TracCloudWhatsNew

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Revision as of 17:06, 23 January 2023 by Redrock (talk | contribs)

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.


Latest posts

Staff & Consultants
This tab is where you will find your staff/consultants that have been assigned to this profile. From this view, we can see the staff names, the centers and group they’re assigned to, and what type of staff member they are (consultant or regular staff).

For a complete list of staff, not just staff assigned to this profile, go to Other > Other Options > Listings > Staff.


To create a new staff member, click on the hamburger button, then select “New Staff Member.”


General / Name, Photo, Permissions, etc.

Contact & Other Data

Certifications & Work Plans

Reason Specialties

Timeline

Staff Listing


Log Listing Message, KIOSK Notices, and Custom KIOSKs

This section of your profile preferences contains additional options relating to the Log Listing, KIOSKs, and more.

Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Prefs > Log Listing Message, KIOSKS Notices, and Custom KIOSKs

Notices, Welcome, Goodbye messages


Auto Terminate


Other Log In/Out Preferences


Custom Kiosks


Time Check Preferences



Course Lists

Course Lists act as assigned sections or specialties in TracCloud, allowing you to determine which courses each of your consultants can assist with, and which courses are available in each center. Course Lists can additionally be assigned to availabilities as a form of section group, as seen towards the bottom of this article.


Creating & Managing Course Lists

Assigning Course Lists to Centers

Assigning Course Lists to Consultants

Sharing Course List Items

Availability Course Lists


Reasons
Reasons/Services allow your staff and students to provide additional information and reasons for booking an appointment. For example, reasons such as “Counseling,” “Study Plan Help,” or “Exam.” This would let the consultants know what the student needs help with, provide preparation details and information as needed, and gives your staff additional information for reports. Reasons can be managed by going to Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Reasons.



The hamburger icon contains several management options, detailed below.


  • Show Activated
This will display globally activated reasons (left-side checkbox).

  • Activate/Deactivate Found Records
Activate/Deactivate reasons in bulk, based on your last search result.

  • New Reason
Create a new reason.

  • Add Multiple Reasons
Create multiple reasons at once, each on its own line.

Creating Reasons

Click on the hamburger button, then select “New Reason” to be brought to the Reason creation menu.



  • Profile
By default, the profile we started creating this reason in will be selected, however, we can change this value or even choose “Available for All Profiles.”

  • Reason
The name of the reason, this will be what’s selected by students or staff during appointment scheduling and kiosk logins.

  • Category
The category this reason is assigned to. More information on this can be found further into this article.

  • Sort Code
Manually specify how your reasons are sorted during login or appointment search. This can be numeric, or you can simply paste your reason name to sort alphabetically.

  • Log Out Method & Visit Time
There are three Methods available.
  • Auto Logout After Time, which will automatically log the student out of the center when the time specified in Visit Time is reached.
  • Auto Logout Immediately will log the student out immediately after they’re logged in and create a visit record of the length specified in Visit Time.
  • Notify Time Expired, which will send out an email based on the checkboxes used when the time limit is reached. The contents of this email will be determined by your 'Visit Duration Notification' email in your Profile Prefs.


  • Inactive
We never recommend deleting records in TracCloud, as this removes them from reports and related records. In the event that you are no longer utilizing a reason, you’ll want to check the Inactive box instead of deleting it to keep the records available and accurate.

  • Work Reason
Work reasons allow consultants to login to TracCloud and track their work hours. This data will then be available to users with appropriate permissions via payroll reports. For more information on payroll tracking in general, click here.

  • Ignore Section Specialties when Searching Availabilities with this Reason
This functions similarly to the 'Ignore Specialties' options in Centers. If a student is searching for availabilities and selects a Reason with this checkbox enabled, they will see all consultants assigned to this Reason regardless of subject chosen. Typically used for Writing or Coaching-related Reasons.

  • Do NOT SHOW for Students (staff only)
If checked, this Reason will only appear for staff who are booking appointments on behalf of students. Students themselves will not see this Reason.

  • Do NOT SHOW for Appointments
  • Do NOT SHOW for KIOSKS
  • Do NOT SHOW for Batch Visits
Don’t show this reason under these specific circumstances.


