How to Use the Course Planner

Owned by Fitsjba (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Oct 29, 2024 by Joey Lao
8 min read

Introduction

The Course Planner is an easy-to-use interface that allows you to filter for courses in your Faculty, Department, or Program so that you can build a long term program plan to help administrators and budget officers with academic resource planning and management. Once you have determined which department or program you would like to begin building a plan for, you can apply the filters, and the tool will generate a grid-like calendar. By default, the term filters are set to include one term previous, the current term, and six terms ahead so that you can visually see a complete six semester plan, as well as see some historical data. 

Using the Filters

  1. Navigate to the menu drop-down under Course Mgmt > Course Management

  2. Select Course Planner

  3. Choose your filters by selecting options in the drop-downs. Please note that these are multi-select filters meaning that you can choose more than one option within each filter. 

  4. Click  to generate the Calendar. 

 

Searching Tips

  • Faculty and Department filters will be pre-selected based on the academic unit that you belong to

  • All filters allow for multiple values to be selected

  • You can deselect a value by clicking the 'X' next to it

  • You can type in your value to search for it rather than scrolling through the drop down

 

Filter

Function

Start Term/End Term

Specifies the range of terms to appear in the Course Planner. By default, the term filters are set to include one term previous, the current term, and six terms ahead.

Faculties

Schools/Departments/Programs

Displays all courses that are attached to faculty as a primary or non-primary academic unit. If you do not see a particular course filtered under an academic unit, you may need to speak to the Course Manager to ensure if the course profile is attached to the correct academic unit or configured to the correct settings to display in the Course Planner. 

Subplans

Narrows down courses by academic subplan. Offerings must first be tagged with the subplan in order for them to show up under this filter selection.

Academic Careers

Narrows down courses by academic careers (undergraduate, graduate, other, non-university/non-degree). This tag is based on the academic career attached to the course profile.

Course Levels

Narrows down courses by course level.

Example: Selecting 100-level would display courses with a 1XX number. 

Course Divisions

Narrows down courses by course division (lower division, upper division, graduate). This tag is based on the course division attached to the course profile.

Subjects

Narrows down courses by subject. This tag is based on the subject attached to the course profile. You can narrow down the Subjects drop-down by selecting a Faculty or Schools/Departments/Programs filter first. 

Example: Select both 'School of Communication' and 'School of Contemporary Arts' filters. The Subjects drop down will then display subjects that belong to those schools: CA, CMNS, FPA.

Course Numbers

Start typing the course number to see available options. This tag is based on the course number attached to the course profile. You may search and select more than one option to filter. 

Component Types

Narrows down courses by component type.

Campuses

Narrows down courses by the campus they are offered at. This tag is based on the campus attached to the course profile.

Locations

Narrows down courses by location. This tag is based on the campus attached to the course profile.

Instructors

Start typing the instructor's name or employee ID to see available options. You may search and select more than one option to filter.

Employment Groups

Narrows down courses by the employment group.

Offering Publish Status

Narrows down courses by offering publishing status.

Using the Toolbar

Legend

Hover over  , to see the legend for the Course Planner. It will explain the meaning of the colour codes for instructor ranks and symbols for icons in the Course Planner.

Update Enrollment

Live enrollment numbers are automatically updated every night. If you want to update to the latest live enrollment numbers, click to display the numbers for all courses displayed in the Course Planner. This action may take a few minutes to complete. 

Export

You can export the Course Planner data using . When you click on the button, there will be three options: Grid View Export, Subplan Export, and List View Export. Grid View Export and Subplan Export download as an Excel file. List View Export downloads as a CSV file.

Rollover Offerings 

If you would like to rollover course offerings from previous terms so that you don't need to manually create them one by one, click  to open up a popup modal.

  1. In the Copy From Term dropdown, select the source term that you would like to copy from.

  2. Then, use the other filter fields to limit the search results as needed.

  3. Click . This will generate search results with course offerings that meet the filter criteria.

    1. If you would like to see more details for a course offering, click on the course offering in the Course Offering Title column. This will lead you to the Course Offering profile page.

  4. Select the term that you would like to rollover the offerings to by using the drop-down menu on the top right-hand side of the search results. (Do not click on the image-20241021-203508.png button if you haven’t reviewed the course offerings selected yet)

  5. The  checkbox to the left of the Course Offering Title is for selecting and deselecting the course offering(s) to be copied over to another term.

  6. When you’re ready to rollover, click image-20241021-203508.png.

  7. Click image-20241021-203900.png to proceed with the rollover.

  8. The popup modal will reset to its original state should you need to rollover another batch of offerings. If you are done, click image-20241021-204053.png.

 

In step 5, you might see that some course offerings don’t have a checkbox. Here are some reasons why:

  • The offering already exists in the copy-to term. eTRACS doesn’t allow a duplicate to be copied over.

  • The copy-to term is locked for editing.

  • If the primary section (eg. Lecture, Seminar, etc) is not selected then eTRACS will not allow the non-primary sections (eg. Tutorial, Laborary, etc.) under it to be selected.

 

The rollover includes:

  • Basic course offering data (Section, Delivery Mode, Campus, etc.)

  • Enrollment Capacity data

  • Reserve Capacity data (only visible in the Course Scheduler page).

