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

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.

Step by Step

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. Location: Must be a session (appointment) location, not a drop-in location.
   9. 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.
   10. Eligible Student SSO IDs: This is an old setting that should not be used by most programs.
   11. 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.

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. 

• Name: If you change the name of the section, the system will read this as an entirely new section, and remove the old one from the student learn screen and provider teach screen. The new section (new name) will be shown on the provider's teach screen. 
• Tutor: If you change the provider of the section, the section will be removed from the original providers teach screen, added to the new providers teach screen, and the students will remain registered for the same section. The system recognizes that you are just switching the provider, not creating an entirely new section. 
• Attendance: If you change this between required/optional, the same section will be shown on the student learn screen and provider teach screen. Note, that updating to required vs. optional will affect if the student needs to sign up each week. 
• End Date: If you extend the section end date, the same section will be shown on the student learn screen and provider teach screen. 
• Location: If you update the location for the section, the same section will be shown on the student learn screen and provider teach screen. 
• Time: If you update the time for the section, the same section will be shown on the student learn screen and provider teach screen. 
• Date: If you update the weekday for the section, the same section will be shown on the student learn screen and provider teach screen. 
  • Add or remove a Date/Time: If you would like your section to meet twice per week, and you add another occurrence (date/time) the additional meeting will be added to the student learn screen and provider teach screen. If you remove a meeting time, and now only want your section to meet once per week, the time removed from the CSV will be removed from the student learn screen and provider teach screen.
• Upload a brand new CSV: The system will remove the old sections from the student learn screen and provider teach screen. The new sections will be shown on the provider's teach screen.  
• Delete a Section from the CSV: The system will remove the old section from the student learn screen and provider teach screen. 

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 two 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 attendnace, they can tap a pre-filled list of students, even if that student never signed up in Penji. 
2. 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.

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.