TracCloudWhatsNew
From Redrock Wiki
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.
2024-10-31 | TracCloud features and changes from October 2024
A new custom field type, common listing searches, new ways to group data in reports, and more in TracCloud for the month of October 2024. Our full changelog can be found here.
New Custom Field Type: Info (non-entry)
There's a new custom field type named "Info (non-entry)" which allows you to display non-entry instructions or information in any custom field location. This field supports text-wrapping and text size is between the existing "label" and "header" field types.
Common Searches in Listings
The search history button on certain listings now contains some commonly performed searches for convenient access. More searches will be added to different listings overtime, but you can see them now in the Outstanding Appointment Requests, Tasks, and Assigned Success Plans listings.
Report Changes
- There are three new reports for workshops: Students Workshops Attendance, Workshops Overview, and Workshops Roster.
- You can now group by meeting type (In-Person, Online, Asynchronous) in the Students Visits/Appointments by ?? report.
- You can now group by month in the Visits by ?? report.
- The Students Visits Summary report has a new option to exclude students without visits, include active students without visits, or include all students without visits.
- There's a new report category for "Scheduling" where you'll find several reports that used to be part of the Management category.
- The favorite reports list will now indicate if a favorite report belongs to an inactive staff account.
Other Changes
- There's a new option in reserve blocks to prevent cancellation of overlapping appointment records.
- Success Plan visit steps can now require students visit with their assigned advisor/consultant.
- Notifications can now be disabled for specific permission groups. This option is found under the "Restrictions" tab.
- There's a new "Brief with Save" student form option in permission groups to restrict a group to the "Brief" view while still allowing those staff to save changes to the student record. The existing "Brief" view continues to block saving by default.
- New Twig tag for Success Plan emails, {{SPAssigned.DashboardStatus}}. This will display the contents of the dashboard widget for the related plan, showing their overall progress.
- The Visits/Appointments SFTP export has a new option to keep the single quote character rather than replacing it with "[SingleQuote]" text.
- The terms and conditions field in resource types now supports HTML.
- When logging in for a visit on the kiosk or log listing using Other ID or Other ID2, it will no longer prompt the user to select the student from a list (i.e., it will skip straight to login like regular IDs do).
2024-10-11 | TracCloud features and changes from September 2024
New ways to search for staff records, quick access to processed referral notes, new conditional survey options, and more in TracCloud for the month of September 2024. Our full changelog can be found here.
Search by Subject and Reason specialty on staff listing
You can now search for staff members based on their specialties from the staff listing. You can quickly select these fields by right clicking the search bar and selecting either "SubjectCourse Specialty" or "Reason Specialty". You can then take make use of the other listing utilities with the resulting staff, such as sending batch emails or assigning tasks.
Processed Notes from Referrals Listing
Processed notes from completed referrals can now be viewed from the SAGE Referral Listing, rather than requiring opening individual records or running a report.
Report Changes
- You can now group visits by week in the Visits by ?? report.
- Section custom fields can now be added as additional fields in the SAGE Referrals by ?? report.
Other Changes
- Conditional questions in SurveyTrac can now reference other questions in the same 'or' line. For example, a condition can be "ABC1:Great|Good|DEF2:Yes" meaning question ABC1 must be "Great" or "Good" OR DEF2 must be "Yes".
- The Sections listing now has a "Search active only" filter, similar to the registrations listing.
- The student timeline now shows displays a message informing the user that events beyond 7 days out will not be displayed unless a date is chosen. Only the instructional text is new, the date range filter has not recently changed.
- There's a new group permission to restrict whether or not users can delete SAGE referrals (none, all, or own).
- New "Is here for an appointment" field available in log listing customization to show if the student logged in for an appointment.
- There's a new preference to restrict how late students can reserve resources in system preferences.
- Collateral is now a searchable field on the resources listing.
- Consultant full name added as an alias choice in System Preferences, to allow staff full names to appear during kiosk login.
