Terms Settings in Ad Astra

Academic term records (or “semesters”, “sessions” or "quarters") are imported along with your course section data. In addition to the basic defining elements of a term (description, code, start, and end date, etc.), there are Ad Astra-specific values that can be configured by administrators to support application features.

To access Imported Terms and Settings, go to the 'Settings' link in the left navigation panel. You must be an Admin user for your institution in order to view the list of imported terms and settings.

There are multiple ways you can search for specific terms:

• Use the "Find..." bubble to search the term description or code.
• Filter by year to limit the term list to one or more years so you don’t have to scroll through several years to find a current term.
• The "Show Analysis Terms Only" toggle will filter the list to show only those terms configured for analysis.

Users can enter Term Type and Academic Year to categorize the terms for use and reporting elsewhere in the system. Each of these values can be edited directly in the term row.

To create a new value, simply insert your cursor and type in the name of the value you want to create, and click "Add". This value will be added to the term and will now be available on the drop-down list for use on other terms.

To add the same value to a different term, simply click on the Term Type or Academic Year field and choose the value from the list.

Analysis Settings

You can click on a term, to view the Analysis Settings. A term record must have certain settings configured to allow Align and/or Predict to perform their demand analysis and make recommendations. The analysis settings include:

• Prior Term: major term immediately preceding the selected term
• Baseline Term: the immediately previous “like” term (term of the same type - e.g. Fall)
• 1 or more (preferably +4) additional Like Terms (see the example below)

Once an institution is ready to receive Align and/or Predict results for a new term, an Admin will need to configure the Analysis Settings for the upcoming term. Predict can be run only for one term at a time and will run for the term that has latest term dates and has the prior term added in the Analysis Term Settings.

Align requires a baseline term and two like terms . Predict requires a prior term term, baseline term, and two like terms (preferably +4 like terms).  Note – Predict is typically only run for the Fall and Spring terms – not the Summer terms.  Only Historical should be configured for Summer or other smaller terms.

Important – do not configure the Prior term until the institution is ready to run the Predict analysis.  Reminder – Predict can only run for one term at a time and an institution will not want to start running Predict until the prior term has begun.

Roll Forward

Admin users have the ability to roll forward in order to plan for an upcoming term.  For example, prior to having real data for Spring 2024, an institution may want to roll forward Spring 2023 data in Align for the Spring 2024 analysis term.

Admin users may initiate a roll forward for any current or future term by hovering over the three dots of the analysis term (the term data should be rolled into) and select Roll Forward.

Select the appropriate source term (the term data you would like to use) and select Apply.

A message will inform the user that the change will occur after the next data ingest. Data ingests occur multiple times a week for most institutions. You can confirm the success of the roll forward by checking that the term description now contains "Roll Forward". You will also see data available in Align for the roll forward term. 

Restore Term

Once real data is available inside of the Student information System for a rolled forward term, an institution will want to restore term information to import real term information from the SIS.  Restore functionality is available to Admin users only.  Hover over the three dots of the analysis term and select Restore.

Note: You will not be able to restore the term if the term has already begun. Please submit a support ticket if you want to restore term for an in progress term.

Select Ok to confirm.

A message will inform the user that the change will occur after the next data ingest. Data ingests occur multiple times a week for most institutions. You can confirm the success by checking that "Roll Forward" has been removed from the term description.

Restrict Term Editing

If desired, you can disable the ability for certain users to make changes to sections within a given term. If the "Restrict Term Editing" option is enabled, then users with the Contributor role that have the corresponding "Restrict Term Editing" setting are automatically included. See User Settings in Ad Astra

Contributor user setting:

By default, the restriction setting disables all editing capability for affected Contributors as of today's date. Optionally, you can edit the start date so the restriction will become effective at a later date.

Finally, you can optionally allow only certain changes to continue to occur for users affected by the restriction. For example, if no changes are allowed after registration begins aside from room assignments, then you can check the box next to "Allow Location Changes". (Note: Allow Add/Edit New Sections allows a user to create a new section record in Ad Astra and edit it while it still has no ID mapping it to your SIS.)

Milestone and Schedule Deadline Dates

Once a Term is expanded, users can configure Milestone and Schedule Deadline Dates. Milestone Dates include Census, Registration Start, Term Start, and Term End dates. Schedule Deadline Dates are customizable to the institution. A title and date are collected for Schedule Deadline Dates.  These dates are displayed on the Ad Astra Home page.

Configuration and Active Status

The configuration status and the active status of your terms are visually indicated on the far right side of the terms list.

Align

Align alone (historical trend analysis) requires at least a Baseline Term and/or additional Like Terms. Terms that have sections in Ad Astra, have not ended, and have these settings configured are considered active for Align analysis. 

Predict

Predict (using students and pathways) requires the addition of a Prior Term. The most date forward term that has sections in Ad Astra has student academic history in the Prior Term, and has these settings configured is considered active for Predict analysis.

Align and Predict analysis processes and resulting recommendations are dependent on these term settings. See the above Analysis Settings to configure these settings appropriately.