Create a New Course

New Course Overview

Courses are defined as having a clear start and end date, and a student who is enrolled in a course is generally expected to come to each meeting time (session) between the course start and end date. For courses that do not have a define end date, or whose enrollees are the same across sessions, we recommend setting up a single course with an initial start/end date, then extending that same course record so you do not have to re-enroll students. More information about extending a course schedule can be found here.

Think of a Course record as a template. The Course record defines the schedule and some key information for reporting, like the year and term. RollCall uses the information you enter on the Course record to automatically create Session records (one per meeting time) and Attendance records (one per meeting time per enrolled student). We copy information from the Course record to the Session record so that you may change meetings individually if needed (for example, if you need to change the instructor for just one meeting time, or reschedule a single meeting).

How to Create a New Course

(1) Click the Course tab

(2) Click the “New” button

(3) Complete all of the fields that capture information about the  course. These are detailed below.

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Information Section

• Course Name (required) - enter the course name in accordance with your naming conventions.

• Year - if relevant to your organization, choose the year. Your Salesforce systems administrator can set the year values to match your reporting needs.

• Instructor - look up to the contact record for the instructor of this course. If an instructor is set here, that instructor will be linked to all sessions created for easier reporting and session-by-session adjustment.

• Term/Session - if relevant to your organization, choose the year. Your Salesforce systems administrator can set the year values to match your reporting needs.

• Calendar Display Color - This is the color of the calendar text. Enter a primary color name (e.g. “red” or “blue”) or a hex color (e.g. “#ff0000”). Many organizations ask their Salesforce systems administrator to set up a Process Builder (automation) to automatically set a color based on a course attribute.

• Course Status (required) - is defaulted to "Planned." Note that there are automations that will automatically set the course status to "In Progress" on the day listed as start date, and "Completed" (if the course is not canceled), on its end date. If you ask your Salesforce systems administrator to change these picklist values, they will also need to adjust the automation (help is available in the community for this).

• Calendar Display BG Color - This is the color of the calendar side bar or background (configured by your Salesforce systems administrator). Enter a primary color name (e.g. “red” or “blue”) or a hex color (e.g. “#ff0000”). Many organizations ask their Salesforce systems administrator to set up a Process Builder (automation) to automatically set a color based on a course attribute.

Course Statistics Section

• Max Enrollment - the total number of spaces available in this course. This will be used to display remaining seats and help with enrollment management. Please note that you can still enroll students if this number is exceeded - this is informational only. If you wish to prevent enrollments on a course that has reached its max enrollment, your Salesforce systems administrator can enable a validation rule that is provided but disabled by default (help is available in the community for this).

Schedule Section

• Frequency - (required) How often the class is held. The picklist values for this may not be changed.

• Class Duration (in Minutes) (required) - How long the class lasts. This is used in displaying the course calendar. If your class is one hour long, put “60” in this field.

• Start Date (required) - the day of the first meeting of class.

• End Date (required) - the day of the last meeting of class. If this is an ongoing class, choose an end date within a year of the start date; you can always adjust the schedule later.

• Day(s) of the week (at least one required) - Check one or more days for your course meeting.

• Start Time (required) - You must use military (24 hour) time; e.g. 09:00 for 9 AM, 15:00 for 3 PM. You must enter a meeting time for all days checked.

(4) Click Save

When you click Save, an automation built into RollCall will use the Start and End Dates, days of week, start time, and frequency to create all necessary Session records, skipping any holidays defined in your system. 

Your course sessions will appear on the Course Calendar tab, or you can view a list of all sessions from the “Session List” tab. You are now ready to enroll students in this course.