There might be a few reasons for this issue. A great place to start is by reviewing the filters tied to your current appointment blocks. To do this, navigate to Preferences > Web Scheduling > Set Up. On the right side, in the “Filters” section, you’ll find a list of filters associated with your blocks, along with a preview button. Click it and enter the relevant student ID to check if the student meets the scheduling criteria.
You can check by going to Preferences > Web Scheduling > Set Up. Make sure all the options in the left-hand panel are checked and highlighted in green; this indicates that your basic online scheduling is set up correctly. Additionally, the right-hand panel under "Filters" will display the filters applied to your appointment blocks. It's common to accidentally create blocks with the wrong filters, so this section will help you identify any issues.
YES! You can use Contact Purposes and/or Appointment Modalities to differentiate appointment types, and send customized email notifications, as well as custom intakes and surveys!
Create new Contact Purpose(s) in the Administration Section, Advanced Information Tab, and the Contact Purpose page.
If you don’t already have a parent contact purpose, you’ll need to create one (all units can only have one top-level / parent contact purpose). You can use the unit name for this parent contact purpose
Create your Contact purposes for different appointment types and corresponding email notifications. (EX: Probation, Course Selection, Major Declaration, Etc.)
Add contact purposes to your web scheduling intake
Preferences - Intakes & Surveys tab
Create Intake, or edit an existing intake
Enter your questions and answer choices, ie: “What would you like to discuss with your advisor?”
In a multiple choice question, click on each answer to associate it with a contact purpose. Once you’ve clicked on the answer, ie: Course Selection, use the right menu under “Actions (Answer)”, expand “Tags” and select your Contact Purpose from the list.
Proceed to add contact purposes to each answer
In the left menu of the web scheduling intake, make sure that you select “copy purpose tags to appointment”
Create customized email templates
Preferences - Email - Templates
Create Notification Sets to customize email notifications based on Contact Purpose or Modality
Preferences - Calendar - Notifications
Create a new set - and select your Contact Purpose/Modality from the drop-down list. Then click “add new set”
Once you’ve added that set, it will show up in the list above. Select that set and make your edits to the preferences below, and select your custom email templates.
Click “Save Changes” at the bottom, and you’re all set!
Go to the Help Center in APLUS (question icon in the top menu). On the right side, you will see a list of Alerts & Warnings that are specific to you and your units. If you click on the Alert/Warning/Notification, you can see details including Exceptions to the alert, schedule when the alert runs, and units using the alert.
For example, how do I create a custom alert for when any of my assigned students receives a D/W/F grade in CHEM 1015?
In Preferences, and the Custom Alerts tab, click “Create New Alert”
Set your desired population
Student population: assigned to me
Filters:
Course Grade - is equal to - D+. D-. D. F, W
Subject: CHEM
Catalog Number: 1015
Course Term: Current Term
Alternatively, or in addition to the DFW course alert, you can use the following filters to get a notification when a student drops the course
Course grade - is anything
Subject: CHEM
Catalog Number: 1015
Course Term: Current Term
Enrollment status - is not equal to - Enrolled
In Preferences, and the Custom Alerts tab, click “Create New Alert”
Set your desired population
Student population: assigned to me OR assigned to my units
Filters:
Institution: Twin Cities
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Admit Type: ICT
Admit Term: Next Term
Admit Status: denied
Name your filter, and choose the type - Alert, Warning, or Notification - then Save
aplusrec@umn.edu
Did you know that you can also use Departmental email accounts in APLUS?
In the APLUS Email interface, click on your profile in the top right, and click "add account" and add your dept email.
Then, you can toggle back and forth between your personal and dept email account, and still have all of the APLUS functionality in gmail for your dept account as well.
See the APLUS Email help guide for further instruction
The APLUS mass email functionality is the preferred way to send a mass email and have it recorded in APLUS.
When you put multiple students in the Recipients field, and then check "save to APLUS," then the options pop up on the right side. There is a mass email box that is checked by default with multiple students. In this case, Recipients will NOT be able to see the names/addresses of other recipients.
You can use BCC as long as your email client sends one email per student with the staff's email in the From field, the student's email in the To field, and aplusrec@umn.edu in the BCC field. Gmail recently added a 'Mail Merge' function that might be able to do this: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/12921167?hl=en . Otherwise, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is what we recommend to people who can't use the APLUS mass email functionality.
Only aplusrec@umn.edu (which should be used instead of classrec@umn.edu, though they go to the same place) should be in the BCC - the student's email should be in the "To" or, if need be, "CC". APLUS can't see any other recipients in the BCC section, so if student emails are being included there, they won't be saved to APLUS.
Please be aware that utilizing aplusrec@umn.edu will not store the email in PeopleSoft, nor will you have access to other features available within the APLUS Email module, such as tagging, templates, alerts, mass email, etc.
Yes - you can adjust your settings to retain the previous email thread when replying with a template!
Preferences > Email > Defaults:
Append body: YES (Append body to template on reply)
See the APLUS Email help guide for further instruction
First Generation students can be pulled by using the Recruitment Category filter.
On the Student Home Page: Add Filter
“Recruitment category is equal to First generation”
Students will not show up in a list if they are deactivated or have disenrolled after the drop/add deadline for a given term.
The Student Home page shows only students in your population(s), and is term-based, i.e., choosing a past semester from a population shows you your active students from that term, and the state of their characteristics as of the last day of the term.
If you believe there are discrepancies not attributable to one or more of the aforementioned reasons, please email aplus@umn.edu. Be sure to include a student ID number as an example to help the APLUS team investigate further.
Checking the box for “active / non enrolled” will include students in the list who are eligible to enroll but have not
In the first two weeks of the semester, your Student Home page shows all active students who are eligible to enroll. During this time, the tab is labeled, “Active”. After the first two weeks, the “Active” tab changes to “Enrolled”, and those that did not enroll will no longer show up in the Student Home page (but are viewable when exporting a list and checking the “active / non enrolled” box).
The Current Term field updates on the First day of the term, based on the user’s campus
For the Course Grade Alert example above, you would receive alerts when grades are submitted, up until the start of the next term.
Alternatively, you could decide to use “Previous Term” in the course term filter. This means you wouldn’t get an alert when the grade posts, but instead on the first day of the next semester.
How should I use the Intended Majors feature in APLUS?
The Intended Major functionality allows APLUS users to capture a student's academic plans prior to making a formal decision. You can enter up to two intended programs for each student to capture their intentions to declare, add, or change programs. The information will be entered and viewed on the Overview tab of a student’s APLUS profile. See step by step instructions in this help guide.
This is important to use when you work with a student that is seriously considering a major, but is not ready to declare yet. The intended major section is front and center on a student profile, which makes it easy for you and other staff to keep track of a student’s intended plans. In addition, departmental advisors and admin staff can use this information to communicate and get connected with students that are interested in their academic programs.
Please help us increase usage of this important feature to make the data more reliable, accurate, and effective!
We are currently collecting ideas for best practices for custom alerts, tags, and contact purposes across campus. Take a look and add your own ideas here!