Assigning Reasons to Centers

There are two ways to assign Reasons to your Centers, first is directly from this tab in your Profile. The checkbox button on the right-side allows you to activate/deactivate reasons for the center selected in the top-left corner, or display all activated reasons for the selected center. This can also be used with “All centers” selected, allowing you to quickly add or remove a reason from all of your centers.

Reasons can also be assigned from your Center directly. From your Profile, click on the Centers tab followed by the Center you want to update. The very last option on this page is 'Active Reasons,' allowing you to add or Remove reasons for this specific Center.


Reason Categories

Categories allow you to group different reasons together. If you have several reasons available, it can be beneficial to group them into categories that staff and students can select when booking appointments.

These Categories will appear followed by “…”, which when clicked will prompt you to choose a Reason within the category.



As an example, a “Placement Assessment” category that contains different assessment reasons for each course. A “Note-Taker” category, “Make-Up,” etc. If you have multiple reasons that would be better grouped together, putting them in the same category allows for improved organization and an easier appointment booking process for staff and students.


See Also


Custom Lists, Dynamic Lists, & Watch Lists

Lists are used to group an arbitrary selection of students together. These lists can be used for a variety of reasons, from simply viewing a set of students, to sending mass emails, running reports, or even limiting a permission group’s student listing access to only a certain population of students. If you want to make a student stand out on the log listing or student listing, assigning them to a watch list is a great way to accomplish this. There are three types of lists in TracCloud, detailed below.

Static List

Static lists are managed manually. If an individual student or a set of students need to be added or removed from a list, they will need to be added/removed by a user with the appropriate permissions. Max appointment rules can also be configured to add students to lists automatically, more information on these rules here.

Dynamic List

Dynamic lists are updated automatically based on a student search. For example, you can search for all students with a major of X and a class of Y, and a dynamic list created based on that search will keep itself up to date as that search result changes overtime. You can even base a dynamic list on a student search for other custom lists.

Watch Lists

A watch list can be based on any custom list, static or dynamic, and adds an indicator next to the student's name in a few different locations to make them stand out compared to students not on a watch list. These otherwise share the same functionality as the custom list they're linked to.

In order for a user to view or edit a student list, the list must be assigned to their permission group. It's also worth keeping in mind that only SysAdmins are allowed to create lists in the first place.



Creating Static Lists from System Preferences


Creating Static & Dynamic Lists on the Student Listing


List Categories


Creating Watch Lists

See Also


Terms & Conditions

Terms & Conditions allows you to create a prompt that appears for students when they're logging in or booking an appointment. The prompt will contain a custom message, which the student will have to agree to before continuing. While Terms/Conditions are of course the typical use-case, this feature can also be used for any purpose where a student would need to agree to a statement before having full access to the system.

1. Creating a new Term/Condition

Navigate to Other > Listings > Terms and Conditions. This will take you to the Terms and Conditions listing, where you can view or edit and previous entries. To create a new Term/Condition, click the hamburger icon and select New Terms and Conditions.

Screenshot: The Terms and Conditions listing, New Terms and Conditions is highlighted.
If your SysAdmin account doesn't have access to these options, jump to step 2 and apply those same changes to your SysAdmin group.


This will take you to the Terms and Conditions entry screen.

Screenshot: New Terms and Conditions entry screen.

  • Name
This will be the title of this Term/Condition. This will be displayed across the top of the prompt when shown to students.

  • Responses
This will display a list of students who have accepted these terms/conditions and the date of acceptance.

  • Text Entry Area
This is where you can write out the text of this Term/Condition that students will need to agree to before continuing. If you wish to add custom field inputs to be answered by the student, this can be entered as {#custom:field_name#}. See example screenshots below. More information on custom fields can be found here.



  • Linked to Student List
Only display these terms/conditions to students on the specified list.

  • Linked to Section / Subject
Terms and Conditions can be assigned to a specific subject, section, or all courses, depending on if this term/condition needs to be specific to a certain subject. If selected, an additional entry field will appear where you can choose the section/subject. This will only work with sections that students are registered for; non-enrolled courses will not trigger the terms/conditions to appear.