  • Class Notes data (only visible in the Course Scheduler page)

The rollover does not include:

  • Instructor data. eTRACS does not rollover instructors because it may affect the instructor’s TTR.

  • Combined sections. However, eTRACS will display combined sections as separate offerings that can be rolled over.

 

How to Navigate the Course Planner

Each course will have its own row that will display its corresponding course offerings. There is no limit on the amount of offerings assigned to the course for a term. If there are more than two sections offered in the same term, the Course Planner will automatically add additional cells. If a TBA rank or instructor name is in the cell, this means that a course offering section has already been created in that term. 

 

What if I don't see the course that I need to plan for?

Please contact your Course Manager. The course profile may not have been created yet in eTRACS or the settings may have been configured to hide the course from the Course Planner. The Course Manager will need to change this in the Course Profile Settings.

 

Which course offering sections are displayed?

The Course Planner is used to set up and display primary course offering sections only. This is to prevent overcrowding in the Course Planner and allow course planners to focus on planning the primary components of the course. A course offering section is primary if the Parent Section = Yes in the Course Offering profile. For example, if the primary component of the course is Lecture and the non-primary component is Tutorial, the Course Planner will only display the Lecture section. Tutorials and Labs will be planned separately in Components Management. 

 

Where can I find more information on course offering details?

Once an offering has been created, click on the Edit  button to open the popup. At the top of the popup, the course name will appear as a blue link. Click on that to go to the course offering profile. 

Example: Spring 2022 - CA 104 (3) Z100 - Music Fundamentals

 

How can I see more terms in the past or future displayed in the Course Planner?

To modify the range of terms you would like to see, change the Start and End Term filters. 

 

How can I navigate to the course profile?

Click the course name in the leftmost column to navigate to the course profile. In the course profile, you are able to view a summary list of course offerings by going to the Course Offerings tab. 

How to Use the Course Planner 

The Course Planner will be used throughout the different steps in course planning. If you have the appropriate permissions, you can follow the below instructions for when certain features are typically used to help you with planning.

 

 

Adding Course Offerings

To add a course offering, click the Add button. Make sure you review the following setup details before saving: 

  • Section Number - By default the section number is D100. Z100 can be used as a placeholder if the actual section number is unknown during planning. It is important to edit this if you know the actual section number as eTRACS will use this to sync with the offerings in goSFU. 

  • Component Type - Default is coming from the Course Profile. It is important to edit this to the correct component type as eTRACS will use this to sync with the offerings in goSFU. 

  • Delivery Mode - Default is coming from the Course Profile.

  • Session - Default is coming from the Course Profile.

  • Campus - Default is coming from the Course Profile.

 

 

Course Offering Data

  1. If the course offering section has not yet been created, click the Add button. If the course offering section has already been created, click the Edit  button.

  2. Review the setup details. Additional information on each field can be found in the above Adding Course Offerings.

  3. Click .

Enrollment Control and Reserve Cap

  1. If the course offering section has not yet been created, click the Add button. If the course offering section has already been created, click the Edit  button.

  2. Review the Enrolment Control. If there is Add Consent or Drop Consent required for the course offering, select from the drop-down menu. Input the Max Enrollment and Waitlist Capacity.

  3. Review the Reserve Cap. If there are seats that need to be reserved for requirement group(s), select . More than one requirement group can be added to an offering. Complete the Release Date field. - release date is optional

  4. Click .

Instructor Assignment

 

  1. If the course offering section has not yet been created, click the Add  button. If the course offering section has already been created, click the Edit  button.

  2. Under 'Instructor Assignment', search for the instructor you want. You can search by Name, Employee ID, or Computing ID. 

  3. Click on the instructor's name. For continuing faculty members, a snippet of their TTR will display below.

  4. Determine whether this instructor will be the primary instructor of the offering. You may assign more than one instructor to an offering. 

  5. Once you're ready, click .

  6. If the instructor has already met their required workload, a rank selection popup will display to confirm which rank should be assigned. 

  7. Once the course is assigned, the course will also appear in the individual's TTR. 

Combined Section

Combining sections requires that the offerings be created first. If the offerings do not exist yet, refer to this section or do a rollover.

  1. Once the course offering section has already been created, click the Edit  button.

  2. Expand the Combined Sections panel and click image-20241029-211245.png.

  3. A popup modal should appear. Under 'Select Offerings', search for the course offering(s) to combine with this offering. Only offerings in the same term will appear in the results. The selected course offerings will appear in the table within this section.

  4. Under 'Managed Combined Properties', review the course offerings to be combined and modify the combined properties by selecting the Managing Department, Funding Department, Primary Offering, and Combination Type. Notes is optional. 

  5. Click .

Editing Published Course Offerings 

  1. If the course offering needs to be edited to change the Course Offering Data, Enrollment Control and Reserve Cap, Instructors, and/or Combined Section, click the Edit  button.

  2. In the section, there will be a turquoise button that you need to click to make edits. Click it to open up the section for edits.

  3. Make the changes to the section.

  4. Click the save button in the section.

  5. After an edit, the course offering will become unpublished. Publish by using goSFU Course Data Upload.

Removing Course Offerings

If the course offering is later decided to be removed, click the Edit  button. Once the Edit modal opens, click  on the bottom left to remove the course offering.

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