2024-08-30 | TracCloud features and changes from August 2024
New staff fields, barcodes scanners in batch codes, and more in TracCloud for the month of August 2024. Our full changelog can be found here.
Staff Title and Supervisor
Staff records now have two new fields, "Title or Position" and "Supervisor." The former is a text field allowing any entry, the latter allows you to search for and select another staff account in TracCloud.
Student Barcodes in Batch Visit QR Codes
Barcodes or other scanned/swiped identifiers can now be used during login on Batch Visit QR codes.
Report Changes
- Student email can now be included as an additional field in the Resources report.
- Students Visits/Appointments by ?? report has a new additional field named "Appointment has document," which will show which appointments have a linked document record.
- Section code can now be added as an additional field in the Visits by ?? report.
- The Work Plans report now has center filtering options, which relates to the linked centers of consultants to filter report results.
- Custom fields for Reasons can now be added in Additional Fields to Show in several reports.
Other Changes
- Work plan supervisors can now be any staff member, rather than just consultants.
- The Availability blocks listing now has an "Export CSV" option.
- It's now possible for prospective students to enter their email address during signup.
- If a staff account without a photo is linked to a student account with a photo, the student photo will automatically appear in the staff record. Uploading a photo to the staff account will override this.
- The checkbox to make a document a "Student Dashboard Document" now appears during upload on student records.
- HTML is now supported in the Subtitle Additions field in Search Appointment Links.
- There's a new option in system preferences to allow flag text to appear when hovering over the flag icon with your mouse, "Allow mouse over the flag to show the flag labeled."
- There is now a "Maximum Minutes Per Day" limit in Grade Groups.
- The student confirm bio email sent from kiosk will now include a hyperlink to TracCloud rather than a long URL.
2024-07-31 | TracCloud features and changes from July 2024
Conditional survey questions, searching availabilities by center and consultant, new report options, and more in TracCloud for the month of July 2024. Our full changelog can be found here.
SurveyTrac Conditional Questions
You can now create conditional questions in SurveyTrac, which will only appear if previous questions were answered in a particular way. This allows you to ask follow-up questions or gain more information depending on the feedback previously received.
Center and Consultant on Search Availability Widgets
You can now enable a center and consultant choice in your search availability widgets, giving students and staff more ways to filter availability results. These additional options can be enabled in your system preferences (hyperlinked above).
Email Consultants via Visits by ??
The Visits by ?? report has a new option to send visit information to consultants, with each consultant only seeing the visits they're assigned to. This functionality can be thought of as the consultant equivalent to the Visits by Faculty and Subject report.
Report Changes
- You can now search for reports and filter out group favorites in the favorite reports menu.
- An option to only show section specialties for active registrations has been added to the Consultant Specialties report.
- Reason search added to Appointments/Availabilities by Hour by Day of Week.
- It's now possible to include availability notes in the Center Schedule report.
- You can now filter visits by section custom fields in the additional search of most visit reports.
- The Resources Listing report has a new option to include current and upcoming reservations.
- Appointments/Visits Utilization will now show non-duplicated availability hours in addition to total hours (where applicable).
Other Changes
- There is now a resource return confirmation email that can be sent to the user who checked out the item upon the item's return. This can be found in your profile email preferences.
- The 'New Prospective Student' button and the subtitle on the log listing/kiosk can now be renamed in log in/out prefs.
- The Visits/Appointments SFTP Export has a new option to include visits that were last modified in the number of days chosen, rather than strictly visits that took place in that range.
- "This Week" and "Last Week" date range options added to Status Charts.
- Student flag can now be added as a visible field on the log listing.
- You can now enter a custom notice for the generic all-profiles kiosk in General KIOSK Login Options.
- Resource collateral column added to Resources Listing.
- Student sequence number now appears in the top-right corner of student records in addition to ID number.
