Feature Overview and Requirements

Classroom courses are designed to function as Instructor-led Training (ILT), either in a physical location or via webinar using a preferred web meeting application. After a Portal Administrator creates a Classroom course, he or an authorized Instructor can create Offerings, which students use to enroll in the course for a specific date, time, and location. If you have our add-on Virtual Classroom license, many of the same options apply to the Virtual Classroom Delivery Type.

Step by Step Procedure and Field Description

Add Course Offering

Once a Classroom course has been added to your catalog, administrators and instructors can create Offerings — scheduled presentations of the course — and open them for enrollment. Portal Administrators can create offerings for any organization in their LMS. Instructors and Administrators are limited to the organization levels they oversee, according to their profile assignments (i.e. Company, Business Unit, Division or Location).

To create an Offering:

1. From the left navigation menu, select Courses > Add Offering. You can also add offerings from the course catalog by opening the Course > Offerings page. All existing offerings display in a list. Click Add New Offering.
2. On the Add Offering page, click Select a course and identify which course you want to schedule.
3. Click Submit and Continue.
4. The Add Offering form opens. Complete the form, including all mandatory fields (marked with an * asterisk). Key fields are described below. See online help for additional field descriptions.

a. Language: Select the language in which the offering information will be presented.
b. Instructional Language: Select the language in which the course will be taught.
c. Training Type: Select whether the course is offered by location, corporate, or via a partner.
d. Description: Text that is specific to this particular offering.
e. Administration Notes: Test that displays for administrative users and instructors, but not potential or enrolled students.
f. Default Values Populated from Course Offering Defaults: Set the enrollment-related settings for Classroom (or Virtual Classroom) course offerings. Required fields are identified by an asterisk (*) on the page. If a value was provided as a default on the Course, it will populate in each offering, but may be modified at any time.

• Minimum Number of Students: Define the number of enrollments required for an offering to be held.
• Maximum Number of Students: Set the number of seats available for each course offering.
• Days in Advance to cancel if Minimum Enrollment Not Met:When properly configured, offerings in which the Minimum Number of Students have not enrolled can be automatically cancelled.
  • Enter the number of days prior to scheduled offering that it should be cancelled.
  • Students enrolled in an auto-cancelled offering and the Instructor scheduled to teach it will be notified of the cancellation.
• Maximum Students per Location: Limit the number of enrollments allowed per organization. Number cannot be greater than Maximum Number of Students for the offering.
• Waitlist Days: Number of days prior to scheduled offering a student can be added to the Roster Waitlist. After this deadline, students also will not be auto-enrolled from the Waitlist
• Cancel Days: Number of days prior to scheduled offering a student enrollment can be cancelled.
• Late Cancel Days: Days prior to the Cancel Days setting during which a late cancellation fee may be assessed.
• Late Cancel Fee: Fee assessed for cancellations occurring in the Late Cancellation period. A system message to the user “Course Enrollment – Late Cancellation Notification” – may be configured to notify the user that a fee may be assessed.
• No Show Fee: Fee assessed for students who are marked as “No Show” during roster processing after the offering takes place. A system message to the user “Course Offering  – No Show Notification with Fee” – may be configured to notify the user that a fee may be assessed.
• Incomplete Fee: Fee assessed for students who are marked as “Incomplete” during roster processing after the offering takes place. A system message to the user “Course Offering  – Incomplete Notification with Fee” – may be configured to notify the user that a fee may be assessed.
• Ineligible Fee: Fee assessed for students who are marked as “Ineligible” during roster processing after the offering takes place.  A system message to the user “Course Offering  – Ineligible Notification with Fee” – may be configured to notify the user that a fee may be assessed.

