Add/Drop Retro by Steven Mockler

Key Milestones and Events

stevenmockler — 2025-09-11 22:29:35 UTC

Training Summit: Add/Drop Run of Show training
Aug. 12 Schedules published
Aug. 25 Student Arrivals
Sept. 1 Add/Drop Begins
- Paige in PRG/LHR
- Sara in ARG
- Maren in PRG/LHR
- Chris Lappe LHR/SVQ
- Andrew Dunkle SVQ
Sept. 8-10 Census
Sept. 11 Census Send

Tech Updates During Add/Drop

stevenmockler — 2025-09-11 22:34:39 UTC

Color legend added to the tool
Added a confirm button after selecting approve/deny request
Make course titles more viewable: removed location, semester, and abbreviated titles
Surfaced the number of course hours in a day at the top of the schedule calendar view

Feedback for Future Tech Updates p. 1

stevenmockler — 2025-09-11 22:35:08 UTC

Maintain the lock feature, but allow other staff members to have view access to requests
Prevent students from submitting drop requests for corequisite courses
Differentiate colors for drop requests vs bordering courses with time conflicts vs escalated requests on the schedule view
Resolve issues related to lecture/lab requirements
Block students from requesting 18 credits without UNewHaven approval

Feedback for Future Tech Updates pt. 2

stevenmockler — 2025-09-11 22:35:47 UTC

Increase visibility of site-specific requests to more staff (not edit access)
Improve layout for laptop screens
Improved escalation process
- Functionality to escalate any request
- Add an escalation button for SSAs to open a SF case
  - Automate opening a case for “Denied” requests
Address travel time logic between classrooms/buildings

Topics to Keep in Mind:

stevenmockler — 2025-09-11 22:54:43 UTC

Add/Drop Management Tool
Student experience
Student Success/Academics collaboration - what worked well, global support from AAHQ/Tech

Waitlist

2025-09-16 13:09:37 UTC

I know this is on the wish list but it would be so helpful to have a waitlist feature.

Thank you to the tech team!

stevenmockler — 2025-09-16 13:10:30 UTC

Chris and Andrew were very, very responsive during the week, even deploying improvements, not just bug fixes, in real time

2025-09-16 13:10:38 UTC

When a case gets escalated, having more information about the student's other classes would be helpful.

Blocked students

florinstrugar — 2025-09-16 13:11:12 UTC

Every time you enter on a student in SF the student gets blocked, it would be better if the student wouldn't get blocked but instead in the student's page to have somewhere written something as "X" is online in this page.

Number of credits

2025-09-16 13:11:26 UTC

A minor thing - we let the student drop a 3credit course and add a 4credit one, the tool never highlighted the student is at 18 credits and we should ask UNewHaven for approval

Permissions

colleendutton — 2025-09-16 13:11:41 UTC

Students able to add courses they should not be able to.

Manual Override

2025-09-16 13:11:51 UTC

We had to manually override any student's schedule that had a lab component which was very time consuming and inefficient

Key question.

2025-09-16 13:12:52 UTC

Let’s say we have 24 students enrolled in ENGL 2232. If one student submits an add request through MyVerto, does that pending request block other students from also submitting an add request?

Unclear communication about changes in SF impacting Canvas enrollment

stevenmockler — 2025-09-16 13:14:49 UTC

Email confirmation of student request

2025-09-16 13:14:57 UTC

Ideally a student would receive an email confirming the requests they submitted, so there is a record.

BUSA + ENGL

2025-09-16 13:14:58 UTC

It would be beneficial to add an automated escalated request for students wanting to drop ENGL while enrolled in BUSA.

Multiple-section courses

2025-09-16 13:15:09 UTC

It was difficult to navigate courses that have more sections - e.g. 10 for Academic Writing - we had to work with a Google Sheet chart to double check the times of sections. It would be great to have a special view just for that course.

Steps

florinstrugar — 2025-09-16 13:20:22 UTC

Did my 10k the whole week while running from one SSA to another

Weekly Schedule Visual

2025-09-16 13:20:30 UTC

This made such a big difference and helped with the efficiency of processing add/drops.

2025-09-16 13:21:08 UTC

maybe color code the days to improve visibility

The tool

2025-09-16 13:21:15 UTC

When compared to last fall our work was more effective.

Mike Rossi

colleendutton — 2025-09-16 13:21:35 UTC

Big thanks for Mike for fast responses to escalations!

Israel's Notebook

2025-09-16 13:21:49 UTC

This was a really great resource! Thank you for putting it together, Israel.

SSAs involvement

florinstrugar — 2025-09-16 13:21:58 UTC

SSA helped ADAM and AcaOp in solving the escalation issues smoothly, the collaboration between the two departments was crucial.

Distribution of responsibilities across new team structure

stevenmockler — 2025-09-16 13:22:02 UTC

The first year for some sites sharing these kinds of responsibilities. Some hiccups, but on the whole pretty good

The tool itself

2025-09-16 13:22:05 UTC

Great Improvement.

Add/Drop advising the week prior

2025-09-16 13:22:21 UTC

This helped students get a better understanding of what they needed to do. It helped for schools like IU.

CReg Guide suggestion

2025-09-16 13:22:23 UTC

having the student info at the top was excellent. next step, link the CReg guide directly into the Add/Drop tool ;-)

UNewHaven's Approvals

2025-09-16 13:22:37 UTC

For 18+credits. Extremely fast. Thank you, Steven.

