wanted to restrict the availability to a specific subject, you can select it from the search menu, or use a wildcard entry (such as "MATH*" for all sections that start with "MATH) or a course list if your preferences allow it.
The following option, Meeting Type, determines if this is a remote/online availability, in-person, or asynchronous. The latter option will be covered in the next portion of this wiki article. Depending on which option you choose, additional Location fields will be made available. In-person availabilities may be assigned to a specific room or building number, while online sessions will be assigned a specific online invite link. That link can be the consultant's specific invite link from their account, a breakout room, or a new invite can be copy/pasted directly into the "Online URL" field. Students can join these online appointments from their dashboard, as TracCloud will provide a hyperlink to them at the appointment start time.
The Max Students option determines the availability type. 0 would be a drop-in event, 1 is a one-on-one meeting, and 2 or more would be a multi-person group.
The date range and days of the week fields allow you to determine how this availability will repeat going forward. By default, just the one day you created the block on will be active, however, you can push the “To” date farther out and deselect the days of the week that this availability shouldn’t be active for to create a schedule such as “Every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday until May 30th.”
Increments and Breaks control how the block is split into different times. If you create a 5-hour block on the schedule, setting the Increments to 60 minutes will split that into 5 1-hour blocks instead. Breaks allow you to schedule breaks for your consultants in-between appointments. For example, you could set Increments to 55 and Breaks to 5 to give your consultants 5-minute breaks in between their 55-minute appointments.
Overrides will show you gaps in the series. For example, if you have an availability that repeats for some time, but a block in that series is removed (maybe the consultant isn't available that week or their time changes on that one day), that will appear as an override date for the rest of the series. An availability can also be manually overridden if you want to make changes to it independently from the rest of the series by clicking the button as seen in the screenshot below.
Documents can be uploaded to the availability, which will automatically be carried through to booked appointments so that students can access them.
Notes is an internal notes field for staff to share information about this availability with each other. This field is not shown to students, and can be used for any purpose.
Group sessions also offer a couple of unique settings for your availabilities, detailed below.
- Group Slot Restriction
- This determines what subject students can book compared to the first student's selection. Any Subject means that one student could book for MATH100, and another for ACTG100, any subject is allowed (within consultant and center specialties). Same Subject means that one student could book for MATH100 01, and another for MATH100 02, but not for MATH200. Both Same Subject and Instructor and Same Section can be used to be more strict as needed.
- This determines what subject students can book compared to the first student's selection. Any Subject means that one student could book for MATH100, and another for ACTG100, any subject is allowed (within consultant and center specialties). Same Subject means that one student could book for MATH100 01, and another for MATH100 02, but not for MATH200. Both Same Subject and Instructor and Same Section can be used to be more strict as needed.
- First booked appt determines online / in person for that time slot on that day
- This option only appears if the availability offers both in-person and online meeting types. If checked, the first student who books the appointment decides if it will take replace in-person or online. Otherwise, each individual student can independently select online/in-person for a hybrid environment. This option only appears if "Allow group online/in-person per time slot determined by first person that day and time" is enabled in your profile schedule prefs.
- This option only appears if the availability offers both in-person and online meeting types. If checked, the first student who books the appointment decides if it will take replace in-person or online. Otherwise, each individual student can independently select online/in-person for a hybrid environment. This option only appears if "Allow group online/in-person per time slot determined by first person that day and time" is enabled in your profile schedule prefs.
Click “Save” once you’re happy with the availability configuration.
Asynchronous is an additional meeting type available for availabilities. These are created like normal availabilities, but appointments are held asynchronously. A text chat will be provided for a student and consultant to communicate with each other, and documents can be uploaded to the appointment for each user to download and review. This functionality must be enabled in your profile before it can be used, go to Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Prefs > Scheduling > Other Schedule Options > Allow availabilities to be asynchronous
This meeting type can be selected just like In-Person or Online, and can be combined with those meeting types to give students more choices when booking appointments.
Asynchronous availabilities are shown on the schedule view as a purple box with a icon. Students will see the same color in their availability searches.
After the appointment has been booked, you will notice a couple differences compared to standard appointments. The Status field now only contains "In Progress" and "Concluded" plus a missed and canceled status, as standard synchronous statuses no longer apply. An additional Messages tab has also been added, which will contain all communications between the consultant and the student.
Students and consultants will primarily be communicating and managing the session from the dashboard. This will display all "In Progress" asynchronous sessions that you (a consultant or student) are a part of. Clicking "Show Previous Concluded" will let you review past asynchronous sessions, download documents, or even reopen the session if needed.
Clicking on one of these entries will open the appointment record with two tabs available. Appointment Information contains the current status of the appointment, any custom fields, as well as uploaded documents. Messages (pictured below) shows the current discussion between the student and their consultant, along with a log of document uploads/deletions. Either party can conclude or reopen the session at any time with the button in the lower-right corner.
