Course Requests and Schedule

In PowerSchool, you create and maintain a primary class schedule for each student in your school. Throughout the year, you might need to make schedule changes for existing students, or create new schedules for students who enroll at your school during the year. There are two ways to maintain student schedules: manual scheduling and auto-scheduling. Manual scheduling is section-specific and allows you to pick specific sections in which to enroll the student, overriding the system-defined schedule if one exists. Auto scheduling is course-specific. You enter a student's request for specific courses. The system then automatically schedules the student for the sections that best fit their schedule.

Maintaining student schedules can be done in conjunction with Scheduler or independently.

Access the Modify Schedule - Enrollments Page

Use this page to modify the student's schedule. The page is divided into two functional areas: Enrollments and Requests. 

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.
   The following information is either captured as part of the PowerScheduler commit process or can be manually defined:

   Field	Description
   Enrollments	By default, the Enrollments tab is selected, which displays the student's section enrollments for the current year and school, as well as current course requests.
   Requests	The second tab on the Modify Schedule page is Requests. The Modify Schedule - Requests page supports editing and entering course requests for the student. It is these requests that the scheduling engine uses to determine the students schedule.
   View Entire Year Schedule	Click to view the student's schedule by each term within the selected term.
   Edit Auto Schedule Parameters	Click to display the Automated Scheduling Setup page to modify default parameter settings for this scheduling session.
   Functions	Click the arrow to expand this section. Click the arrow again to collapse this section. When creating a new section enrollment, enter the date that any enrollment becomes effective in the Effective Enrollment Date field. The field defaults to tomorrow's date, unless: It is before the section's start date, in which case the start date defaults to the start date of the section, according to the term and schedule day on the school calendar. It is after the section's start date but during an off-cycle day, in which case the start date defaults to the next valid schedule day for the section. Use Search Available Classes to enroll the student into a course: Course Number - Use as a filter to search for available sections. Period - Use as a filter to search for available sections. Find - Click to search for available classes. Use Quick Enroll to enroll the student into a section: Course.Section - Use to search for a section and enroll the student immediately into the section. Enroll - Click to initiate search/enroll.
   Enrollments	The following information appears for each line item: Exp - The period and day combination of the course. Trm - The term in which the course is being taught. Crs-Sec - The course and section number used to identify the course. Click the Section Teachers icon next to the teacher’s name to view the teachers assigned to the class. Course Name - The name of the course. Note - Prerequisites pertaining to the course, if any. For more information, see Course Prerequisites. Teacher - The name of the teacher teaching the course. Room - The room number in which the course is taught. Enroll - The first day the student's enrollment is active. Leave - The first day the student's enrollment is not active. The Section Teachers icon appears only if there is more than one teacher assigned to the class. Use the following information to lock or drop the student's section enrollments: If the Effective Enrollment Date is set to a date that is after the Leave date for enrollment, then that enrollment is locked and cannot be adjusted. If the course is in the future or in progress, then you can lock/unlock as needed. Lock - Click the Lock icon (appears unlocked) next to each section enrollment that should not be changed by the scheduling engine, if any. For instance, if you want the student to remain in Algebra for period 1 on MWF, select the Lock icon for that section enrollment. Unlock - Click the Lock icon (appears locked) next to each section enrollment that should be changed by the scheduling engine, if any. Toggle Locks - Click to lock or unlock all section enrollments. Drop - Delete enrollments individually and immediately by selecting the checkbox next to the section enrollment you want to delete and clicking Drop Selected. The Drop Classes page appears. Verify the information you want to delete. Enter an exit date and click Drop Classes. The exit date is the first day the student's enrollment is not active. Use the format mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy. Drop All - Click to immediately drop all the current section enrollments for the student. The Drop Classes page appears. Verify the information you want to delete. Enter an exit date and click Drop Classes. The exit date is the first day the student's enrollment is not active. Use the format mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy. Automated Schedule - Use to initiate the automated scheduling process that uses the scheduling engine to produce the student's schedule. Manually Schedule Student - Use to manually schedule the student into available courses by period.
   Course Requests	Use to view the student's current course requests.

Edit Auto Schedule Parameters

Use Edit Auto Schedule Parameters to modify default parameter settings for this scheduling session. The defaults for these values are defined via the Schedule Preferences page. It is often useful to be able to override the default values just for the current scheduling attempt.

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.
2. Click Edit Auto Schedule Parameters. 