2024-07-01 | TracCloud features and changes from June 2024
New ways to batch send surveys, multiple search availability improvements, new report options, and more in TracCloud for the month of June 2024. Our full changelog can be found here.
New Ways to Send Surveys
Surveys configured to be initiated via Do not auto send or Link on edit student can now be sent from the surveys listing to batches of email addresses, including a way to send them anonymously to users who may not have an account in TracCloud. There are three selection options:
- Existing user allows you to select one user with a search box to send a survey to. The "Questioned directed to..." options in the survey still applies, a survey directed to students will not be sent to a staff member even if selected.
- Existing users via email allows you to enter a list of email addresses to send the survey to. TracCloud will find the matching user for each email address and send a survey to them. "Questioned directed to..." still applies just like above.
- Anonymous via email also allows you to enter a list of email addresses to send the survey to, but TracCloud will not try to find an account for them. All surveys will be sent anonymously (i.e., no user info collected outside of the questions you ask). The survey will be sent and answers collected even if a listed email address doesn't correspond to an account in TracCloud.
Other SurveyTrac Changes
- Surveys can now be configured to expire after a number of days to prevent old surveys from being answered. This option is found in the "General" tab of your survey, "Survey Link expires after # days." This only applies to emailed surveys.
- The survey listing now has a "Search Active Only" checkbox that is enabled by default, similar to the students listing.
Search Availability Improvements
There are multiple improvements to the search availability process and results list to make finding a time slot faster and easier.
- More results are now shown at once. Previously, only 4-5 time slots were visible at a time requiring you to scroll to see more. Now the results page will expand to fill the available vertical space of your monitor. This means the number of results shown can differ depending on monitor resolution and zoom level, but you should expect to see 2-3 times as many results as you did before without scrolling.
- The date chooser is now always available at the top of the window to more easily find availabilities on a different date.
- The availability list can now be printed with the button in the top-right corner of the results window (this does not reserve any availabilities, keep in mind that a printed availability list is unlikely to be accurate for long).
- The "Report unable to find appointment" button no longer appears in the "Choose a Date and Center" page of the availability search process, the user must reach the results page before the button appears.
Report Changes
- The Usage Snapshot report has a new mode to tally chosen options within multi-check custom fields.
- "Student Username" field can now be added as an additional field in Visits by ??.
- "Date Entered" field can now be added as an additional field in Visits by ??.
- Q2 Table Name can now be added as an additional field in both the Q2 Visits by ?? report and in Visits by ??.
- Emailed reports can now be sent as an attachment instead of link+passcode if toggled in system preferences. Other > Other Options > Preferences > Reports Management > Email reports with the report file attached in a single email. If the report is too large (>10MB), TracCloud will fall back to using the link+passcode automatically.
Other Changes
- "Online" can now be checked for visits recorded via custom kiosks, in addition to presetting other existing fields like center, reason, etc.
- The staff listing now has a "Search Active Only" checkbox that is enabled by default, similar to the students listing.
- Search Appointment Links can now include custom button text and a description with Twig support to help describe their purpose to students. These new fields are Override Name with optional Twig (optional) and Subtitle Additions (optional twig).
- The log listing page can now be sorted by reason. Sorting options are found in the hamburger menu in the top-left of the page.
- If your TracCloud instance uses local passwords for student or staff authentication instead of SSO, you can now allow users to reset their own password from the local login page. This option can be enabled by going to Other > Other Options > Preferences > Login & Security Settings > Local Account Settings > Allow Student Password Reset/Allow Staff Password Reset.
- For instances that track visits that conflict with section schedule times, you can now search for appointments that conflict with section schedules in the same way on the appointments listing. "Appointments.CustomData/isSchedDuringClass=1" (also available in the right-click menu, like on the attendance listing). TracCloud does not monitor for conflicting records by default, if this is something you want to enable, please reach out to our support for assistance.