Reserve Blocks can be created over existing availabilities and appointments, to prevent booking and automatically cancel conflicting appointments. This is typically used for holiday breaks, sick days, or to block off specific times of the day when a consultant will not be available.
There are two ways to create a reserve block. You can click-and-drag an availability as usual, then tap the 'a' key to cycle to a reserve block, or create a normal availability then change the block type to "Reserve Block" in the top-right corner.
Once you've started creating your reserve block, you will find a few options that don't exist in normal availabilities which have been detailed below.
- All Staff this Center is used to create a block for all consultants across your selected center, rather than exclusively for the consultant account that you had originally selected.
- All Staff for All Centers goes beyond what the "this center" option does, placing this block on all consultant schedules across all centers.
- Show on schedule as meeting will change how this block visually displays on the schedule and will be shared to the consultant's calendar via the "Calendar URL" button on the staff dashboard. This does not have an effect on blocking availabilities or cancelling appointments, that functionality will be the same regardless of if this is checked.
- Do NOT Cancel any intersecting appointments will prevent overlapping/conflicting appointments from being automatically canceled when this block is saved, which is otherwise the default behavior of reserve blocks.
- Description can be used to record why this reserve block exits. For example, "Time off for holiday."
- Status will apply to all overlapping appointments. For example, "Canceled - Holiday" to differentiate these cancellations when running reports. If this field is left blank, a generic "Canceled" status will be used instead.
The rest of the reserve block is created like a standard availability, set the time and days that should be blocked, then click "Save" to add it to the schedule.
Appointments can be booked from the staff schedule directly, or from the dashboard. The former can only be accessed by staff, while the latter can be accessed by both students and staff if their permission group allows it. Regardless of which option is used, emails will be sent out as usual and the records will appear in reports as expected.
Staff Schedule
From the staff schedule, there are 3 ways to book an appointment for a students, depending on what's easiest for that particular session.
Ad-hoc appointments can be created by clicking-and-dragging (as if you're creating an availability), but before you let go of left-click, tap the 'a' key on your keyboard to cycle to the appointment option (white). After you let go, TracCloud will prompt you to choose a student before taking you to the appointment entry screen (detailed further into this article).
Booking availabilities can be accomplished by clicking on the start time of the availability (group or 1-on-1) and searching for a student. After making your selection, you will be brought to the appointment entry screen. You can also click on the icon to set a custom start and end time for your appointment.
Dashboard
Both students and staff have access to the dashboard appointment search widget. The primary difference (aside from the appointment entry page itself) is that staff will need to select a student in the widget, while students do not since they're already logged in on their browser. The exact options available in this widget will be based on your profile preferences and search availability widget settings.
If “Choose a Date & Center” is selected (or was made the default for your system), an additional window will appear after clicking "Search" to choose a center/profile, as well as the specific date of the appointment you want to book. The phrasing of text shown here is based on your search availability widget settings.
After searching, you will be brought to a results screen such as this, allowing you to view the time of the appointment, which center it takes place in, whether it’s a Group, 1 on 1, Drop-In, or Asynchronous time slot, and the consultant. The results will load one day at a time, more results can be loaded by clicking the “Load more for [the following day]” at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on the time slot will open the appointment entry window where you can book that time slot.
Appointment Entry
After clicking on the availability that you want to book, the appointment entry screen where you can fill out custom fields and confirm your appointment will differ depending on if you're logged in as a staff or a student.
The student view is very restricted. The student can only edit fields that your system (or individual availability, depending on the field) allows to be edited. Student custom fields, meeting type, recurring status, and duration.
The staff perspective shows all appointment fields, including status.
Once the appointment is saved, appointment confirmation emails (and SMS texts via TextAlerts) will be sent to both the student and consultant.
Group rosters are exclusive to group availabilities, where multiple appointments need to be viewed or managed at once. This utility offers several unique features compared to the 1-on-1 appointments seen directly on the staff schedule. To open the group roster, you can click on the 0 / 0 icon on the availability block.
- /
- If a group is locked by a staff member, it cannot be found or booked in availability searches. This feature can be used if you want to reserve the remaining slots or to prevent further appointments at this time to provide more attention to a smaller roster. Staff can still book new appointments from the roster view even if it's locked.
- If a group is locked by a staff member, it cannot be found or booked in availability searches. This feature can be used if you want to reserve the remaining slots or to prevent further appointments at this time to provide more attention to a smaller roster. Staff can still book new appointments from the roster view even if it's locked.
- Documents
- If a document is uploaded to the group roster, it will be linked to all appointments at that time. Students will be able to view this document in their appointment record if they have access to the chosen document type.
- If a document is uploaded to the group roster, it will be linked to all appointments at that time. Students will be able to view this document in their appointment record if they have access to the chosen document type.
