A college reported a problem with class scheduling using their virtual facility - they were receiving a conflict error with a class 'event' scheduled by another college. Research into this situation revealed the cause as inconsistencies in the facility setup.
Facility ID's are mandated to begin with the college letter - whether they originate by conversion from legacy or they are entered manually by college staff. This is due to the new SIS logic that does not always differentiate by facility SetID when certain class schedule edits are applied. If various institutions use the same Facility ID in their setup, there is no guarantee that the proper entry will be used when determining certain edit functions such as conflict checking.
There were seven colleges that have strayed from the above mandate with regards to setting up their Virtual facility. All of these colleges used the same Facility ID of VIRTUAL.
To correct the problem, these schools should:
-Update their existing VIRTUAL entry in correction mode to turn off conflict checking (uncheck the box).
-Insert a row in their existing VIRTUAL entry in correction mode,
effective dated as of the start of Fall 2004 term, and set the status of
their VIRTUAL facility on this new row to Inactive
-Add a new Facility ID in the proper format (ie, begins with college
letter) for a virtual facility. It is recommended that conflict checking
be turned off (do not check the box). Effective date should be prior to
the start of Fall 2004 term. Some examples of Facility ID's other
colleges have used are 'XVIRTUAL' and 'XVIR-TUAL', where X is replaced
with the college letter.
-Ensure any/all 'virtual' classes already scheduled for Fall 2004 and
beyond use the new/correct Facility ID.