Best practice forum (Archived)

Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session

 
Eric Kelliher
Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Eric Kelliher - Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 7:24 AM
 

Hi,

I have people telling me they're "unable" (system won't let them) sign up for a second session of face-to-face training in our calendar.  For example, if someone signs up for a session, but doesn't/cannot make it for some reason, and we haven't done anything regarding attendance, they're unable to sign up for a second instance of the same session.  Being newer to this feature, is there something I should be doing?  

At first I was going and deleting instances of prior sign-ups, but this seems tedious and destroys accurate records of sign-ups/etc.  For now, we're renaming sessions by adding extensions (Training "X"-1, etc.).  But this doesn't seem right either as we'll have way too many instances of a particular session. Any thoughts on what I should be doing?

Note: we have NOT yet set up learning plans, programs, etc. yet, though we intend do so.  I'm wondering if this will resolve this issue.

Thanks,

Eric

Rob Bloor
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Rob Bloor - Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 7:40 AM
 

Hi Eric

I'm new to Totara and we are currently setting it up with help from a third party company.  They told us that staff cannot sign up for repeat instances of a face to face.  We are therefore setting them up in monthly batches as new topics, with dates attached.  In our scenario if someone doesn't make a session then there won't be one the same month. It also allows us to hide past sessions.  I hope this helps and is what you are referring to.  Apparantly there will be a fix sometime..?

Rob

Richard Chambury
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Richard Chambury - Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 8:12 AM
Group Partners

Hi Eric,

I am working wioth Rob to deploy Totara presently. As Rob says above, Totara version 2.4 introduced a new function that stops users booking on sessions within the same activity within a course, so a person cannot book and attend multiple sessions within an activity, within a course. We have raised this with Totara support as a key issue and are waiting for a resolve to this as changing the function would require significant changes to core code. You were able to book users on to multiple sessions within course activities upto and including v2.2.

Our workaround, it to set up multiple topics, each containing 3-6 month blocks of sessions which should allow you to rebook users on to multiple sessions within a course, but this wont work for workshops where staff can attend as many as they wish within a short or longer timeframe. We havent found a work around for this type of course in v2.4 [yet].

We are still investigating how this impacts on course completion criteria, so you would have to report on course, F2F session and F2F Status to get your attendance reports.

 

Hope this is helpful,

Richard

Amir Elion
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Amir Elion - Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 8:34 AM
 

Hi Richard,

As far as I know, Face to face never allowed users to sign up for more than one session in the same activity.

This was true since 1.0, and hasn't changed in 2.4

We have developed for some of our clients the ability to sign up to more than one session of the same activity, but note that this may have broader implications on grades, attendence, etc.

Regards,

Amir

Richard Chambury
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Richard Chambury - Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 9:05 AM
Group Partners

Hi Amir

Upto and including version 2.2 we could book users on multiple sessions within courses in the same activity without any customisation, the change was recently made in version 2.4 and confirmed by Totara Support when we queried it.  Upto this version you could only rebook a user once attendance had been marked, but once attendance was marked you could rebook them onto the same activity as may times as required.

What is your workaround?

 

Richard

Amir Elion
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Amir Elion - Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 9:46 AM
 

Interesting about ability to reassign after marked attendance. I'll try that.

Anyway we developed a customization, also in 2.4 that lets trainer/admin allow multiple sign ups for the face to face activity. Once checked users can sign up for multiple sessions or trainers may add them as participants for more than one session.

Simon Coggins
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Simon Coggins - Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 4:10 PM
Group Totara

Hi,

I just wanted to clarify a few things about the past, current and future behaviour with regards to multiple signups.

  • Amir is correct that signing up multiple times to the same session were never supported from the earliest versions of f2f
  • However, it seems Richard is also correct that once attendance has been taken you can re-signup. This was a bug that we never knew about until today!
  • While refactoring the code for 2.4 it seems we also fixed that bug, so in 2.4 it is again not possible to sign up multiple times.
  • Because so many people have requested this feature, we are working on it, and we will include it in the upcoming 2.5 release (due Sept/Oct).
  • The 2.5 feature will make multiple signups an optional setting, and if enabled you will be able to signup even before attendance has been taken. It will also handle some of the edge cases that enabling this feature will introduce such as grades, attendence history etc.

Hopefully that clarifies things!

Simon

Richard Chambury
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Richard Chambury - Wednesday, 7 August 2013, 2:48 AM
Group Partners

Hi Simon

Thanks for clarifying and confirming we werent going mad (!) - if you can incorporate this [back] in to 2.5 that would be great, and as its due November-ish we can wait for that and continue the work-around until that point.

Much appreciated, and thanks.

Richard

Eric Kelliher
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Eric Kelliher - Wednesday, 7 August 2013, 7:28 AM
 

Thanks Richard and Amir.  Just now having time to check this.  Interesting that you've each had different experiences.  Of course, I just read the follow-up post by Simon, and I'm thrilled to hear the update for 2.5.