Add/drop Office Hours

2025-09-16 13:23:00 UTC

We ran office hours the Friday before add/drop week to talk through potential changes with students and set expectations. Also - having our SSAs be responsible for 4-6 Channel schools helped to cut down confusion on matriculation requirements

Improvements in Data Collection

stevenmockler — 2025-09-16 13:23:51 UTC

More detailed eligibility and approval reasoning is good for helping support us when we examine why we made specific decisions

We've further refined the data that we capture at Census, and this will help support external reporting in the future

Easier for SSAs

2025-09-16 13:23:53 UTC

massively easier to train SSAs to speak to students. We kept the requests coming through Care Teams and this worked well because SSAs got to know the students more

more detailed eligibility data = more detailed audit

stevenmockler — 2025-09-16 13:29:35 UTC

While it is great we had this data, it meant that there was much more to consult than just checking to see if students had the right score and combination of co/pre-reqs

Lab Section Issue

2025-09-16 13:29:40 UTC

While this was just a London issue it ment nearly half of our students needed a manual override and there were only 3 people who were able to do this. Unless we get a different space this will always be a problem for London as the lab is a different size to the classroom space and we need to manually monitor this.

Blocker/Challenge

florinstrugar — 2025-09-16 13:29:44 UTC

Blocker: some sort of confusion was created when SSAs were sending students to different staff for help instead of trying to solve the issue with and for them.

Challenge: The number of students coming into our office with different issues that need to be solved in that specific moment (queueing sometimes up to 5 students in front of my office).

AP Scores

2025-09-16 13:30:04 UTC

We need reminders on how to proceed right before Add/Drop starts

Math tests

2025-09-16 13:30:57 UTC

Evergreen - a lot of movement between levels, some unnoticed, will consider keeping a list of students who are requesting math changes next semester

Tool

davidroldan5 — 2025-09-16 13:31:27 UTC

At the beginning, not having a "confirm changes" button to prevent mistakes. Also, not being able to record notes like in the schedule audit tool.

SSA One-on-One Meetings

2025-09-16 13:32:17 UTC

SSAs having one on one meetings the first week also meant that the students who needed support from SSAs in one-on-ones had to go to other staff members. This resulted in a line of 7-8 people at a time. I understand this is important so we just need to figure out a system to ensure we can cover both.

Changes in the eligibility

2025-09-16 13:33:53 UTC

Pace was opened until Thursday August 28th, the transition to the onsite teams was confusing for students.

SOP

davidroldan5 — 2025-09-16 13:33:59 UTC

A SOP for Spanish and Math a few weeks before the start of the add/drop week would be necessary.

Comfort Test

2025-09-16 13:34:54 UTC

Great improvement, in my opinion. However, with 350 enrollments in SPAN and MATH it added a heavy piece of workload.

Spreadsheet.

2025-09-16 13:36:59 UTC

We needed to keep the SOP. I am sure that this will change in the future as the tool will keep track of the changes and notes.

Submission request email confirmation

2025-09-16 13:37:13 UTC

hence the suggestion in the tech-tro above... we had a few students, after the deadline, who claimed to have made requests that were never received or created... so it would help to be able to say, do you have the email confirmation, or if you don't have the confirmation it means it didnt go through

Extra support

2025-09-16 13:39:50 UTC

Having HQ support staff in each location

Comofort test / placement onsite

2025-09-16 13:40:25 UTC

During Discovery every student should take an onsite placement to confirm PACE info.

Blocked Students

florinstrugar — 2025-09-16 13:40:42 UTC

I would propose to find a better solution in this case to not have students blocked after each action someone takes in their profile. ADAM and/or AcaOp need to always unblock the page before using it for consultation.

Add drop meetings vs check ins

2025-09-16 13:40:55 UTC

Blocking add drop week only for add drop check ins instead of post arrival check ins AND add drop meetings

Tool blocking students

davidroldan5 — 2025-09-16 13:40:59 UTC

Instead of blocking a student, it would be good to make the profile/schedule visible for everyone without editing permission. Also, a box for notes would be very useful. Thank you for all your work with the tool and support during the process!

Eligibility Training for SP26

stevenmockler — 2025-09-16 13:41:00 UTC

Clear, focused training on how to update records with practice and opportunity to discuss. Need every site approaching this tracking in the same way to reduce the amount of digging to check enrollments at census

PACE

2025-09-16 13:41:20 UTC

Better wording during students and parents onboarding process. Cheating while taking PACE exams is bad.

Benchmarking for Errors

stevenmockler — 2025-09-16 13:43:11 UTC

We expect some errors that need to be corrected during add/drop. Having benchmarking data and discussing with sites individually how to improve semester over semester

Improve the Header of the student info

2025-09-16 13:43:35 UTC

Schedule audit tool and AddDrop Management Tool should include previous credit earned.

Email requests should not accepted

davidroldan5 — 2025-09-16 13:44:08 UTC

We need to work on ways/a protocol to navigate the add/drop requests with students who have tech problems to prevent students' email requests and avoid potential misunderstandings or requests after the deadline.

An "Add/Drop Essentials" Packet for staff

stevenmockler — 2025-09-16 13:44:19 UTC

A presentation or pre-printed packet of essential materials that staff assisting students have to reference. Co/pre-reqs, reminders about individual site expectations, etc.

Better UI experience for students

2025-09-16 13:44:46 UTC

Perhaps the mistakes in add/drop requests are due to confusions in the UI of the student view. I remember before, the add/drop request button was above the selected class and section, not below. The more intuitive and straightfoward the flow is for the platform, the less confusing it will be for our students.

Better training for SSAs

2025-09-16 13:45:01 UTC

It is a key element and we, the onsite team, did not deliver properly.

2025-09-16 14:01:45 UTC

Did any site actually refuse a student’s request because they had already made 3 submissions

Training on how to see the section enrollment status change history

2025-09-16 14:02:18 UTC

Training for all managers on Add/Drop

2025-09-18 09:42:48 UTC

SSMs and Directors should all have the ability to assist with add/drop given how intense the week is / the amount of requests that come in