To determine if a student has passed a course that is on the selected academic plan template, it looks for it on the student's transcript (the courses they have taken and passed). As courses change over time, it's common for a course's name or number to change, or even its entire coding. For instance, MAT-110 might now be coded MAT-118, and there are two records in the SIS for these courses, but if someone passed MAT-110, it should count as if they passed MAT-118 for academic planning purposes.
Other times, just the name of the course changes, but the code does not, and neither does the number of credits associated with the course. In this case, the courses are treated as equivalent. Just to restate - if the course code and number of credit hours are exactly the same for two (or more) courses, theses courses are treated as equivalent for the purposes of academic planning.
In cases where the course codes are completely different, it is possible to import course equivalencies from your SIS into Student Success & Engagement during the SIS Import Job. Please contact your Watermark account representative to explore this possibility.