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Capacity Limits & Waitlists

Capacity Limits & Waitlists

Owned by Zaac Totonjian (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 04 Sept, 2024 by Educonnex Support
9 min read

SSO is able to manage a whole raft of permutations that relate to capacity limits. In this page, we'll look at the options available, and how to set these up. 

 

When to set capacity limits

Capacity limits should be one of the last things that you set up in Selection Process, because they are dependent on a combination of the selection itself and the location of the selection within your process.

How to set capacity limits

To begin with, you need to have all of the selections in their correct place in the selection process.

Go to Checklist > Year X > Selection Process > Capacities

 

 

Once you're in the Capacity Limits screen, you'll see a table of any existing rules that you already have set up. Capacities rules can only be set up within the same course code.

To begin with, we're going to start with a fresh selection that doesn't already have any capacity limits set up for it.

Click the Add New button, then at the bottom of the table, choose a course code from the dropdown that you want to set a capacity limit for.

Selecting instances covered by the Capacity Limit

Once you've chosen the selection, further information will appear below.

On the left side you have the parameters of the rule you're setting.

On the right you have the instances of the selection occurring throughout the selection process. 



Let's look at the right side first.

Because there are no other capacity limits applied for this course so far, each of the grey arrows shows you a potential instance of the Selection that you can apply the rule to.

In this example, students are able to choose from three pathways and that course appears within each Section. so there are multiple Instructions that the course occurs in.


In this case, let's assume that:

  1. We want all students, irrespective of the pathway they've chosen, to be counted within the capacity limit.

  2. We don't want to include reserve choices in the capacity limit, as they're a fall-back position after the timetable is formed,

    and

  3. While the nature of Section 5 is for reserve choices, we want to include them in case their application for Industry pathway is rejected.

Click the arrows (so that they turn green) for any instance of the course that should be included in the rule.

Any other instances that don't need a capacity limit (you don't have to have limits on everything), or will be part of a different rule, can stay as they are (grey).

That’s your capacity rules set for that course.

 

Setting Capacity Parameters

Now, we'll look at the left side of the Capacities page, which deals with the parameters of the rule.

'Individual' means that the rule would be applied per instance you have selected on the right (as per the example this means a capacity allowance of 20 per section 2, 3 and 4). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Shared' means that it will accept a cumulative total of the specified capacity for all selections made in the instances selected on a first come, first served basis (as per the example this means across all sections the capacity allowance for this course is 20 in total).

When determining what number to set for capacities, be mindful that your timetabling software would normally be allocating the students to classes.
If you were running two classes with up to 25 students per class, you should enter 50 as the capacity. 

How to modify capacity limits


Go To: Checklist > Selection Process > Capacities


Locate the Capacity Limit you wish to review and select Edit/View.

This will display all current parameters of the Capacity Limit.

 

Remember that a course code can have more than one capacity rule, but each instance of a course code can only be included in one capacity rule.

 

While there are some limited opportunities to make changes when your event is active, it's more common that this will be done when you're setting up for a new event.

Before you start reviewing and/or modifying your capacity limits make sure that you have all selections placed in the selection process location you want them to appear to students (so complete any changes such as moving courses from one line to another, adding new courses, removing existing courses before defining capacity limits). 

The next step should be for you to systematically go through the table of capacity limits you now have in place within SSO, and review and/or modify these capacity limits as a final check before going live.

The list can be quite extensive, so if you have a lot of courses on offer, and there are significant changes from your last event, you may even consider deleting the existing capacity limits and starting again. To delete capacity limits, click on the checkboxes on the left side of the Course Code column, and a Delete button will appear. 

 

When you believe you've updated your capacity limits completely, there are two things you should do to check they they are working as you intend:

Go and Act As a test student profile in the Monitor page, and check:

  1. Selections that should have a capacity limit show an amber marker and display the number of places available.

 

  1. When you choose a Selection, confirm the impact it has on any other instances of the same course is as you intend (this is to check the Individual/Shared parameter you've set is correct, and the number of places available goes down as expected: per course overall or per course within each section).