- Roster List
- In the center of the group roster, you'll see a list of students who have appointments at this time. This includes their name, reason, and subject.
- / / / indicates the status of the appointment, and can be clicked to quickly change the status to a different value.
- Not logged in / Logged in at can be clicked to start or conclude the student's visit, similar to the functionality of the log listing. This feature can be disabled in system preferences (General Appointment Settings) if preferred.
- will open the full appointment record for viewing or editing.
- can be clicked to send a text message to the student if they're opted into SMS alerts. Requires the TextAlerts module.
- / can be clicked to select the appointments. This can be used alongside the "Send Email to" and "Add Notes to" options to only affect the selected records.
- Add to Roster
- Click this button to search for and immediately book an appointment for a student.
- Click this button to search for and immediately book an appointment for a student.
- Add Multiple
- This will open a new window where you can add students as a batch process. Search for and select students based on enrollments, name, or a list of IDs. When searching by enrollments, students will only appear if the consultant is assigned to that course in their course list.
- Mark All as Attended
- This will mark all appointments in the roster that don't already have a status as attended.
- This will mark all appointments in the roster that don't already have a status as attended.
- Send Email to
- Send an email to students in the roster. You can choose to send the email to all students, cancels, misses, attended appointments, or selected appointments.
- Send an email to students in the roster. You can choose to send the email to all students, cancels, misses, attended appointments, or selected appointments.
- Add Notes to
- This option can be used to enter notes in attended visits or appointment custom fields, either based on status or the selected appointments.
- This option can be used to enter notes in attended visits or appointment custom fields, either based on status or the selected appointments.
- Send Notes
- This option may be labelled differently depending on your profile preferences. Click this button to initiate the Send Visits Notes to email for attended appointments.
If an appointments needs to be moved, you can either cancel the appointment and book it at a new time, or you can move the appointment record. There are two ways to accomplish this, both will send a new confirmation email to the student and consultant informing them of this change.
1. Click-and-drag the top-left corner of an appointment to move it to another time slot on the visible schedule. This can be done from an individual staff schedule or from the "all of this center" view. The latter also allows you to move an appointment to another consultant's schedule.
2. The "Move" button within each appointment can be used to initiate an appointment search, just like on the dashboard. Click on the new time slot you want to book and save your changes.
The Availability Listing can be viewed by going to Other > Listings > Availability Blocks. Access to this listing can be provided by adding "Availability Blocks" table access to a permission group under 'Admin / Modules'. This listing contains all availability records that you have permission to view, including the ability to make batch changes or simply search for and few individual records. The icon shows if the availability is a reserve block or not.
Each column of information displayed has a clickable header that will sort the listing accordingly. Clicking once sorts ascending, a second click will sort descending.
Using the Search Bar on this screen, we can easily perform quick searches to find specific availability records. Right clicking in the search bar (shown below) will provide a list of availability fields to search by, click any of these to auto-fill the search bar.
Example Searches:
- Find an availability by a single value, such as the consultant's name.
- Staff.LastFirst="Smith, Dave"
- Staff.LastFirst="Smith, Dave"
- Search multiple fields at once, separate your searches by a space. If a value you're searching for contains a space, make sure to surround the value with quotes like with the consultant's name below.
- Staff.LastFirst="Smith, Dave" AvailBlocks.isOnline=1
- Staff.LastFirst="Smith, Dave" AvailBlocks.isOnline=1
- Date searches such as this are required to be formatted as YYYY-MM-DD.
- #sql:FromDate#=2024-04-16
- #sql:FromDate#=2024-04-16
- You can also search for records where a date is greater than or less than a value like this.
- #sql:FromDate#=<2024-04-16
- #sql:FromDate#=<2024-04-16
- You can also search by a date range with ...
- #sql:FromDate#=2024-04-01...2024-04-30
- #sql:FromDate#=2024-04-01...2024-04-30
Hamburger Menu
Every listing page in the Trac System features a hamburger menu with utilities to search for or interact with your list of records. Some of these options are specific to a certain listing/record-type, others are shared. The following list includes definitions for the hamburger menu options available on this listing, and how they can be utilized.
- List All
- This option will show all records on the current listing. Some listings have an additional toggle for only showing "Active" records, such as Students and Registrations, which will still override a "List All" search if checked.
- This option will show all records on the current listing. Some listings have an additional toggle for only showing "Active" records, such as Students and Registrations, which will still override a "List All" search if checked.
- Power Search
- This option provides a simple but powerful search utility to find the records you need. String together multiple searches, adding or removing results for each. Use Search Symbols to include ranges of data, and Save Searches for later use if needed. The search term 'blankornull' can be used to find all records with a value of nothing ("") or null ().
- Saved Searches
- See Saved Searches for more information.
- See Saved Searches for more information.
- Export CSV
- Export current listing contents to a CSV file.
