Admins: Set-Up Sections (Groups) Mode

Pre-Work

If the sections mode is not turned on for your community, you will want to email [e-mail] before you work through the below steps. You will know if the sections mode is turned on if you see "sections" listed in the admin panel. 

To use sections, you'll need to upload courses, upload providers, set up session locations, upload the section detail, and upload the student invites (optional). Sections can be Provider or Admin managed. The setup will be the same up until "Step 4: Sections" and "Step 5: Student Invites".

Step 1: Courses

How to set up your course list can be found in the article, Admins: Courses (or Topics) Setup. These courses will be used across all modes of Penji (appointments, sections, and Drop-In).

Step 2: Providers

How to set up your Providers can be found in the article, Admins: Providers Setup (Tutors, Advisors, Coaches, etc.). These will be the eligible Providers across all modes of Penji (appointments, sections, and Drop-In).

Step 3: Locations

Sections utilize the same locations as appointments. Before you can upload your section.csv, you will need to follow the steps under the header "Step 4: Locations" in the help center article Admins: Set-Up Appointments Mode.

Step 4: Sections

Provider Managed Sections

If your Sections are organized and run by Providers, there is nothing left to set up. More information about provider-organized sections can be found in Admins: Sections - Provider-Scheduled "Study Pods". 

How providers create and edit their Sections is explained in the article Providers: Sections (Groups) Training. 

Admin Managed Sections - Step by Step

In the section.csv file, each row will correspond to a different Section (ie. group event), including attributes like capacity, location, provider, course, etc. Once these are uploaded, providers will be able to manage the event from their Teach screen and students will be able to join from their Learn screen.

An example of the Sections CSV, including all relevant column names

1. Navigate to “Sections” on the side menu underneath Sessions
2. Click the “Manage” header
3. Under Import Sections heading, click “Download Template CSV”
4. Edit this CSV and add courses in exactly the same format as the sample row
   1. Name: The name of this group event, eg. "CHEM 101 SI Section 1". This name cannot be the same as any other row.
   2. Course: Refer to a course from your Courses CSV upload (see this article). This should be of the format Subject Abbrev. + Course Code with no space, for example, "CHEM101".
   3. Student Capacity: How many students can join a given event in this series?
   4. Attendance: Do you want students to automatically be registered for the following week's session, and should an absence count towards the no-show policy? The options for this column include Optional or Required.
      • Selecting required will automatically sign up the student for the section, and create placeholders each week until the series is over. If the section no-show policy is on, missed sessions will count against the student.
      • Selecting optional allows the student to have a choice to sign up for the event. To note, if this is a weekly section, the student will have to sign up each week. If the student registers for the session, they are absent, and the section no-show policy is on, missed sessions will count against the student. If the student never registered for the section, the absence will not count towards the no-show policy. 
   5. Start Date: When will the first event in the series be? You can schedule a date in the future, so that when students search for Sections in a given course, they will see upcoming future events and can plan for them (for example, a finals test review or a welcome week event).
   6. End Date: Set this to the same as your start date if you'd like to make this a one-time event.
   7. Tutor Email / SSO ID: Who will be the lead of this series? They will be displayed as the provider (or tutor, advisor, coach, etc.) when students register, their video call link will be used to host (if virtual), and they will be responsible for logging attendance.
   8. Waitlist: You can enable a waitlist for Sections of your choice. This allows students to join a waitlist for Sections that have no open seats (have met the capacity limit). The Sections tab in the Admin Panel will also gain a new "Waitlist" tab, which will show all waitlisted students and their desired Sections. See this article to learn about the Sections Waitlist feature: Admins: Sections Waitlist (Admin-managed Only).
   9. Location: Must be a session (appointment) location, not a drop-in location.
   10. Eligibility: Usually set to "Everyone", but also can be set to "List" if you'd like to limit attendance to those you add via Student Invites (see below) or via the "Eligible Student SSO ID's" column.
   11. Eligible Student SSO IDs: This is an old setting that should not be used by most programs.
   12. Days / Hours: Which day(s) of the week and time(s) are these events? You can include multiple times per week, or even per day by separating times on a given day by a vertical bar like "10:00|14:30". Times are in 24-hour format (military time).
5. Upload by clicking “Choose File”, selecting the edited CSV, and clicking “Import CSV”
6. To make changes, you can download your most recent version under “Recent Imports” on the Manage tab and edit the document before re-uploading.

Pending Section

When the Status and Tutor columns are listed as "Pending", students will not be able to search and sign up for this section. "Pending" appears because the system does not recognize this user as a provider. This could be that they are not listed within the tutor.csv and/or the provider has not logged into the correct community and accessed the teach screen yet. 

Once the provider logs into your community and accesses the teach screen at least once, they will no longer be listed as pending. 

Editing the CSV

Sometimes, you will want to edit already existing sections or add/remove them, by uploading an updated CSV file. Below is a list of what happens when you change certain characteristics of an existing section, upload a brand new CSV, and delete a section from a CSV. 