We're currently running 2.2, but are in the process of revamping our system with a new theme and updating to 2.4.  

Just for clarification, we have NOT been doing a terrific job with attendance, and it appears that - even if unintentionally - we could take care of this issue simply by taking attendance.  Of course, it sounds like 2.5 will allow this to be done even without taking attendance, which sounds terrific!

I was a bit unclear, Richard, on what you mean by doing sessions by topics in 3-6 month blocks.  Maybe you could clarify?

Richard Chambury
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Richard Chambury - Wednesday, 7 August 2013, 7:38 AM
Group Partners

Hi Eric, 

If you are running version 2.2 you can book users on multiple sessions within a topic as many timesa as you need to as longas the attendance is marked for previously booked sessions, ie you cant rebook a users if they have a F2F booking without marking attendance.

if you upgrade to version 2.4 when you try to book a user on a session within the same topic you will receiev an error message and be unable to rebook them.

Our workaround until version 4.5 is to set up separate topics to each hold 3-6 months of sessions, so that you can book a user on a session in quarter 1, and then rebook them in the next 3, 6 or 9 month period. If you go into your course settings you can add more topics there and then you will see topic blocks appear in the course, and you can add F2F activities in each. This also allows admin teams to hide older sessions to make the self service experience more simple.

 


Does that help?

Eric Kelliher
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Eric Kelliher - Friday, 9 August 2013, 10:51 AM
 

Hi Richard.  I think so.  You're saying you created new instances of f2f sessions in new topics.  So, the same f2f session (exact specs, but different dates, possibly locations) would listed in different topics within a course.  Of course, if someone missed a session today, they wouldn't be able to sign up for it for tomorrow, unless that session was part of your new block-by-quarter approach, right?  So, successive sessions by participants is still an issue, especially when absences/drops are involved.  Although, it looks like in 2.2 you can just mark them as not having attended and they can sign themselves back up.  And therein lies the problem of "maintenance" or being on top of record-keeping and attendance.

Thanks for the tip, though.  If it comes to it, we may try the same thing. 

Richard Chambury
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Richard Chambury - Monday, 12 August 2013, 5:13 AM
Group Partners

hi Eric

thats correct, it wont solve the issue for workshops or sucessive sessions. The only workaround for staff who miss a session and need to rebook would be for them to cancel the previous bookings and then rebook - but yes, maintenance becomes more intensive and hopefully the fix in 2.5 will solve this.

Simon, if there is any delay to 2.5 can the fix for this be published as a patch so we can resolve this without any slippage?

 

Thanks

Richard

Simon Coggins
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Simon Coggins - Monday, 12 August 2013, 3:22 PM
Group Totara

Richard,

Yes, once we've integrated it we should be able to provide a patch. We are being more strict with our release dates these days though so 2.5 should be out at the end of October.

Simon

Antonio Basile
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Antonio Basile - Friday, 6 September 2013, 3:24 AM
Group Learn Site AdministratorGroup Partners

Hi,

I just wanted to kwon if a patch has been released for Totara 2.4.

 

Thank you

Regards

Antonio

Simon Coggins
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Simon Coggins - Sunday, 8 September 2013, 1:22 PM
Group Totara

Hi Antonio,

If you're asking about a patch to allow multiple signups, there isn't going to be a patch for 2.4. It will however be part of 2.5 which will be out at the end of October.

Simon

Antonio Basile
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Antonio Basile - Thursday, 10 October 2013, 3:46 AM
Group Learn Site AdministratorGroup Partners

Hi Simon,

do you mean that Totara 2.4 will never allow multiple signups in a single face to face?
We don't plan to upgrade to Totara 2.5 at the end of October, when the first release will be out, but our client really needs this feature because the workaround suggested in the forum doesn't fit to us and our client is stuck from a very long time for this reason.
I seemed to understand that when Totara 2.5 would have been released, this feature would have been be ported also to Totara 2.4.

Am I wrong?

Thank you,

regards

antonio

 

Simon Coggins
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Simon Coggins - Thursday, 10 October 2013, 12:46 PM
Group Totara

Hi Antonio,

Unfortunately you are correct. We don't backport significant features to earlier stable release branches because of the risk of introducing new bugs. We want to ensure that the stable release branches are safe to upgrade with minimal changes to the code or UI to ensure that people get the bug fixes we need without introducing potentially unwanted changes.

This is becoming more important as more people use the platform and build customisations on top of it. Just recently we had a situation were a seemingly benign improvement broke someone's site because of a local customisation.

If your client really needs the feature in 2.4 perhaps they might be willing to backport it once 2.5 is out (for their install only)?

Simon

Eric Kelliher
Re: Unable to sign up for repeat instances of a face-to-face session
by Eric Kelliher - Wednesday, 7 August 2013, 7:20 AM
 

Thanks Rob.  I see Richard has commented and I will respond.  I appreciate the assitance!