  • Profile / Center
This is where you can assign this Term/Condition to a specific profile or center.

  • Valid For
This option allows you to determine how long the Term/Condition agreement is valid for. There are three options.
1. Life – Never resets. Once Confirmed, the student will not see the Terms and Conditions again unless this option is changed.
2. Term – Resets after each semester. When next semester term switches over, the students will be asked again to agree to the Terms and Conditions once again.
3. Days - This option allows you set a custom length (e.g., 30 days, 90 days, etc).

  • Displayed When
This option determines where the student will see the Terms and Conditions prompt.
1. None - Inactive. This will deactivate this Term/Condition, and will no longer be displayed to students.
2. Student Main Menu - This will display as soon as the student logs into their account. Students will not be able to continue until the Terms/Conditions prompt has been confirmed.
3. Student Kiosk Login - This prompt will appear when a student attempts to login for a visit via a Kiosk, at which time they will be presented with the Terms and Conditions.
4. Student Booking Appointment - This prompt appears when a student selects an available time from the "Schedule an Appointment" widget on their dashboard. The Terms and Conditions must be confirmed before they can book an appointment.

  • Accept Button Label
This allows you to customize the name of the confirm button (e.g., "I agree").

  • Require Initials
This requires the student to enter their initials before confirming, as a form of e-signature.

  • Allow Enter Notes
This provides students the ability to enter in a note when filling out the Terms and Conditions.

  • Notes Instructions
This is additional instructional text that will appear just above the notes field described above.

2. Group Settings

If you need to allow another set of staff members in your TracCloud instance to access/modify Terms and Conditions, you will need to apply a change to their permission group. Specifically, the Terms and Conditions option will need to be added to Table Access as seen below. This can either be set to View and Edit for full access, or View Only, if you don't want these users making any changes.

Other > Other Options > Groups > [The group you want to edit] > Admin / Modules > Table Access
Screenshot: A permission group entry page with Terms and Conditions highlighted under Table Access.


3. Example Configuration

The screenshot below shows an example of how Terms and Conditions can be configured, and how it displays to students.

Screenshot: A completely filled out Term/Condition record.

Here's how that prompt looks to a student when logging into their account.

Screenshot: Student view of the Terms and Conditions agreement prompt.

After the student agrees, the record of this agreement will appear in their Time Line as seen below.

Screenshot: Student Time Line showing a recent Term/Condition agreement.


4. Allowing Students to View Accepted Terms and Conditions

In order for students to be able to view terms and conditions that they've previously accepted, a system preference needs to be enabled. Go to Other > Other Options > Preferences > System Preferences > General Appointment Settings > Check "Allow students to view accepted Terms and Conditions on dashboard" > Save. Once enabled, students will see this button on their main menu next to the calendar URL. Clicking it will open a list of terms and conditions they've accepted, where they can see their response and the terms themselves by clicking on the arrow button.


Search Availability badges can be used to add information and indicators to availability slots. Each badge can appear for certain conditions, based on center, availability section/reason, location, skills/accommodations, etc.



Click "New Availability Badge" to begin. This will open a form where you can enter the details for your badge.



Manually Linked

Rather than the badge automatically appearing based on certain conditions, these badges appear in a menu to be manually selected on the availability itself.


Name

Name of the Badge. This will not be displayed for students

Availability Type

Drop In, 1-on-1, or Group availability

Consultant

Assign a specific Staff

Reason

Assign a specific Reason

Center

Assign a specific Center

Section

Assign a specific Subject

Special Needs

Select if applicable (more information)

Online

Availability Type; In Person, Online, Online Optional, or Phone

Location

Location of the availability

Once you've decided where the badge is needed and have made your selections from the options above, you can now determine which icon, colors, and info work best for the badge created.
Color: Color of Icon
Icon: Choose from the list or use a custom icon
Info Text: Enter text that will display when users hover over the icon

In the example screenshot above, this badge will only appear on availabilities of staff who have been assigned the “ASL” accommodation and are available in the Learning Center. Once saved, your badge will appear in the profile preferences if you need to edit/delete it later.



