Advanced - (Manual Schedule) Merge Sections After Semester Start
aPlus+ can allow you to merge the Canvas sections into one timetable. This can be helpful if multiple sections are being taught in that same session.
It is recommended that this merge is setup before any attendance in recorded. aPlus+ will automatically manage the creation of the merged timetable and remove the non-merged timetables.
If attendance has already been entered into a non-merged timetable, then some manual operations will be required to complete the merge.
To change a course to have merged sections, open the Attendance settings, and set the Create empty timetable setting to "Merge multiple section timetables into one"
You will be asked to confirm your change. Select "Confirm changes"
The system will attempt to remove any sections that have no attendance recorded against them. For those that do have attendance already recorded, they will show with a red warning message. They will also display a warning icon in the timetable/section selection. The timetable/section in this dropdown that does not have the warning icon is the new merged timetable.
It is recommended you open two browser windows and stage them next to each other to make this process easier.
First, recreate the timetable in the new merged timetable/section using the timetable wizard
Then manually copy the attendance from each session in the non-merged timetable/section, to the merged timetable/section.
Tips: (refer to the image below)
- Use the "Fill Blanks" (1) to fill in attendance quickly.
- CAUTION it is easy to mistakenly use visual pattern matching to migrate the attendance here. This will result in mistakes as the student list in the new session now shows the students from all merged sessions, and excludes any students who have withdrawn. For example, the 2nd student down, may not be the 2nd student down in the new timetable/section.
- For students who have subsequently withdrawn (noted by a small 'W" next to their name) from the course, you can add them back into the merged session using the Add Student button (2). This may be important if you wish to retain the attendance record of withdrawn students.
- Remember to select save when you have finished with the session (3)
- Don't forget comments and times if those are populated (times can be expanded by selecting the clock icon on the top left)
- You will need to cycle through each of the non-merged sections/timetables to bring in the attendance from all of them.
Unmerged Merged
After this process is complete, please double check that all attendance has been migrated. A good way to do this is to use the Student list view, and expand the view to many months (marked in red). Take care as the student lists will be slightly different due to the merge and withdrawals.
To remove the non-merged section/timetable, you must first remove all attendance from the sessions in that section/timetable.
Enter the session, select "Clear all". You will also need to manually remove any comments and time in/outs (use the clock button on the left to expand the times). Then select Save.
After attendance has been removed, you can now select "Canvas Sync" and the timetable should be removed automatically, leaving you with a single merged, timetable/section.
