A transcript course record in Student Success & Engagement represents what is commonly referred to as a 'registration' - its purpose is to represent that a student registered for a particular course section. SS&E also tracks a registration status, and along with that, two dates - one for registration date, and one for drop date. It pulls both the registration date and dropped date from the SIS data feed.
The registration and dropped dates do NOT affect the status of the course in SS&E. In most areas of the tool, we only show transcript course records in the 'Registered' status together, since those are the courses the student took (or is taking currently).
When SS&E imports transcript course records, however, these dates are only set if they are populated. This means if during an import run there is dropped date, it will be set in the SS&E database. If, on the next import run, the dropped date is blank, SS&E will NOT clear out the dropped date in SS&E's copy of the transcript course. This can cause a situation where a transcript course is in 'Registered' status, but it has a 'Dropped Date' visible on the student's Term tab. This does not mean the transcript course is considered 'dropped' by the SS&E system. It simply means that at one point, SS&E saw a 'dropped date' populated in the data feed from the SIS.