- "g:i:sa" time format (e.g., 1:30:00pm) added to time fields in Log Listing customization.
2024-05-31 | TracCloud features and changes from May 2024
New custom fields options, stacked availabilities, resource reservations, and more in TracCloud for the month of May 2024. Our full changelog can be found here.
Custom Fields Groups
Custom fields "Groups" can now be created to bundle other custom fields together. This can help in highlighting certain custom fields or to record multiple values with Repeating group values. When using Repeating Group Values, page options will become available for the group allowing you to cycle between current and past pages of data, or to create new pages with new values in the grouped fields. More information on custom fields groups can be found here.
Other custom field changes
- Custom fields have moved to their own listing in Other > Other Options > Custom Fields, making it easier to search for and manage your fields.
- Custom fields can now be assigned to availabilities, which will appear under the 'Notes' tab.
- Custom fields can now be assigned to documents, to be filled out during or after document upload.
Stacked Availabilities
You can now create stacked availabilities to easily build schedules across multiple centers at once. In the top-right corner of your availability, choose "Stacked Availability" and select the centers you want to copy the availability to and which fields should not be shared across all availabilities in the stack.
When a stacked availability is saved, a new option will appear at the top to choose which center's availability you're currently managing (replacing the main center drop-down of a non-stacked availability). This will allow you to make changes to the ignored fields independently of the other availabilities in the stack.
Resources Reservations
Students can now be given the ability to reserve resources for later checkout. Multiple reservations can exist at once, and TracCloud will automatically prevent reservations from having conflicting dates. Automated emails can also be sent to remind students of their pickup and return times. Details on using resource reservations and resources in general can be found here.
Other Resource Changes
- Resources have a new length of checkout option for "Arbitrary Due Date." This will prompt the user checking out the item to manually enter a due date rather than the due date being set automatically.
- The resource image will now be displayed while checking out a resource to a user.
- The resource checkout menu can now be changed to full screen with the button.
Documents Report
The Documents report, found in Reports > Management, will display a list of uploaded documents with information about the file sorted by file name, assignee, date, document type, or who it was posted by. Click here to learn more about this report.
Other report changes
- You can now search by students' other status in most student reports.
- You can now search by appointment custom fields and student username in the Students Visits/Appointments by ?? report.
Other Changes
- Custom views can now be selected as the default view for a listing or the only available view for a listing based on the logged in user's permission group.
- SurveyTrac has a new question type that allows the recipient to upload a document as their response.
- SysAdmins can be given the ability to save records without filling out required fields. This must be enabled in the 'Restrictions' tab of the SysAdmin permission group if needed.
- Faculty can now be given the ability to view and assign tasks from the dashboard.
- Students can be given the ability to upload their own photo via confirm bio (disabled by default).
- You can now search by appointment custom fields on the appointments listing.
- Terms and conditions can now be linked to a student list, so that only those students are prompted to agree to the terms.
- Creating a new center now automatically adds it to your permission group.
- It's now possible to search by last imported date on the registrations listing.
2024-04-30 | TracCloud features and changes from April 2024
Prospective students, editing recurring appointment dates, announcement schedules and more in TracCloud for the month of April 2024. Our full changelog can be found here.
Prospective Students
TracCloud's new prospective student functionality allows new students to easily create accounts for themselves so they can book appointments or visit your centers. This can be initiated by the student on a kiosk or by a staff member from the students listing. A link will be sent to their email or phone number with instructions on finalizing their account, all independent of your student data import.
More information on this feature can be found here.
Announcements Days & Times
Your announcements can now be configured to only display on certain days of the week and/or certain times of day. This allows you to deliver more timely reminders or notices to your students, staff, and faculty.
Resources
The new 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. Click here for more information!
- Resources can now be made exclusive to students or exclusive to staff with the "Not Available to..." options found in every resource record.
- Resources can now be configured to require checked out items be returned by end of semester, or shortly before.