Any fields left blank will not be considered for where this badge appears, you can be as specific or non-specific as needed. You can also create as many badges as you'd like, more than 1 tag can appear for the same availability. When students search for an availability, the badges will display to the right of the screen as shown below.




Q2 Study Tables

Q2 Study Tables offers a unique approach to attendance tracking specifically for study table centers, tracking the total time a student spends in the center in addition to recording the individual table visits where students received help from consultants. Students begin their center visit studying independently, while having the ability to request assistance as needed. Q2 offers the ability for students to virtually raise their hand and specify what they need help with, which consultants will be notified of. Smartphones and tablets drive the queuing system, for both students requesting help and staff viewing which students need assistance while recording table visit time.



At any point during a student's independent study time, they can request help. This is a three-step process.

  • 1. The student opens the help request link from their email or scans a nearby QR code, enters their ID number, then specifies what they need help with and which table they're at.
  • 2. A consultant sees that the student has requested help for a subject they can assist with. The consultant will go to that table (or send an online invite link for a virtual session) and begin the table visit.
  • 3. Once the student has received all the assistance they need, the consultant will conclude the table visit. This process can repeat if the student needs more help later.


Usage

The end-user perspective of Q2. Students requesting and receiving help, with staff managing table visits, recording notes, and more.


How does Q2 Tables work for Students?

How does Q2 Tables work for Staff?

Using Q2 Remote for Online Drop-in Sessions

Q2 Configuration

Before you can track table visits, you will need to create your Q2 config and update group permissions to ensure that everything is configured to your needs.


How to set up Q2

Q2 Log Listing Options

Permission Groups

Q2 Custom Fields

Q2 Report

There is currently one report available to view Q2 table visit data found in its own report category, Q2 Tables, detailed below.


Q2 Visits by ??

For information on purchasing the Q2 Module, reach out to sales@go-redrock.com
For Q2 functionality questions, reach out to helpdesk@go-redrock.com


Search Availability badges can be used to add information and indicators to availability slots. Each badge can appear for certain conditions, based on center, availability section/reason, location, skills/accommodations, etc.



Click "New Availability Badge" to begin. This will open a form where you can enter the details for your badge.



Manually Linked

Rather than the badge automatically appearing based on certain conditions, these badges appear in a menu to be manually selected on the availability itself.


Name

Name of the Badge. This will not be displayed for students

Availability Type

Drop In, 1-on-1, or Group availability

Consultant

Assign a specific Staff

Reason

Assign a specific Reason

Center

Assign a specific Center

Section

Assign a specific Subject

Special Needs

Select if applicable (more information)

Online

Availability Type; In Person, Online, Online Optional, or Phone

Location

Location of the availability

Once you've decided where the badge is needed and have made your selections from the options above, you can now determine which icon, colors, and info work best for the badge created.
Color: Color of Icon
Icon: Choose from the list or use a custom icon
Info Text: Enter text that will display when users hover over the icon

In the example screenshot above, this badge will only appear on availabilities of staff who have been assigned the “ASL” accommodation and are available in the Learning Center. Once saved, your badge will appear in the profile preferences if you need to edit/delete it later.



Any fields left blank will not be considered for where this badge appears, you can be as specific or non-specific as needed. You can also create as many badges as you'd like, more than 1 tag can appear for the same availability. When students search for an availability, the badges will display to the right of the screen as shown below.




Advanced (or rarely used) Preferences

The Advanced Prefs tab contains rarely used options, or options that we recommend against for typical use-cases. We recommend leaving these preferences blank unless instructed otherwise. While the documentation below explains what each of these preferences do, we still recommend reaching out to us before making changes.



  • Number of Recs Shown per Page
This limits the number of students shown on one page of the Log Listing/Kiosk. Blank is unlimited, any other number will paginate this listing automatically.