3. Use the following table to edit the information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Use buildings	Select the checkbox if this scenario uses buildings.
   Use houses	Select the checkbox if this scenario uses houses.
   Close sections at maximum	Select the checkbox to ensure that courses close at their maximum enrollment numbers.
   Use global course substitutes	Select the checkbox to ensure that the system automatically inserts any global course substitutes after student course substitutes have been tried and rejected.
   Use student course substitutes	Select the checkbox to ensure that the system automatically inserts student course substitutes in the order chosen, if needed.
   Percent of schedule combinations to evaluate for each student	The default value of this field is 10. Change this value only if you encounter problems with the amount of time the system is using to build the master schedule. For example, if you enter 25, the system evaluates one-quarter of the possible schedule combinations for each student. If you enter 75, the system evaluates three-quarters of the possible schedule combinations for each student.
   Minimum number of schedule combinations to evaluate before skipping	The default value of this field is 10,000. Change this value only if you encounter problems with the amount of time the system is using to build the master schedule. Entering a high number forces the system to sample a minimum number of student schedule course possibilities.

4. Click Submit. 

Modify a Student's Schedule Using Automated Walk-In

With Automated Walk-In Scheduling, you no longer need to manually create schedules for students who have enrolled in school after the initial scheduling process has been completed. Instead, you can leverage the existing scheduling engine, which determines the most optimal schedule for the student automatically.

In a typical scenario for a school during the first week of a new school year, many students either do not have a schedule or need to revise their previously-created schedule. These students are sent to a counselor who often has many other students waiting to work on their schedule. It can be very frustrating for the counselor to have to manually find open sections in the master course schedule and try to create a schedule that works best for the student.

With Automated Walk-In Scheduling, PowerSchool automatically determines the most optimal schedule for the student while considering the many rules and constraints concerning the student and schedule, such as load constraints, course relationships, enrollment constraints, and section types. Additionally, you can select to schedule by team, house, or building. All this can be done while locking existing section enrollments to preserve those records yet schedule additional requests. Counselors then choose to accept or reject the schedule returned by the engine before it is made permanent.

The following functional flow describes the basic course of events to perform to successfully create a new schedule for an individual student or modify an existing schedule for an individual student within PowerSchool.

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.
2. Enter the date the enrollment becomes effective. The default is set to today's date.
   If any attendance records for the student exist before the new entry date or after the new exit date, an error message will appear. To modify attendance, refer to Meeting/Interval Attendance.
3. Before continuing, you can lock or drop students' section enrollments. 

4. Click Requests. 

   To reference the course catalog for the selected scheduling year, click Course Catalog. For more information, refer to Courses and Course Catalogs.

5. Click New.

6. Click Associate to select the name of the course. When done selecting courses, click Okay.
7. Click Submit. 
8. Modify the requests by identifying which ones are alternate requests and assigning priorities or associating one alternate course with the primary requests.
9. Click Submit.
10. Click Enrollments. 
11. Click Automated Schedule. The information is exported to the scheduling engine. The scheduling engine creates the most optimal schedule for the student based on the student's course requests, load constraints, course relationships, and applicable scheduling parameters. The results are then imported from the scheduling engine.
    The page displays any error messages, enrollments, and course requests. At this point, the results have not become a permanent schedule for the student. The results can only be accepted or rejected in whole.
    You can always modify the schedule by dropping and adding enrollments via the Modify Course Schedule page.
12. Do one of the following:
    • If the results are unacceptable, click Discard to clear the results. The Modify Course Schedule - Enrollments page displays the original schedule.
    • If the results are acceptable, click Accept. The Modify Schedule - Enrollments page displays the new schedule.

Manually Modify a Student's Schedule

The schedule list view displays the student's schedule for the currently-selected term. Use this page to manually schedule students after viewing available courses by period.

Additionally, you can add or drop sections from a student's schedule using the Enroll and Drop menus. For more information about these topics, refer to Add Section Enrollments and Drop Section Enrollments.

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.
2. Click Manually Schedule Student. 

