2024 Workshops Changes Issues
Answered
We've had a look at the workshop booking changes that are being introduced in 2024 and the current setup poses some issues for how we use aXcelerate. Our RTO delivers courses which vary in duration between 1 and 8 days. Currently, when a multi-day course is scheduled, the course shows up as a solid block across the days it runs. So if it's a 2-day course, it spans over 2 days, an 8-day course spans over 8 days, etc. and 99% of the time our multi-day courses are delivered at the same location by the same trainer.
Our issues with the new workshop sessions are the following:
1. When a basic multi-day training course is scheduled in the new system, instead of creating just 1 block that spans over multiple days in the calendar, it now creates an individual session for each day of the course. In calendar view it will be very difficult to see where a multi-day course starts and ends, especially where there are consecutive multi-day courses scheduled. And it will be very confusing to differentiate between the actual single day courses and the multi-day courses which are now a series of single sessions.
2. When scheduling a course that is longer than 7 days, instead of having a solid block that spans across all days of the course, the system will now create a single day session on day 1 and one the last day. Can someone please explain the benefit of this feature? With this system we will now be required to go back into the session after booking it and manually create complex dates for every day the course is running so that it shows up accurately in the calendar.
3. If the dates of a multi-day course need to be changed, currently we can either easily drag the entire block to the new dates in the calendar or simply amend the start and end date of the entire course. With the new update, all the multi-day courses are set up as multiple sessions. So to change the dates of an 8-day course will now require 8 manual changes to each day of the course. This introduces more room for human error when managing course changes.
Overall, it appears that the Basic Course in the new system is the same as a Multi-Session with complex dates which unfortunately will make it more convoluted to schedule and manage basic courses.
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Official comment
Hey Jana,
Thanks for this feedback, it's great to hear your perspective.
For these items:
1. This is totally fair feedback and one we are actively looking at with the team. We would hope to have something to improve this before the live release to improve clarity.
2. For items longer than 7 days, there should be a checkbox that will allow you to create a booking on each day. If you need more information on this one don't hesitate to contact Support who can help you further.
3. This is great feedback and something we had not considered in this context. We will take this feedback onboard and look to make some changes to make moving dates in bulk easier as part of the update.
We will let you know when we have made relevant changes to give you the chance to retest before it going live to get further feedback.
Thanks,
JackComment actions -
Hi Jack, these new sessions look like they will have some benefits.
Just a couple of important questions:
- Will the change from complex dates to sessions have any impact on the attendance marking on past workshops - it could be a big issue if past data is not going to properly show daily attendance any longer.
- How will the new timezone information be available for templates to communicate times to students and trainers?
- How will courses be displayed in admin and trainer calendars with the new time zones?
- When is this change likely to be fully implemented? I can already see the timezone field on delivery locations in the live system.
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Hey Pip,
I'm glad to hear you have gotten hands-on with the new changes.
To run through these 1 by 1:
1. Complex dates and Sessions are realistically the same thing as far as the System is concerned and in fact, we are merely "rebranding" Complex dates as Sessions in much of the System. That being the case we aren't envisioning many issues with current functionality and are actively regression testing. (What you see in STG in theory will be what you see in Production)
2. I'm not 100% sure on this one and will need to dig deeper and get back to you.
3. With the addition of new timezone information, Timezones will applied in different places in the System based on how it's being viewed. With the new updates, a timezone will be applied to the delivery location when created, a timezone will also be set against the individual user account, and a timezone will also be set at the account level. For a Trainer's Calendar, it will display in the Calendar with both the original booked time (based on the timezone and and time it was originally booked) and with an adjusted time based on the viewer's timezone (in this case the Trainer).
4. Some minor updates will continue to come to the Production System as the change is rolled out. At the current time, we will soon be opening the feature up to Beta access for select users which will run until we are happy that it's ready to see a wider release upon which time it will begin a Shard-by-Shard rollout (with advanced notice).
The features continue to get updated in the STG environment so we encourage everyone to continue testing with each release.
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