Overview

For a more targeted placement process, limit access to your placement processes to specific groups of students and/or designated time frames. 

All site placement processes have an access period. The access period determines how and when students will be able to complete the placement process, by defining:

• Which classification(s) the process is available to (required)
• Which sub-program(s) the process is available to (optional)
• The group(s) that the process will be available to (optional)
• The start date from which the process is available (required) 
• The end date after which the process is no longer available (optional) 

NOTE: One site placement process can have multiple access periods, so that you can make the process available to multiple groups at different times.

 

This article will explain each of the characteristics of an access period in more depth so that you can decide how best to structure access periods for your program's placement process(es). 

NOTE: At this time, access periods can only be created and updated by Experiential Learning Cloud staff. This article is intended to help you understand the functionality available to you so that you can work with a Experiential Learning Cloud team member to design the best possible process and access periods for your program.

 

Classifications

Classifications are an easy way to define the various field experience levels that students will participate in throughout their time in your program. Common classifications are: 

• Counseling: Practicum and Internship
• Social Work: Generalist and Specialized 
• Teacher Education: Pre-Professional Experience and Student Teaching Internship

By including a classification in a placement process access period, you are putting the placement process into that classification in the students' site placements workspace so that they can easily initiate the correct process for them, based on their level. 

BEST PRACTICE: Try to only include one placement process per classification. That way, students won't have the confusion of needing to choose between multiple processes.  If you do need to create multiple processes for a given classification (for example, you have a different process workflow depending upon whether students are working at a place of employment or not), you will need to use the Student Process Description to help students decide which process they should choose within their classification. Process Builder View:   Student Site Placement View:

 

Limit to Sub-Program

Sub-programs allow students to be categorized at another level, secondary to their program association. Site processes can be limited to specific sub-programs if necessary. 

If a process is limited to a specified sub-program, it will only be available to students who are associated with that sub-program.

If a process is not limited to a specified sub-program it will be available to all students in the program, as long as the criteria of the other fields in the access period are met. 

Limit to Group

The limit to group field is optional. If no class or group is selected in this field, then the placement process will be available to all members of your program. If a group is selected, then only members of that group will be able to access the placement process. 

Benefits of Limiting a Process to a Group	Drawbacks of Limiting a Process to a Group
You have more control over who can access the process and when they can access it	You will need to complete the extra step of populating an access group in your groups workspace each time you want to give access to a new group of students
	You will need to remember to request a new access period for your site process each time a new access group is created

Start and End Dates

The start date in a placement access period determines the first day that students will be able to begin the placement process.

The end date is the first day that students will no longer be able to begin the placement process.

 

If students initiate, but do not complete a placement process prior to the end date, they will only be able to complete the steps of that process instance which they initiated prior to the end date.

 

For example, if a student had selected a site prior to the end date, but they had not selected a site supervisor, they would be able to complete the paperwork in the site step after the end date, but they would not be able to add a site supervisor to complete their placement process as a whole. 

NOTE: If a process has an end date which has passed, placement approvers will still be able to select the process and view students' documentation completed within that process in the placement approval workspace. If a process is made inactive, however, it will not show up in the placement approver's view. The students' paperwork will still be saved along with their documents.