  • Allow cancellation/deletion of new appointment within x minutes
This option assumes you penalize students who cancel a certain number of appointments via max appointment rules. The value entered here acts as a buffer for when cancelled appointments will be deleted instead of set to a cancelled status. For example, if a student books an appointment and cancels 5 minutes later, you may not want to penalize that since the student wasn't holding the appointment for very long. If this preference was set to at least 5 minutes, the appointment would be deleted and would not count against your max appointment rules for that student.
This preference is dangerous as if the value is set to high, it can inadvertently delete appointments that should've been recorded as cancelled.

  • Create visit when entering an online session
If blank or "yes," a visit will be recorded when a student joins an online session through the Trac System. Disabling this means that TracCloud will not automatically record the visit, so it must be recorded manually by a staff member.

  • Create visit when marking an appointment as attended
If blank or "yes," a visit will be created when marking an appointment as attended, assuming a visit doesn't already exist. Disabling this means that TracCloud will not create a visit when an appointment is marked as attended, it must be created elsewhere.

  • Create visit for manually attended appointment during separate student visit
If "Do not create overlapping visit" is chosen, TracCloud will not create overlapping visits for students if an appointment is marked as attended. For example, if a student is logged in for a Q2 session and has an appointment during that time, another visit will not be created since the student is already logged in. If this preference is set to blank or "Create overlapping visit," TracCloud will create overlapping visits.

  • Status for late cancellation
If left blank, a late cancellation will be recorded as "CANCEL - MISSED" (or your Profile's version of the "Missed" phrasing). You can use this to change the phrasing of this status entirely, but make sure to include the word "Cancel" somewhere in the status otherwise TracCloud will not send a cancellation email or open the time slot for other students.
One valid reason to change this would be your Auto Cancellation from Student Cancellations preference in your email settings, as this will only apply when a status contains both the word "Student" and "Cancel." In this case, you may want to change this preference to something like "Student Cancel - Missed" if these appointments should count towards auto cancellation.

  • Override Alarm Trigger & Override Alarm Duration
These options allow you to set custom alarm timings for calendar clients. The format must be "-PT24H" and "PT15M" for the trigger and duration respectively. If left blank, 24H and 15M will be used.

Emails
There are various Profile-specific emails that can be configured in TracCloud. Most are sent automatically, such as Confirmations and Reminders, while some are sent manually, like Visit Notes. This article will provide an overview of these email types, what they do, and how they can be customized for your use-case.

Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Prefs > Emails.


References:

  • Twig
Twig and Twig Tags are used extensively throughout emails. This includes simple elements, like using {{Student.First_Name}} to display a student's first name dynamically, to more advanced logic determining exactly what text is included in each email. This article will be referencing Twig, but will not being going into detail. For more information on this topic, take a look at our dedicated Twig Guide.
In the top right corner of your 'Emails' menu is an 'Email Tags' list. This provides quick access to all of your available tags for these emails, which can also be clicked and dragged into text fields to populate them automatically.

  • Previewing Emails
Every email in this menu has a Preview button to see how your email will display when it's sent. It is required to preview emails before saving any changes. The preview will show the most recent record of that time in the system by default, you can specify a different record to use as an example by clicking the "Sequence #" button the preview window.

  • Loading Default Emails
Most email prefs here offer a default that you can load, either to use as-is or as a template to build off of. Click the clipboard icon next to your email to load the default email format.

Select an email type below to learn more.


Confirmation Emails

Reminder Emails

Cancellation Emails

Missed Appointment Emails

Auto Cancellation Emails from Student Cancellations

Auto Cancellation Emails from Student Misses

Consultant Schedule Summary Emails

Visit and Visit Duration Notification Emails

Send Visit Notes to Coach, Advisor or Student

Resource Checkout Emails

Workshops

  • Profile Email Address is the address that all emails from this profile will be sent from. This is also the address used for "CC the Profile on..." settings.
  • Include iCal attachments enables calendar attachments for your emails. These can be added to a user's personal calendar, but this is only a one-way communication.

Other Email Articles
Not all of TracCloud's email-related settings are found in your Profile Prefs. Here are some quick links to other email settings:

Mail Servers - Looking to start using TracCloud's email capabilities, but don't have an email server setup yet? Start here.

Email Templates - Write an email as a template, and re-use it as needed when manually sending emails to Students and Staff.

