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Time allowance exception reports when time limit = 0

 
? ?
Time allowance exception reports when time limit = 0
by ? ? - Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 2:28 PM
 

I have a program with a course set that has a minimum time required of: 0 - No time limit.

However, I'm still getting over 300 time allowance exception reports.  Why is this? If there's no time limit then don't the learners have unlimited time to complete the program?

I'm looking for commonalities amongst learners. So far, there isn't a single unifying feature, but quite a few were enrolled a long time ago (2013) and quite a few haven't clicked into any of the courses yet.  So they are actually people I want to know about - but I'm not sure time allowance is the problem (given there's no time limit).

Can anyone offer me any suggestions as to what I should be looking at?

Nathan Lewis
Re: Time allowance exception reports when time limit = 0
by Nathan Lewis - Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 4:27 PM
Group Totara

Hi Jackie.

The assignments tab determines how long users are given to complete the certification. The minimum time allowance in the course set is only used to make sure that users are not asked to complete the certification is less time than is required for the course sets to be completed. "Set realistic time allowance" also uses this to calculate how much extra time to grant users when resolving exceptions, so by saying the course set takes 0 time, you're saying that they don't need to be given any extra time to complete it, so I think in that situation it will give them a default of 1 week.

The "Complete by" in the assignments and the due date in a user's certification are two different values. One problem you might experience is that changing an assignment "Complete by" doesn't cause the user's due date to be updated if a user's due date has already been calculated. This is because a user's due date may have been modified by being given an extension, resolving exceptions, or by the recertification process, and the system has no way of knowing if one of those events has occurred. Even if it did know what had happened, it couldn't make the decision as to what action is correct in each situation, so instead it makes no changes.

For everything to work correctly, set a reasonable minimum time required for the course sets and either set no "Complete by" in the assignments, or else set a "Complete by" which is at least as much as the minimum time required to complete initial certification. You should also set your recertification window to be at least as long as the minimum time required to achieve recertification.

Nathan

Nathan Lewis
Re: Time allowance exception reports when time limit = 0
by Nathan Lewis - Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 8:02 PM
Group Totara

Hi Jackie.

I need to correct part of what I wrote earlier. It seems I was wrong when I said that changing the "Complete by" date in the assignment tab won't update the "due date" for users. If the new due date is after the previous due date then the due date is updated. There might also be other situations where the date isn't changed, such as when the user is in the recertification stage of a certification. It seems that removing the completion date from the assignment (so that it says "Set completion") doesn't remove the due date from the user.

Nathan