Note Type Administration

Updated February 07, 2024 08:26

Watermark Support

Overview

Note Types permit staff and faculty (eg. non-student) users to enter notes that are associated with a reason for their interaction with a student and display on the student's Notes tab.

By design, Notes and Note Types are not visible to students as their purpose is to allow staff to document any type of student interaction in a secure manner and share this with other staff members who are allowed to view the student record and the specific note type.
Notes can also be imported from the SIS system via the SIS Import process on the Note data feed. For more information about importing notes, click here.
By design, each note is associated with a note type. If a user does not have any role with permitted note types, they will not be able to create a note.

Note Types ensure that only staff users assigned role-based security access to the specific note type are allowed to view and/or create notes associated with a particular note type.

Attributes

Within SS&E, Notes allow staff to document their student interactions vs. Messaging which is used for communicating between staff and students.
Notes are only visible to staff who have role-based permissions to view the specific note type.
By design, notes are not visible to students/SS&E users that only have a student function based role and can only see the SS&E Student View.
Note Types are also used in reporting to help with outreach and tasks being performed by institutional staff.
Staff Initiated Alert and Early Alert note types are no longer used for entering notes and were replaced by comments in 2020.
- - Staff Initiated Alert and Early Alert note types display in Note Types Administration so that institutions can view historical notes associated with these note types when logged-in with a permitted role and the note type is set to active.

Navigation

Note Types Administration lists all the avaialble Note Types.

To view Note Types, go to SS&E Admin - Notes - Note Types.

How to Add A Note Type

From Note Types Administration, select "New" from the menu bar, then enter the fields listed below.

Only Name is required.

Note Type Fields

Name*

The name of the note type. This field is required.

Use a descriptive name so that staff and faculty understand what to choose.

Active

Whether or not the Note Type is active.

Only active note types can be used and selected from the Note Type dropdown when adding or editing a note in SS&E.
Inactive note types cannot be selected/cannot be used, yet they will display in reporting and on student records where previously used.
In SS&E Reporting, Note Types and Notes report sources can be used to check inactive note types usage.

Is Key Engagement

Whether or not the specific Note Type represents a Key Engagement.

For more information about SS&E Key Engagements, click here.

Manual Entry Enabled

Determines whether staff users are allowed to create notes using this specific note type within SS&E.

Manual Entry is usually disabled on certain note types when an institution wants to prevent staff from manually selecting specific note types that are only associated with notes imported from the SIS.

Permitted Roles

Every Note Type lists which staff roles are allowed to enter a note and view notes that are associated with a specific note type.

This affects which users are able to view notes created with a certain note type, as well as which users are able to create a note for the specific note type.

Users that are not assigned a "permitted role" will not see the note type listed in the Note Type dropdown when creating a new note.
If multiple note types are associated with the same note, a user will only be able to see the note if they have access to view ALL of the note types.

For example, if you only want to permit users that are all Managers assigned the "Management" role to be allowed to create and view specific Management notes, you could:

Create a Note Type for "Management Notes"
Set the Manager role as the only "Permitted Role" allowed access to this specific Note Type
No other users/roles will be able to use or view notes that are associated with the "Management Notes" note type throughout SS&E (student record, reporting, note entry etc.).

To add a role to an existing note type:

Click on the Note Type Name.
Click on Edit.
Click on the Permitted Roles field and select the role from the dropdown.
Click on Save.

Source System Id

The Source System ID is an internal identifier within SS&E. When applicable, this will be used for synchronizing notes from external systems such as the SIS with SS&E.

The Source System ID field is used for SIS Data Integration.
- - It should not have to be set when creating a new Note Type manually from within SS&E .
  - It is used to look up a Note Type during the SIS Import process when importing notes from the SIS.

If the Note Type specified in the data extract file cannot be found, the system will look for a Note Type with a Source System ID of 'AVISO.GENERAL_ADVISING' and will use that as the Note Type.

Each system must have a Note Type with a Source System ID of 'AVISO.GENERAL_ADVISING' to ensure that Notes are imported correctly.

Importing Notes from the SIS

Notes can be imported from the SIS system via the Note datafeed.

To view the data import definitions, click here and scroll to the Note data feed (note.csv) import requirements.
To get started, send a test note.csv file to see how it displays in SS&E.
All fields are required except Note Type. If a note type is not provided on an imported note record, the import will assign the General Advising note type.

Removing a Note Type

Note Types cannot be deleted or removed from the Note Types Admin page, however they can be removed from the UI by:

Setting the Note Type to Active - No. Inactive note types will be removed from the dropdown selections listed on new notes or when editing existing notes.
Removing all Permitted Roles from the Note Type. Removing all permissions to a select note type will disable access to view notes that are associated with the note type. This will not remove access from viewing notes associated with this note type through SS&E Reporting.
Renaming the Note Type by adding a ZZxxx, or zzDoNotUse to the existing name. Renaming the note type will make it harder to identify and push the "inactive" note types to the end of the note type field values available from SS&E Reporting.