3. Use the following table to edit the information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Enroll Date	Enter the date to indicate when the student enrolled in the selected courses. If any attendance records for the student exist before the new entry date or after the new exit date, an error message will appear. To modify attendance, refer to Meeting/Interval Attendance.
   Number	The course number appears.
   Course Name	The course name appears.
   Term	The term in which the course occurs appears.
   Day	The day(s) on which the course occurs appears. Hover over the checkbox to display the following: Course number and section ID [course.section]. Number of seats enrolled and seats available [seats enrolled/seats available]. List of all teachers associated to the section, sorted by role. A day (or "cycle") is the number of repeating days that make up a schedule.
   Period	Select the checkboxes next to the course, term, and expression in which you want to enroll the student. Deselect the checkboxes next to the course, term, and expression from which you want to drop the student. To view the Course Number, Teacher Name, and Enrollment Count, hover over the checkbox. The student's currently scheduled classes appear in gray, available classes in green, and full classes in red. If an expression is gray and has a selected checkbox, the student is in the class. An asterisk (*) notation means that the class is full, regardless of color.
   Enter a password for maximum enrollments override	If enrolling the student in a full class, enter the password to override the maximum enrollment in the field at the bottom of the page.

4. Do one of the following:
   • Click Submit to submit your changes. 
   • Click Continue. 
   • Click Reset to refresh the page to display the last saved selections.

Access the Modify Schedule - Requests Page

The Modify Schedule - Requests page supports editing and entering course requests for the student. Requests are what the engine uses to determine the student's schedule. The student will not be scheduled for any course that is not requested. The exception to this are locked enrollments, which will be kept even if a request does not exist for the course.

Although you can still enter requests through the Requests Modify Current and Requests Modify Future pages, this page offers more flexibility and functions. Existing requests entered by any other method appear on this page.

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.

2. Click Requests. The following information is either captured as part of the PowerScheduler commit process or can be manually defined:
   To reference the course catalog for the selected scheduling year, click Course Catalog. For more information, refer to Courses and Course Catalogs.

   Field	Description
   New	Click to create a new course request.
   Number	The number of the requested course appears.
   Course Name	The name of the requested course appears.
   Alt	Select the checkbox to indicate that this is an alternate course request.
   Code	Enter any single letter to relate alternate requests to a primary request. Alternate requests that are assigned this code are used to substitute for any primary requests that are assigned the same code.
   Alt Priority	If you selected the Alternate checkbox, enter a priority number so the system will know which alternate to load first when a student does not receive the elective.
   Section Type	Choose the course's section type, if applicable. For example, a student may request a bilingual section of a course.
   Alternate 1	Click Associate to select the name of the first alternate for this course.
   Delete	To delete: An existing course request, click YES under the Delete column next to the appropriate course request. All existing course requests, click ALL at the bottom of the Delete column.

Create a New Course Request

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.
2. Click Requests.
   To reference the course catalog for the selected scheduling year, click Course Catalog. For more information, refer to Courses and Course Catalogs.
3. Click New to create a new course request. 
4. Click Associate to select the name of the course. Press and hold COMMAND (Mac) or CONTROL (Windows) to make multiple selections.
5. Click Submit. 
6. Enter information as needed.
7. Click Submit.

Edit a Course Request

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.
2. Click Requests. 
   Note: To reference the course catalog for the selected scheduling year, click Course Catalog. For more information, refer to Courses and Course Catalogs.
3. Edit the information as needed.
4. Click Submit.

Delete a Course Request

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.
2. Click Requests. 
3. Note: To reference the course catalog for the selected scheduling year, click Course Catalog. For more information, refer to Courses and Course Catalogs.
4. To delete:
   • An existing course request, click YES under the Delete column next to the appropriate course request.
   • All existing course requests, click ALL at the bottom of the Delete column.
5. Click Submit.

Reference the Course Catalog

Using the Course Catalog dialog, you can reference the course catalog for the selected scheduling year.

1. Navigate to the Modify Course Schedule page.
2. Click Requests. 
3. Click Course Catalog. 
4. Enter search criteria in the Search field.
5. To filter by columns:
   
   1. Click +.
   2. Choose one of the following:
      • Course Name
      • Course Number
      • Description
   3. Enter search criteria in the search field. Use a comma-separated list for multiple values.
   4. Click Apply. The page refreshes and display filtered results.
6. To add another filter, click + and repeat steps a through d. The + appears shaded if all filters have been added.
7. To delete a filter, click - next the filter.
8. Click Apply. The page refreshes and display filtered results. To remove all filter selections, click Clear.

9. Use the following table to view search results:

   Click the name of a column to sort by that column in ascending order. Click again to sort in descending order. By default, students are sorted by Name and then Grade Level.

   Field	Description
   Course Name	The course name appears.
   Course Number	The course number appears.
   Description	The course description appears.
   [Pagination]	Use to navigate the search results.
   Rows/Page	By default, ten records display per page. To view more records per page, enter the appropriate number in the field.

10. Click Close when done.