Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Changes in Scheduling Advising Tools

As many of you have found, the former hacc.edu scheduling tool no longer works for the upcoming semesters. This change is the result of our move to Banner XE, the newer version of Banner that went live in the last few months. Unfortunately, the old hacc.edu scheduling tool was custom built for the older version of Banner and is not compatible with Banner XE. Likewise, there are no plans in the immediate future to custom build a newer version of the hacc.edu scheduling tool. Therefore, in the short term, our only recourse when working with students is to use myHACC.

We are aware that many of you were very accustomed to using the hacc.edu scheduling tool, and I apologize for the inconvenience of it not being available. Please know that Christine Nowik and I had very little control over this change and were also caught off guard. Certainly, if we were aware of the change, we’d have communicated it to you much earlier.

Likewise, we are also aware that there are limitations to myHACC scheduling. Not least among these limitations is the “hidden” nature of important course notes. It is important to note that these notes do exist, but users must click on the link for a course and then drill down into the “Course Details” or “Course Description” to find these notes.

In the short term, to help you and your students adapt to using myHACC for scheduling, Howard Alexander has created two very nice videos that you might find beneficial. Please note that Howard’s videos are somewhat focused on Gettysburg; thus, there are a few items to be aware of:  1) Winter session classes are predominantly online, but there are some, especially in Harrisburg, that may be blended or face-to-face. 2) Howard’s video has a personal note to Gettysburg advisors and faculty at the very end of the staff video. Despite these two small nuances, the videos are accurate and should be helpful to anyone who needs an overview of myHACC scheduling.



Thank you, Howard, for allowing us to use these great resources!