  This diagram illustrates how the Late Cancel and Cancel Days work prior to the offering Start Date and the points at which fees, if established, would be assessed.

g. Instructors: Click Select Instructor. Use the Instructor Picker to search for and select one or more instructors for the course offering. The instructors shown are qualified to teach the related course.
h. Admin Instructors: Click Select Admin Instructor. Use the Picker to search for and select one or more instructors who are not shown as teaching the course but should have access to help administer the offering.
i. Auto Enrollment: Automated service is based on Course configuration (does not require Approval) and Offering availability (Meeting Times scheduled 5 – 90 days from date of student request/enrollment), is scheduled to run every eight hours, and requires that users pass all enrollment eligibility checks.
j. Facility: Click Select Facilities to search and select the facility in which the course will be held. If the Facility has associated Rooms or Equipment, you will also be able to select those. Note: Offering times are based on the timezone registered to the Facility chosen here. 
k. Link to classroom: Field used to provide the link for users attending a webinar, such as WebEx or JoinMe. 
l. Meeting Times Section: Start, End Dates, and Times are required. Select a Room if one is available for the selected Facility. If the course spans over a weekend, check the Weekdays Only box to exclude the weekend from scheduling.
m. Distribution Section: Allows offering enrollment to be limited to a particular subset of users, either customized for the offering or assigned by a predefined Shared Distribution. 
Note: Start Date and End Date under “Restricted Distribution” control the active period of the restriction by distribution group. Outside of the specified dates, the Offering will be visible to other users who can view the course in their catalog.
n. Reminder Messages Section: Determine whether students and instructors should get reminder messages, and if so, how many days prior to the offering. Enter Days before start date to send using whole numbers separated by commas. e.g. Reminders at 5 days and 3 days would be entered 5,3. The Additional Note will be part of the message and could include information about directions, parking, materials to bring, and other things the students should know.

5.  Click Submit. The system will create the Offering, and then display the “Actions” tab, where you can enroll students or use the new offering as a template for others and Attachments, which allows instructors or administrators to upload documents for use during the session or to add audit-required documents afterward.

Edit an Existing Offering

LMS administrators can also edit an existing Offering by searching for it under Courses > Search Offerings, or from within its related Course by selecting the Offerings tab.

Note: Offering dates can be modified only if no one has been enrolled in the offering. Once a user has enrolled, only the Meeting Times can be edited.

However, you do not have to cancel an entire offering just to modify the Start Date, even after students have enrolled. Instead, you can open the Offering, click the Meeting Times tab, then the (A) Add Meeting Times link. Add the updated offering date and time information.  You can also use this page to add additional days to the offering in cases where training spans multiple days. To delete a meeting time, you must have a least one other in place. Then, check the (B) Delete flag for the meeting time being removed and click (C) Delete Selected Times.

Send Reminders or Announcements for Upcoming Classes

Just as administrators can set due date reminders at the course level, they can also set up automated Reminder Messages to alert enrolled students of their upcoming Classroom or Virtual Classroom Offerings.

On the Offering Details page, select the Messages tab, and indicate how many days prior to the offering you would like to send a (A) Reminder Message to students. Any default set at the course level will populate. The Additional Note section is optional, and will pull into the default email message. Ad hoc class Announcements can also be sent to enrolled students from this page.

An example of these settings is shown below.

Add Offering Attachments

Attachments may be added to an Offering before or after it takes place. They can be required to close an offering by selecting the Require Attachment to Close Offering flag on the General tab of the offering or on the Offering Defaults tab of the classroom course. Attachment management is available for those with Portal Administrator or Administrator roles, as well as the Instructor assigned to the offering. Attachments are not visible to Student, Location Administrator, or Location Manager roles.  Examples of attachments made prior to an offering may include items such as agendas for the instructor to print or special instructions for managing the classroom. Examples of post-offering attachments could be scanned copies of signed attendance sheets or lists of action items or notes culminating from the session.

Click Add Attachment to list a new attachment. After adding attachments, the Attachments tab displays a red counter to indicate the number of attachments in the list. Further actions to Edit, Launch, or Delete an attachment are found under the Action column of the list.