Email Examples: For reference, students and providers will get different email notifications based on how you update the CSV, below are example emails to reference. 

• Student Emails - Students will get the same emails regardless of if the location is physical or online. 
  1.  Email #1, this email is used to let students know that the section they signed up for is now canceled. This email is similar to Provider Email #3. This is sent out when the name is changed, a section is deleted, or a brand new CSV file is uploaded. 
     
• Provider Emails - Providers will get the same emails regardless of how many students have registered for the section, including no students registered at all. This is also true regardless of if the location is physical or online. 
  1. Email #1, this email is used to let providers know they are teaching a "new" section. This is sent out when the name, course, attendance, end date, location, time, and date of a section is changed. This is also sent to the new provider when that is switched.
     
  2. Email #2, this email is used to let providers know that the original section has been removed from their calendar. This is sent out when the name, course, attendance, end date, location, time, and date of a section is changed. This is also sent to the original provider when that is switched and when the section is deleted from the CSV file.
     
  3. Email #3, this email is used to let the provider know the details of the section that was canceled. This is sent out when the name of a section is changed and when a section is deleted from the CSV file. 
     

CSV Updates

• Name
  • Students: Changing the name of a section will remove the old session placeholder card from the students learn screen, and students will need to register for the new section. Students will be notified via email that the original section was canceled, see Student Email #1. 
  • Providers: Changing the name of a section will remove the original session placeholder card (old section name) and add the new session placeholder card (new section name) to the provider's teach screen. The provider will be sent three emails, see Provider Email #1, #2, and #3 above. 
    
    Overview of the 3 emails

• Tutor
  • Students: When the provider for a section is updated, students will remain registered for the session, and will see the new provider on the session placeholder card. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When the provider for a section is updated, the session placeholder card will be removed from the original provider's teach screen, and added to the new provider teach screen.
    • The new provider will be sent a calendar invite for the section they are leading, see Provider Email #1. 
    • The original provider will be sent an email letting them know that the section has been canceled and removed from their calendar, see Provider Email #2.
      
      
• Course
  • Students: When the course for a section is updated, students will remain registered for the session and the session placeholder card will not change. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When the course for a section is updated, the session placeholder card will not change from the provider's perspective. They will be sent two emails, see Provider Email #1 and #2. Overview of the 2 emails
    
    
• Attendance
  • Students: When the attendance for a section is changed between required/optional, students will remain registered for the session and the session placeholder card will not change. Note, that updating to required vs. optional will affect if the student needs to sign up each week. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When the attendance for a section is changed between required/optional, the session placeholder card will not change from the provider's perspective. They will be sent two emails, see Provider Email #1 and #2.
    Overview of the 2 emails
    
    
• End Date
  • Students: When the end date for a section is adjusted, students will remain registered for the session and the session placeholder card will not change. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When the end date for a section is adjusted, the session placeholder card will not change from the provider's perspective. They will be sent two emails, see Provider Email #1 and #2.
    Overview of the 2 emails
    
    
• Location: 
  • Students: When the location for a section is adjusted, students will remain registered for the session and the session placeholder card will not change. The new location will be reflected within the placeholder card when the student clicks into it. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When the location for a section is adjusted, the session placeholder card will not change from the provider's perspective. The new location will be reflected within the placeholder card when the provider clicks into it. The provider will be sent two emails, see Provider Email #1 and #2.
    Overview of the 2 emails
    
    
• Adjust the Time
  • Students: When the time for a section is adjusted, students will remain registered for the session and the session placeholder card will be updated to reflect the new meeting time. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When the time for a section is adjusted, the session placeholder card will be updated to reflect the new meeting time. The provider will be sent two emails, see Provider Email #1 and #2.
    Overview of the 2 emails
    
    
• Adjust the Date
  • Students: When the date for a section is adjusted, students will remain registered for the session and the session placeholder card will be updated to reflect the new meeting date. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When the date for a section is adjusted, the session placeholder card will be updated to reflect the new meeting date. The provider will be sent two emails, see Provider Email #1 and #2.
    Overview of the 2 emails

• Add a Date/Time: An example of this is if you would like your section to meet twice per week, instead of once. You would add another occurrence (date/time) to the same row of the section within the CSV. 
  • Students: When an additional date/time is added to the section, the original session placeholder card will not change. The additional date/time will be added as an additional placeholder card and students will be automatically registered for the additional date/time. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When an additional date/time is added to the section, the original session placeholder card will not change. The additional date/time will be added as an additional placeholder card on the provider's teach screen. The provider will receive 3 emails, two Provider Email #1's to reflect all instances of the section, and #2.
    • Email #1 Note: The provider will receive as many #1 Provider Emails as there are instances of that section. If your section originally met twice per week and now meets four times per week, there will be four Provider Email #1's.
    • Email #2 Note: The provider will receive as many #2 Provider Emails as there were original instances of that section. If your section originally met twice per week and now meets four times per week, there will be two Provider Email #2's.
      