- Export current listing contents to a CSV file.
- Show these <records>
- This utility takes your selection of records, finds the related records, and takes you to that listing with the resulting records. For example, on the Registration listing, you can "Show these Students" to display the student records for the registrations that you were viewing.
- This utility takes your selection of records, finds the related records, and takes you to that listing with the resulting records. For example, on the Registration listing, you can "Show these Students" to display the student records for the registrations that you were viewing.
- Find/Merge Duplicates
- These utilities can be used to cleanup duplicate records in your Trac System. We highly recommend reaching out to Redrock Support directly for assistance in cleaning up this data.
- These utilities can be used to cleanup duplicate records in your Trac System. We highly recommend reaching out to Redrock Support directly for assistance in cleaning up this data.
- Find by Values
- This utility can be used to search one field for multiple values. If you have a spreadsheet containing a list of student IDs, this is an easy way to pull up the same list of students in TracCloud by copying the ID column into this search field.
- Change Field Values
- This utility allows you to make modifications in to your records in bulk. Similar to the Merge Duplicates utility, we highly recommend coordinating with Redrock Support directly on this setting.
- This utility allows you to make modifications in to your records in bulk. Similar to the Merge Duplicates utility, we highly recommend coordinating with Redrock Support directly on this setting.
- Selected...
- The Selection Tool offers several options to filter and manage your records. More information on this feature can be found in its own dedicated article here.
- The Selection Tool offers several options to filter and manage your records. More information on this feature can be found in its own dedicated article here.
- Allows you to print the contents of the current listing, by extension this also allows you to export the current list as a PDF file.
- Allows you to print the contents of the current listing, by extension this also allows you to export the current list as a PDF file.
If you've created a new availability for one of your Consultants and it's not showing up as expected when performing a search for appointment times, there are a few possible causes. This portion of the wiki outlines these possibilities, ordered from most to least likely based on what we at Redrock have experienced working with campuses directly.
1. Center and Consultant Course Lists
The most common cause when an availability isn't appearing in search results is misconfigured Course Lists. Both your Consultant and your Center need to be assigned to the subject you're searching for (unless your Center or Reason is set to ignore Consultant Specialties). Make sure you Process Specialties (Step 2) after applying any changes.
Consultant Course List: Other > Listings > Staff > [Your Staff] > Course List of Specialties
Center Course List: Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Centers > Course List for this Center
A complete list of Course Lists can also be found by simply going to: Other > Listings > Course Lists
2. Process Specialties
This is always recommended after applying changes to Course Lists, but it may also be the case that the specific section you searched for was imported after you created the Course List for your Center/Consultant, and a Course List refresh alone may resolve this issue. We can setup an automated process to Process Specialties daily if this occurs often, reach out to us using the 'Support' tab above for more information.
3. Reason Assignments
Similar to ensuring that your courses are assigned to the correct Consultant and Center, the same applies for Reasons. This step only applies if you're using Reason as a search criteria.
For Consultants, go to Other > Listings > Staff > [Your Staff] > Reason Specialties
For Centers, go to Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Centers > [Your Center] > Active Reasons
4. Availability Subject/Reason
If your availability is assigned to the wrong subject or reason, this can cause it to be unintentionally filtered out of results. Make sure the value entered here is correct, especially if you're using wildcards. If these are blank (i.e., available for all specialties), you can skip this troubleshooting step.
Schedule > [Consultant] > Availability
5. Profile Time Restrictions
If your availability is 60 minutes long, but your profile only allows for a maximum of 50-minute appointments, this can unexpectedly filter out availabilities if you haven't updated your profile preferences to match this new limit. The relevant options to check here are Schedule no sooner than and no later than, ensure that you're searching within an allowed range. As well as Minimum and Maximum Appointment Duration, make sure your availability is within the limits defined by your profile.
Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Prefs > Scheduling > Time Restrictions
More Scheduling Prefs Information
6. Reason/Subject Required for Search
In the event that you aren't searching for both Reason and Subject, and the previous steps haven't resolved your issue, it's worth double-checking to make sure your Profile hasn't been mistakenly set to require a Subject/Reason to show availabilities. Make sure the highlighted settings match the search you're performing on the dashboard.
Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Prefs > Scheduling > Special Fields
More Scheduling Prefs Information
7. Skills and Accommodations
If your campus utilizes the Skills/Accommodations feature, with 'Excluded when not chosen' enabled, make sure your consultant/availability is assigned to that Skill/Accommodation.
Consultants: Other > Listings > Staff > [Staff Account] > Special Needs/Skills/Accommodations
Availabilities: Schedule > [Availability] > Special Needs > Special Needs/Skills/Accommodations
Still having trouble getting the results you expect? Reach out to us using the 'Support' tab at the very top of this page, we'd be happy to help.
See Also
- Emails - Appointment confirmations, reminders, etc.