Notifications - Send Notifications to Students, displayed in TracCloud directly or sent over email.

SurveyTrac Module - Send Students Surveys over email when their visit concludes, batch send to entire lists, and more.

TextAlerts Module - Send Students and Staff a text message along with their email.


Log Listing Message, KIOSK Notices, and Custom KIOSKs

This section of your profile preferences contains additional options relating to the Log Listing, KIOSKs, and more.

Other > Other Options > Profiles > [Your Profile] > Prefs > Log Listing Message, KIOSKS Notices, and Custom KIOSKs

Notices, Welcome, Goodbye messages


Auto Terminate


Other Log In/Out Preferences


Custom Kiosks


Time Check Preferences



Search Availability badges can be used to add information and indicators to availability slots. Each badge can appear for certain conditions, based on center, availability section/reason, location, skills/accommodations, etc.



Click "New Availability Badge" to begin. This will open a form where you can enter the details for your badge.



Manually Linked

Rather than the badge automatically appearing based on certain conditions, these badges appear in a menu to be manually selected on the availability itself.


Name

Name of the Badge. This will not be displayed for students

Availability Type

Drop In, 1-on-1, or Group availability

Consultant

Assign a specific Staff

Reason

Assign a specific Reason

Center

Assign a specific Center

Section

Assign a specific Subject

Special Needs

Select if applicable (more information)

Online

Availability Type; In Person, Online, Online Optional, or Phone

Location

Location of the availability

Once you've decided where the badge is needed and have made your selections from the options above, you can now determine which icon, colors, and info work best for the badge created.
Color: Color of Icon
Icon: Choose from the list or use a custom icon
Info Text: Enter text that will display when users hover over the icon

In the example screenshot above, this badge will only appear on availabilities of staff who have been assigned the “ASL” accommodation and are available in the Learning Center. Once saved, your badge will appear in the profile preferences if you need to edit/delete it later.



Any fields left blank will not be considered for where this badge appears, you can be as specific or non-specific as needed. You can also create as many badges as you'd like, more than 1 tag can appear for the same availability. When students search for an availability, the badges will display to the right of the screen as shown below.




Formatting Text in TracCloud with Twig and HTML

Many text fields throughout TracCloud support Twig and HTML, giving you greater control in determining what data is displayed to your users based on the context of appointments, visits, and more, as well as formatting that data to be as clear as possible.

Twig will be the primary focus of this article. Twig is a template engine that serves two primary purposes in TracCloud:

  • 1. Print variables in text
Personalize your emails and messages. Greet the student by name, let them know what subject they selected in their appointment, what time their appointment takes place, the location, and more. These same variables are also used for purpose #2.
  • 2. Add logic to your text
Modify the email or message based on why it was sent. Add an extra paragraph if X center was selected, send a follow-up email after a visit if the student chose Y, prevent an email from being sent on a SAGE referral if Z recommendation was checked, and much more. Rather than creating a generic email for any context, create an email that formats itself to match the current context.

Twig (and HTML) are supported in profile emails, welcome messages, email templates, appointment display, and more. Most of the examples listed in this article are for appointment emails or SAGE referrals, but the same concepts apply in all other supported fields. It's also worth keeping in mind that Twig exists outside of TracCloud, and there are many resources online for how you can utilize it that will also work here. This guide likely covers everything you will need, but it doesn't cover everything Twig is capable of.

HTML will also be used throughout this article, but without much explanation as it's more ubiquitous than Twig. There are many excellent resources online explaining how to use this markup language, such as W3Schools. HTML is used to adjust font sizes and colors, embed images and videos, and more.


What are Twig tags?

if / if X then do Y

else / if X then do Y, otherwise do Z

elseif / if W then do X, otherwise if Y then do Z

if (arrays) / if X in Y

for (arrays) / for each X in Y, do Z

SAGE Questions & Actions

Special Twig Functions/Tags (General)

Special Twig Functions/Tags (Success Plans)

Special Twig Functions/Tags (Work Plans)

Special Twig Functions/Tags (SAGE)

Tag List





View more...