A: When trying to determine why a student cannot sign up for a specific opportunity, there are a few things to check:
Is the opportunity associated with the correct class?
If you edit the opportunity by going to “Manage Opportunities”, click “Edit” to the right of the opportunity, and go to the “Classes” tab, any of the classes checked and in green are classes this opportunity is associated with. If the class this opportunity needs to be associated with isn’t checked, checking it here and clicking “Save” will associate it with that class, and allow students in that class to sign up for it.
Is the opportunity outside of the “Sign-up By” start and end dates?
The “Sign Up By Start Date” is when students can begin seeing that an opportunity exists and can sign up for it. When creating opportunities “Sign Up By Start Date” initially defaults to “Any”, meaning that students can start signing up as soon as the opportunity is created. This can either be a specific date (ex. “Clinicals don’t begin until March 1st, so I don’t want students signing up before February 14th.”), or a number (ex. I don’t want students signing up more than 2 months in advance, so I’ll enter “60” as the Sign Up By Start Date so students cannot sign up more than 60 days in advance).
The “Sign Up By End Date” is when students have to be signed up for the opportunity by. This can also be a date(ex. “The hospital wants to know by the end of March which opportunities students have signed up for in April, so I’ll set these opportunities to have a Sign Up By End Date of 3/31/2018 so students cannot sign up after that.”), or a number(Students have to sign up at least a week in advance for an opportunity, so I’ll set the Sign Up By End Date to 7, so they have to sign up at least 7 days in advance).
The “Sign-up By” column in “Manage Opportunities” will list the sign-up by end date, and the sign-up by start date (if one was selected). If no sign-up by start date was selected for the opportunity, it will only list the sign-up by end date.
If a student is trying to sign up for an opportunity before the sign-up by start date, or after the sign-up by end date, it will not be available for them.
Does the opportunity conflict with another event?
If an opportunity conflicts with when a class is scheduled to occur for a student, they will still see it as an available opportunity, but the system will not allow them to sign up for it.
If the opportunity conflicts with another opportunity a student is already a part of, that student will not even see it listed under “Available Opportunities”. We do not allow students to double-book themselves when signing up for an opportunity.
Does the opportunity already contain the maximum number of students?
If the maximum number of students allowed on an opportunity is 2, and 2 students are already on that opportunity, it will not allow additional students to sign up for the opportunity (ie. It is full).
Has the category associated with the opportunity been enabled for the student?
When a student is enrolled in a scenario class it causes the “Categories” button to appear when viewing “Manage My Students” in your Instructor role. By default, all clinical and field hours categories are turned off for students also enrolled in a scenario class.
It is assumed, for example, that a student probably isn’t ready to begin EMS ride time or an ICU shift the very first day of class. Most likely they will need to demonstrate competency in a simulated setting with a scenario before they are exposed to actual patients.
Students will only be able to sign up for opportunities associated with hours categories that have been enabled for them by an Instructor. To see which categories are currently available for a specific student to sign up for, in your Instructor role go to “Classes/Students” in the red toolbar, select “Manage My Students”, and then select “Categories” to the right of a student’s name.
For any categories that are currently checked, students will be able to sign up for opportunities that are associated with that hours category. If you need a student to be able to sign up for an opportunity in an hours category that hasn’t been enabled for them yet, just check that hours category, click “Save”, and the student should have any opportunities associated with that hours category available for them to sign up for.
Is the student enrolled in the class the opportunity is available in?
Sometimes the issue is just that the student hasn’t signed up for the class yet. To check and see if a student is enrolled in a class the opportunity is available for, you can go to “Classes/Students” in the red toolbar, select “Manage My Classes”, and then the “Roster” button to the right of a class.
“Roster” will show you which instructors are associated with the class, which students have signed up for the class, and whether they’ve been approved into the class yet or have potentially been flagged (had their access removed) in the class.
If the student has not signed up for the class yet, the student will probably need to sign up for the class from their dashboard.
Are students allowed to sign up for the opportunity?
If you want to check and see if an opportunity is set up to allow students to sign up for it, go to “Manage Opportunities” in your Instructor role and select “Edit” to the right of an opportunity.
If “Allow students to signup for this opportunity?” is set to “No”, this means Instructors can assign students to this opportunity, but students themselves cannot sign up for it.
Is the student already signed up for the opportunity?
Platinum Planner will not allow a student to sign up for an opportunity that they have already been added to (ie. A student cannot take up 2 available slots in a single opportunity). And while a student may have forgotten that they are already on an opportunity, you as the Instructor can always go to “Manage Opportunities” to see who is currently associated with an opportunity.