Better Maintenance of the
Schedule of Classes
Through Customization and
Security
Presenter
• Bob Bulow, associate registrar for
technology, Ohio University
• 7 years experience in registrar’s office
Overview
• Ohio University has a distributed scheduling
model in which academic units and regional
campuses are responsible for building and
maintaining the schedule of classes each
semester.
• This presentation describes how
modifications and integrations to PeopleSoft
are used to make that model possible, while
maintaining data quality and integrity.
Overview
• Institution overview
• Scheduling process overview
• Modifications to Adjust Class Associations
component
• Modifications to Schedule New Course
component
• Wrap up
Ohio University
• Four-year, public institution
• Six campuses (Athens & 5 regionals), plus
distance learning (eCampus)
• Approximately 10,000 classes per semester
• PeopleSoft
• Astra Schedule
OHIO and PeopleSoft
•
•
•
•
Campus Solutions 9.0
Bundle 29
PeopleTools 8.52
Using schedule of classes module
since Fall 2010
OHIO and Astra
• Astra 7.5.6
• Using Astra 7 since fall 2010
• Implemented Astra 7 with the
implementation of PeopleSoft, but have
used Astra since 2006.
Scheduling Process Overview
• Distributed access (150+ users)
• Access by campus
– Regional campuses schedule all classes
for their campuses (not by department)
• Access by department
– Athens campus users schedule for their
departments only
Scheduling Process Overview
• Roll forward from like term to like term
– Options:
• roll nothing
• class sections only
• class sections with meeting patterns
• Many classes have fees
Overview of PS Scheduling
• Two main screens (Schedule New
Course and Maintain Schedule of
Classes) to do the majority of the work
• Other screens (adjust class
associations, combined sections, etc.)
to make additional changes to classes
Modifications to Adjust Class
Associations
Modifications to Adjust Class
Associations
• Validate credit hours against course
catalog
• Protect certain fields from edit
• Prohibit changing certain values when
students enrolled
• Rationale
Modifications to Adjust Class
Associations
• Validate credit hours against course
catalog
– Minimum class hours >= min course hours
– Maximum class hours <= max course
hours
– Min class hours <= max class hours
• Check is done on field edit
Modifications to Adjust Class
Associations
• Protect certain fields from edit
– Protection based on security role
– On page load, certain fields (e.g., billing
factor) are grayed out for most users
– Users who have a “super user” role have
full access to the pages
Modifications to Adjust Class
Associations
• Prohibit changing certain values when
students enrolled
– Credit hours (and other unit information)
– Grade basis
– Value changes check done on save
attempt, so it will catch if any students
enroll after page load but before save
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Campus-based security
• Protect certain fields from edit
• Prohibit changing certain values when
students enrolled
• Automatically assign fees
• Rationale
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Campus-based security
– Users cannot edit (or see) other campus
classes
– Changed search view on component to
use campus row-level security
– Users given view access to Maintain
Schedule of Classes to view other campus
classes
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Campus-based security
– Requires users have campus row-level
security to make updates
– Occasional issue if someone has multiple
roles (i.e., scheduling and admissions),
that requires different campus row-level
security. We have to grant more
permissive access.
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Protect certain fields from edit
– Based on user role
– Component defaults to protect these fields
(on component load)
– User with “super user” role can edit all (as
delivered)
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Prohibit changing certain values when
students enrolled
– Based on user role
– Fields available, but enrollment checked on
field change
– Some buttons hidden
– User with “super user” role have full access
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Prohibit changing certain values when
students enrolled
– Protected fields: dates, meeting pattern,
etc.
– Rooms can be change via Astra Schedule
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Automatically assign fees
– Add/Update Fee button protected for most
– On save, process reads a custom table to
see if a fee should be added
– If so, adds the fee automatically via a
component interface
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Automatically assign fees
– Requires users have item type security
– Would like to get away from item type
security by using a service account for fee
assignments, but our security office would
not approve that.
Modifications to Schedule
New Course
• Automatically assign fees
– Fee assignment based on effective term,
campus, component, auto add indicator,
and a few other things
– Also have a batch fee assignment process
that is run once per term, because class
rollover does not copy class fees
Summary
• Ohio University has a long standing
model of distributed scheduling access
• That and data quality/integrity could not
be maintained in PeopleSoft Campus
Solutions, as delivered
Summary
• These modifications make it possible to
maintain the distributed access model
• However, it is difficult, technically, and
requires significant testing for both
implementation and maintenance
Questions?
Contact Information
• Bob Bulow
– Associate Registrar for Technology
– Office of the University Registrar
– Ohio University
– E-mail: bulow@ohio.edu