 

 

 

 

 

Any selections that show up in green have no capacity limit applied to them.

If this isn't correct, you either need to go in and add the instance of the selection into an existing rule or set a new rule up.

 

Something to be aware of:

Where a student has not met a selection pre-requisite, the selection will also appear with the same, amber-coloured marker (amber being universal colour for a warning) but where it is amber due to a pre-requisite issue the course will not show the number of spaces available.

 

 Waitlists

Allowing or disallowing Waitlists on capacity selections

Waitlists can be either permitted or not permitted, once a capacity limit is reached. This permission is set on the same screen as the capacity limits.

  • Permitted

    SSO will allow up to the number of selections defined in 'Capacity is' and students who fit within the capacity will see a green marker in their selection process next to the selection in question. When waitlists have been Permitted the selections beyond the inital capcity limit are able to be waitlisted, and so can be selected by students and will appear as an amber marker, with '**WAITLISTED** next to the selection. These waitlists will retain their queue position. If a student who had a confirmed selection (a green one) removes their selection, the student at the front of the queue will automatically have their selection moved up to a confirmed selection - SSO will then send an email to the student and will leave a notification within the application as well. This is completely automated and cannot be adjusted. 

  • Not Permitted

    SSO will allow up the number of selections defined in 'Capacity is' and will then appear to students as unavailable for selection.

    If a student with a confirmed selection withdraws, the course will show as available to the next student who views it.

Changes to Capacities and Waitlists while selections are open

Increasing Capacities while selections are open is fine. If Waitlists are permitted, it will automatically confirm the newly available positions to the next students in queue. 

Changing a course’s Waitlist from permitted to not permitted is possible and can be completed from the Capacity screen. Changing this setting will cancel the Waitlist and all associated student positions in the waiting queue (so be careful!). If you need to know who is affected by this change, run a full extract report prior to changing the setting, which will provide a clear record of the students affected, and their waitlist position. Upon confirming this setting change on screen, you will be offered the option to send a notification to affected students (an email and/or notification within their selection screen). The notification can also have freeform text allowing you to advise students the Waitlist for that course is being cancelled and instructing them how to proceed (maybe choose something else that still has space available).

Note that you can also give a Time Extension to students in this situation, after the end date for the rest of the cohort. See here for instructions on how to apply this: Giving Students Extra Selection Time.

Practical Applications

Example 1

If you have a fixed timetable structure, students may be seeing different pathways, but in reality, it is most likely the same timetable.

Let's say that you're offering Physical Education on Line 4 of your timetable, and that there are two classes with up to 30 students in each.

You would set up a Shared capacity of 60, with the same instances on each pathway selected.

The waitlist part is up to you. If you have an instruction/s dedicated to reserve choices, you should not select them as one of the instances.




 

Example 2

Let's say that you're offering English on Lines 1 and 4.

You know that you'll have the numbers for at least 2 (or maybe 3) classes of 30 for Line 1, and you've only got resources to run 3 classes of 30 for Line 4.

You'd set this up with two rules.

Firstly, let's do Line 1. 

Click Add New and choose English from the dropdown.

Set Shared (because the students are selecting for the same timetable, even though they are choosing through their respective pathways), enter the capacity of 60 (that's the two classes), and set Waitlist Permitted (in case you get the numbers to run the extra class).

Select the three instances on the right, so that the 60 applies cumulatively, then click Save.






 


Once you've saved the rule for Line 1, click Add New, then choose the same English from the dropdown.

The limit is still Shared, as it applies to instances across all three Pathways that will all be in the same classes together.

Enter 90 for Capacity, and because there aren't enough resources to have any more classes, choose Not Permitted for Waitlist.

The three Instances of English for Line 1 no longer have arrows next to them, because they are already in another rule (the one we set up above).

We now need to select the three Line 4 instances, and then click Save - all done.

 


 



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