      Overview of the 3 emails
      
      
      Example of the two Provider Email #1's - one for each instance of the section. In this example, the section meets on Monday and Thursday between 10 AM - 11 AM
      
      
• Remove a Date/Time: An example of this is if you would like your section to now only meet once per week instead of twice. You would remove an occurrence (date/time) on the same row of the section with the CSV. 
  • Students: If you remove a date/time from the section, the placeholder card for the meeting time removed will be taken off of the student's learn screen. There are no email alerts sent out to students from this. 
  • Providers: When an additional date/time is removed from a section, the placeholder card for the meeting time removed will be taken off of the provider's teach screen. The provider will receive 3 emails, two Provider Email #2's to reflect the original instances of the section, and #1 for the remaining meeting times of the section.
    • Email #1 Note: The provider will receive as many #1 Provider Emails as there are instances remaining of that section. If your section originally met four times per week and now meets twice per week, there will be two Provider Email #1's.
    • Email #2 Note: The provider will receive as many #2 Provider Emails as there were original instances of that section. If your section originally met four times per week and now meets twice per week, there will be four Provider Email #2's.
      
      Overview of the 3 emails
      
      
      Example of the two Provider Email #2's - one for each instance of the section that was previously included on the CSV. 
      
      
• Upload a brand new CSV: 
  • Students: Uploading a brand new CSV will remove the old session placeholder cards from the student's learn screen. Students will be notified via email that the section was canceled, see Student Email #1.
  • Providers:  Uploading a brand new CSV will remove the old session placeholder cards and add the new session placeholder cards to the provider's teach screen. The provider will be sent three emails, see Provider Email #1, #2, and #3 above. 
    • Email #1 Note: The provider will receive as many #1 Provider Emails as there are new sections they are leading on the new CSV.
    • Email #2 and #3 Note: The provider will receive as many #2 and #3 Provider Emails as there are sections they are no longer leading from the old CSV.
      Overview of the 3 emails

• Delete a Section from the CSV: 
  • Students: If you delete a section from the CSV file, the session placeholder will be removed from the student learn screen. Students will be notified via email that the section was canceled, see Student Email #1.
  • Providers: When a section is deleted from the CSV file, the session placeholder will be removed from the provider teach screen. They will be sent two emails, see Provider Email #2 and #3.
    
    Overview of the 2 emails

Step 5: Student Invites (optional)

These are not used in provider-organized sections and are optional in admin-managed sections. However, we recommend utilizing student invites.  

Uploading an invite, for a given section, does a few things:

1. Pre-fills attendance: Adds those on the student invite CSV to the provider's attendance log (name and email). When providers fill out attendance, they can tap a pre-filled list of students, even if that student never signed up in Penji. This is for both optional and required sections. 
2. Registers Students for a Section: If you invite a student to a required section, the student does not need to go into Penji and sign up each week.
3. Sends Email invitations: If you enable this setting when uploading Student Invites, Penji will auto-email those invited 24 hours before the next event in the series. This email will direct them to either RSVP to the upcoming session or view location details within Penji. Registering beforehand will move students to the top of the provider's attendance log, speeding up logging for large invites.
   • NOTE: We are considering an option to allow the inclusion of full event details in this email (rather than forcing them into Penji). If you'd like to use this method, please email [e-mail] and we'll discuss.
4. Can create a list of eligible students: If you have set your section eligibility to "List" only those you add via Student Invites will be able to register and see the section.

Note, when students are invited to an Optional Section (compared to Required Sections) the invites will not count toward the capacity limit. Students will need to sign up for the section to secure their spot when there is limited capacity.

Step by Step

1. Navigate to “Sections” on the side menu underneath Sessions
2. Click the “Manage” header
3. Under Import Student Invite heading, click “Download Template CSV”
4. Edit this CSV and add Section Name in exactly the same format as the sample row
   • Section: The name of this group event, exactly matching a name uploaded in your Sections CSV.
   • Email: The email of the student being added to this list. You'll have one row for each student. 
   • SSO ID: Optional, and not common. Useful when students may have multiple school emails, and need to be specified by this SSO ID.
   • First and Last Name: Used to help the tutor log attendance during/after each session
   • Invitation Email: Disabled or Enabled. If enabled, the student will receive an initial email invitation 24 hours before the event that gives basic event info but encourages them to either RSVP to the upcoming session or view location details within Penji.
     • Enabled - Required Sections: Students will get an email that says, “You’ve been added to a group event in Penji! View the event details within Penji” each week until the section end date.
       
     • Enabled - Optional Sections: Students will get one of two emails, depending on if they have registered, each week until the section end date.
       • The student has registered: "You've been added to a group event in Penji! View the event details within Penji"
         
       • The student has not registered: "You've been invited to attend an event! Please RSVP within Penji below for details"
         
5. Upload by clicking “Choose File”, selecting the edited CSV, and clicking “Import CSV
6. To make changes, you can download your most recent version under “Recent Imports” on the Manage tab and edit the document before re-uploading.

Step 6: Format Sections

You will want to review the following settings, Admins: Sections Settings, to make sure the Sections mode is set up how you would like.