- Custom fields can now be created for resource records to store additional information like item location.
Click here to learn more about resources.
Reports
Access to reports can now be provided on a per-report basis. The next time you're managing your permission groups, you'll find that the report options have moved to the Admin / Modules tab. Underneath those options, a new list will be available to give access to all or individual reports. Each report has a toggle to disable the ability to add additional fields/custom fields to the report results.
- Results can now be filtered by profile in both the Resources and Resources Listing reports.
- "Days to Respond" has been added to the Additional Fields list in Survey Responses. This allows you to view how long it took each recipient to respond to their survey.
- An option to include work visit notes has been added to the Payroll report.
Scheduling
- There's now an Availability Blocks listing to quickly review all availabilities from all centers you have access to. This can allow for easier reviewing of consultant schedules or a faster way to make changes to many availabilities at once. Access to this listing can be provided by going to Other > Listings > Groups > [The group you want to update] > Admin / Modules > Add 'Availability Blocks' under 'Table Access' > Save. After this access has been added, you can find this listing by going to Other > Listings > Availability Blocks.
- A new permission in Group Access > Scheduling, "Allow user to pick repeating schedule dates", allows staff in this group to edit the dates of a recurring availability during booking.
- Appointment confirmation and reminder emails have a new option to set the reply-to address of the email to the consultant's email address. This means that when students reply to the email, the recipient will be automatically changed to the consultant's email address rather than the profile or system address. This requires that students specifically use the "Reply" button to send a response from their email client, as the email will still be delivered from your profile/system email address.
- Appointment reminder emails can now be sent up to two times for each appointment, allowing for a configuration where one reminder sends the night before, and another the morning of, for example.
- Appointment request notifications from the Report Unable to Find Appointment feature will now show more information without opening the full request record. The search availability widget, reason, and subject will additionally be shown.
- Max Appointment Rules can now be configured to block a certain number of appointments in X hours or minutes, in addition to the existing days, weeks, etc options.
- In System Preferences > Availability Entry, the option "Ignore Missed Appointments when using the Move Appointment function" has been added. This allows staff to move appointments to availabilities with missed appointments, which are normally excluded from search results.
- You can now prevent students from re-opening concluded asynchronous appointments by changing "Allow message to be composed after conclusion" to "No" in Profile Prefs > Scheduling > Other Schedule Options.
- "Subject Faculty Title" added to "Format to display Search Subject" options.
- You can now double-click to select a reason within a reason category when searching for availabilities.
Attendance
- The Attendance Listing hamburger menu has a new "This Semester" choice to quickly filter results to only visits for the current active term(s) date range.
- It's now possible to prevent users in a certain group from creating batch visits by checking "Prevent user from accessing Batch Visits" in the Permission Group > Student / Visit tab.
- You can now require a consultant choice during logout, configured in Profile Prefs > Log In/Out.
- Barcode/swipe scanners can now be used during work visit login after being configured in system preferences.
Other Changes
- Automated SAGE emails can now also send texts to the student or the consultant for each referral (with the TextAlerts module).
- It's now possible to specifically restrict a permission group from viewing grades for registration records. This option can be found in the "Restrictions" tab of permission groups.
- An option to duplicate a staff account has been added to the Staff Listing. This allows you to use another account as a template when creating an account for a new staff member. This will copy group, user level, linked centers, reason specialties, etc. Personal information will not be copied.
- Multiple-choice/Multi-check questions in SurveyTrac can now have a limit set for the maximum number of selected answers in the question.
- Public Documents now have a "Copy Link" button to easily grab a link to the file for sharing elsewhere in TracCloud.
- Off-campus work visit logins can now be restricted to logging in during any availability time of the same modality (online). This option is found in Permission Groups > Log In/Out.
- The Tasks listing has new searching options in the search bar and hamburger menu.
- The text editor for Welcome Messages and Staff Bio now have buttons to easily embed images or hyperlinks.
