How Subscriptions (Relationships) are Created

Overview

Any time an advisor or coach gets assigned to a student record, or when a staff user follows a student, SS&E records these relationships as "Subscriptions".

  • Subscriptions can be created between staff users and students in many different ways.
  • Each subscription method has its own subscription management/administration page.
  • Depending on the subscription method, there are rules that define how different subscription methods may or may not interact with each other.

Subscription Methods

  • Advisor assignment via the Person data feed advisorId on the SIS Import
  • Coach assignment via the Person data feed coachId on the SIS Import
  • Manual advisor "Edit" on the student record in the SS&E UI (requires an Administrator role)
  • Manual coach "Edit" on the student record in the  SS&E UI (requires an Administrator role)
  • Advisor Coach Mapping assigns the student's Coach based on the student's assigned advisor
  • Program Coach Mapping assigns the student's Coach based on the primary degree program
  • "Follow" from a student record "action" menu bar in the SS&E UI (permission-based)
  • Follow By Tag Rule automatically assigns a student "follower" based on a student tag and a subscription label that defines the relationship type with a student subpopulation
  • Bulk Assignment used to automatically assign an Advisor, Coach, or Follower
  • Imported on the Subscription data feed via the SIS Import
  • Automatically Follow "Students enrolled in courses I Instruct" from Caseload User Settings
  • Automatically Follow students by course section location from User Settings

Subscription Data Feed

To view the subscription data feed definitions, click here to view all SIS Data Import Definitions, and then scroll to the Subscription data feed.

  • When implemented, the Subscription data feed defines relationships between a student (subscribeePersonId) and a staff user (subscriberPersonId) based on the subscription label (subscriptionLabelId).
  • The Subscription data feed may assign a primary_advisor (advisor), primary_coach (coach), or staff (follower) relationship.
  • The subscription.csv startDate and endDate are used when set to any date in the past.
      • The subscription start date is a required field that must import with a date that is in the past.
      • The end date is not required, and should be populated with a date that represents when the subscription is ready to be expired, eg. removed from the UI. As soon as this end date date is "in the past", the subscription will be removed from the UI.

Some institutions do not use the Subscription data feed to import any subscriptions, eg. student-staff relationships into SS&E.

In most cases, when used, the subscription data feed usually only imports "staff", eg. follower relationship types.

  • The Subscription Data Feed Imported Data View on the SIS Integration menu displays all relationships created by the SIS and all other methods and includes all subscription data saved in the SS&E database. 
  • If the Subscription data extract is N/A or empty, this means that the subscription data feed is not being used to set relationships in SS&E . 

Best Practice - SIS Import

The best practice using the SIS Import Job to create subscriptions, is where:

  • Primary advisors and primary coaches are assigned via the Person data feed.
  • Secondary advisors/coaches (eg. student "followers") are assigned via the Subscription data feed.

Restrictions and Requirements

  • By design, a staff user can only be associated with one subscription type per student. SS&E will not assign the same staff user as the student's primary advisor, primary coach, or follower.
  • The "target" of a subscription must be a user with a Student role/function. If a subscription is failing, make sure that the user is assigned a Student role by checking their user details here.
  • By design, all staff instructors that are assigned to the Adjunct Faculty role/function will automatically follow all students in the current course sections that they are instructing.
  • A staff user must be assigned the Advisor role/function or Faculty Advisor role/function in order to be set as a primary advisor.
  • A staff user must be assigned a Coach role/function in order to be set as a primary coach.
  • In order for the Person data feed to import successfully during the SIS Import Job, both the Advisor/Coach subscription labels AVISO.SIS.ADVISOR and AVISO.SIS.COACH must exist.
  • If the Applications Administration setting allowSuccessTeamRemoval is set to True, Primary Advisors and Primary Coaches assigned via the SIS Import will be removed from the UI by passing in a null value on the Person Data Feed.
  • If the primary advisor/primary coach were manually assigned to a student's success team by an Admin user via the UI ("Edit"), these cannot be expired from the UI and must be expired from the Administration page (Person Details or Relationships).
  • For more information about how relationships may be expired, click here.

Click here for more information about advisor and coach assignments.

For troubleshooting relationships and to view the source of all relationships, past and present, click here to access Relationships Administration.

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