Where is the Custom Schedule program for Activities in RecTrac 3.1?
Problem
Where do you go to create custom schedules for activities in RecTrac 3.1?
Solution
Custom Schedules and Holiday Dates are maintained section to section through the Custom Schedules and Holidays button found at the bottom Activity Section Update.
The Activity Schedule program allows you to:
- Create a custom schedule by adding meeting dates. Any dates entered for this purpose overrides days/dates/times entered on the previous screen. Custom scheduling offers a good solution for program that do not meet at regular intervals.
- Add Holiday dates to an existing schedule. Any date entered as a Holiday date is viewed as a 'skip date' for the program. Holiday scheduling offers a good way to highlight scheduled dates during the run of the program where a meeting will not be held, either due to an actual holiday (i.e. Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, etc) or due to a known conflict not typically associated with a holiday, such as a planned instructor absence.
Use the 'i' and '?' Help icons for field description and other examples, if needed.
Note: Any dates listed in the Custom Schedule and Holiday DataGrid that are NOT marked as a 'Holiday' become the schedule for the Activity Section. If your intention is to insert a 'skip date' to your schedule (i.e. 'there will be no class meeting on Wednesday, May 16 20xx'), enter the Date and select the Holiday? option.
If the date being added does NOT have the Holiday? option selected, RecTrac assumes you are adding a Custom Schedule date. Any dates NOT added as Holiday dates supersede/will be used in place of any existing meeting dates on the Section.
For Example: In Section Update, your days of the week and time are Monday and Wednesday from 700-830pm. The program meets during May and June. You know that May 16th will be a 'skip date.' Using this program, you enter May 16, but fail to select the Holiday? check box. When you exit this program, the Activity will have exactly one (1) Meeting Day, May 16, because RecTrac assumes you are creating a custom schedule and therefore skips the meeting dates and times in Section Update. To avoid this scenario, you would enter May 16 in this program and select the Holiday? check box, even though it is NOT an actual 'Holiday' on your calendar.