- The Time Line tab in student profiles will now show up to 7 days in the future by default instead of only records up to today. Manually choosing a date range still overrides the default range.
- "Learning Specialists" added to "Name for Consultants" options.
2024-04-01 | TracCloud features and changes from March 2024
Custom appointment links, a new visits report, custom meeting blocks, on/off campus work visit logging, and more in TracCloud for the month of March 2024. Our full changelog can be found here.
Search Appointment Links
You can now create preset search availability links that you can easily share with your students. These links can be preassigned to a center, subject, reason, consultant, modality, or type so that your students only see the results you want them to see when using these links. You can additionally generate QR codes for each link (or even QR codes for specific availabilities) to print out and more easily display for students. To learn more about this feature, head over to our profile scheduling preferences article.
Meeting Blocks
There's a new option available when you're creating reserve blocks, "Show on schedule as a meeting." This works exactly the same as a normal reserve block in relation to appointments and other availabilities, but has two unique benefits for staff. It displays differently on the schedule, showing an appointment colored block with a red border to more easily identify them at a glance. These blocks are also included in the calendar URL on the staff dashboard so your consultants can sync these blocks to their personal calendar unlike a regular reserve block.
Restrict Work Visit Logins by IP Zone
New options are available in permission groups to determine whether or not your consultants can use the dashboard work visit login button when they're on or off campus, or if they're near an appointment or drop-in that they might need to login for. This can be combined with the existing Hide 'Is Work' for Quick Visits / Visit Entry and Allow consultant to login for work on KIOSK where the user logged in is themself options to manage every method of recording work visits to ensure that consultants can only record work visits during allowed times. More information on defining IP zones can be found here.
New Report: Visits by Week by Center
This report provides the total visits by week and center for the date range selected, as well as a total for the entire week across all centers. "Show Totals Bar Chart" can be enabled to show a chart with a line for each week. Click here to learn more about this report.
Reports
- SAGE Referrals by ?? has a new option to email referral information to each consultant in the results. Click the report hyperlink to learn more on how this can be configured.
- Average Wait Time report has a new option to show bar charts for your data.
- The "blankornull" keyword (used in power searches to find blank values) can now be used in the additional search field for reports with that option available.
- The Usage Snapshot report has new chart options available.
Other Changes
- Max Appointment Rules have a new option, "Fail Message to Student." This text field replaces the default text shown to students when they're blocked due to a rule. This is ideal if you want to hide the exact details of the max appointment rule from your students in favor of a prewritten message. This only applies to the students' perspective, staff will still see the original rule text.
- "Multiple Checkboxes" custom fields have a new option to set the maximum number of choices allowed. This allows for fields like "Select up to 3 discussion points for this meeting." where you can prevent users from selecting beyond 3.
- Access to the appointments listing can now be given to any staff account based on permission group (rather than only profile and system administrators). This table access can be provided in permission groups under the "Admin/Modules" tab.
- You can now add custom text to online and asynchronous appointments, similar to the existing option to add extra text to in-person appointments. These text fields can be found in your System Preferences under "General Appointment Settings."
- The custom fields menu in system preferences has new filters to only view fields assigned to a certain page or in a certain profile.
- The kiosk/log listing work visit login prompt can now be changed to fullscreen (), which keeps it open between logins. This allows you to turn any kiosk into a dedicated work visit kiosk.
- Resources and Resource Types now have standard listings to make it easier to search for and manage your resource records.
- Password strength indicator added when setting a local account password.
- There's a new option in Search Availability Options > Additional Settings to relax reason specialties requirements on the staff schedule, so appointments/availabilities can be manually created for any reason. (Note: this was previously the default behavior of TracCloud, so this option is enabled by default for all existing customers to prevent unexpected changes.)
- Max appointment rules based on status can now use the | character to apply the rule to multiple statuses (e.g., "Missed|Canceled").