CLSS Resources for Schedulers

For additional information about each scheduling phase, please view "Scheduling Phase Descriptions" in the CLSS Basics section below.

For additional information about each scheduling phase, please view "Scheduling Phase Descriptions" in the CLSS Basics section below. 

Based on feedback from prior semesters, we have skipped the Design Phase which requires departments to validate and submit their unit as a whole.  However, it is still crucial that all departments take the time to validate their scheduling unit and resolve any errors that exist.   Validating may be done at any time and may be done as often as needed.  Use the guide below for instructions on how to validate your scheduling unit and resolve errors. 

Guide to Validating the Scheduling Unit

Courses need to meet standard meeting patterns, unless there is a specific documented need that has been approved by the Registrar.  Further review by Academic Affairs may be requested by the Registrar. 

Compliance with standard meeting patterns assists with student scheduling of essential learning requirements and other courses and also allows CMU to optimize room usage.  Room placement priority will be given to sections that follow standard meeting patterns.

Review the guide below for more information on standard meeting patterns for lecture courses. 

Best Practices for Standard Meeting Patterns for Lecture Courses

Comments are a crucial field in CLSS and it’s important to provide the necessary information in the comments, when prompted to complete that field.  Use the guide below to review formatting and examples of the information that should be provided in your comments for specific types of errors.

Guidelines for Entering Comments into CLSS

Registrar's Office staff is available to provide one-on-one help sessions via Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or in-person throughout the Planning Phase, Review Phase, and Publish Phase.

If you need to talk through a specific scheduling issue/concern or want a refresher on how to use CLSS, please email [email protected] to schedule a one-on-one help session.

CLSS is only available to department heads, administrative assistants, and other department-designated schedulers.  To set up new schedulers, department heads must email a request to [email protected]. 

Schedulers only have access to make changes to sections within their designated scheduling unit.  Some users may be assigned to additional roles that further limit their access to certain course subjects within their department.

Link to CLSS Website

Instance: The instance is the term being scheduled, Fall, Spring, or Summer. Each instance (term) has multiple parts of term (i.e. 1st Mod, 2nd Mod, Late Start).

Mode: There are two modes associated with CLSS: Design mode and Refine mode. During Design mode all changes to the schedule are held for a scheduling unit and validated at one time by clicking the Validate button. During Refine mode changes to offerings are validated and sent through workflow when each section is saved.

Multiple Meeting Pattern:  A schedule set-up where more than one meeting line is used. Used in a few different scheduling situations such as: hybrid sections, section that meet in different rooms on different days, sections that meet at different times on different days, and sections that use more than one meeting room at the same time. 

Scheduling Unit: The scheduling unit is the group of courses that are scheduled together, usually a department, though it can also be a group of particular subjects within a department.

Section: A section is the most granular scheduling item. It is a particular course at a specific time with an instructor. For instance, PSYC 150 11:00AM TR with Dr. Smith is a section.

Phases: Phases are periods of time during scheduling for an instance that describes levels of authority to make changes. For instance, phases might be Plan, Room Assignment, Review and Publish. Changes may be restricted or require workflow approvals depending on the phase.

Validation:  Validation is a process that runs all relevant rules on all of a scheduling unit's sections for a particular term.  It is a useful way to review which sections have a Warning or Error and to see the types of Workflow approvals sections will go through.

Upon saving a section or validating the scheduling unit, you may receive a pop up identifying an rule type errors.  There are three rule error types:  Error, Warning, and Workflow. Be sure to review error messages and make any necessary changes to your section before submitting.

Errors: An Error indicates that the section or scheduling unit may not be saved as is. The error description will give the rationale and possible solutions to the error. The Save As-Is or Start Workflow buttons will not be available if there is any error present. To save the section, correct the error then attempt to save again.

Warning: A Warning indicates that the section or scheduling unit may be saved, but caution should be taken before completing the schedule. The warning description will give the rationale and may list possible issues that may arise from this section. The Save As-Is Button will appear if the validation only required a warning and not a workflow or error. Warnings do not require any further workflow or approval to be saved.

Workflow: Workflow indicates that the section or scheduling unit may be saved as is but approval will be required to complete entry of the schedule into the SIS. The workflow description will give the rationale. The Start Workflow button will appear when validating a scheduling unit as a whole in Design Mode. When saving a section in Design Mode the workflow indicator will show, but the Save As-Is button will display. In Design mode all workflow takes place at one time for the entire scheduling unit. In Refine Mode when the section is saved the Start Workflow button will appear and the section must be sent through workflow on its own. 

Planning Phase:  Occurs after the semester is rolled. Courses are reviewed and go through workflow on a course-by-course basis.  Any approved changes will automatically sync with Banner. Departments should get their schedules as complete and accurate as possible to ensure proper room assignment for their classes.

Locked Phase:  During this time, the Registrar's Office is processing any outstanding requests in workflow in order to prepare for room assignments. No changes can be made by schedulers during this time.

Room Assignment Phase: Registrar's Office runs the room optimization process to assign General Classrooms.  No changes can be made by schedulers during this time.

Review Phase:  Departments have a few weeks to review room placements and make any other necessary changes prior to the schedule being published. Changes that affect classroom assignment will go through a workflow approval.

Publish Phase:  Schedule is made available to students to view online. Changes may still be made during this phase, but departments should be aware that changes may affect student planning.

Registration Phase:  Registration is open to students. During this phase, if enrollment in a section exists, changes may be limited and/or require additional workflow.

Add/Drop Phase: In this phase, classes have begun. Changes must be very carefully reviewed.   Changes to instructors require additional review due to FLAC processes. Course additions require Registrar's Office approval (except for Late Start and 2nd Mod).

Post-Census Phase:  Changes must be very carefully reviewed since courses are in progress.  Changes to instructors require additional review due to FLAC processes.  All course additions require Registrar's Office approval. 

Archive:  No changes can be made.

The section number legend below will be used for Spring 2022 and all semesters moving forward.

 * Represents a number

What's the difference between Inactivating and Cancelling?

Both Inactivating and Cancelling indicate that you no longer plan to offer that specific section.  The option you choose depends on whether or not there is enrollment in the section.

• If there is no enrollment, you must Inactivate the course.
• If there are students enrolled, you must Cancel the course.

If a course is being cancelled:

• The Academic Department must notify students that the class is being cancelled before a class cancellation request is completed in CLSS.
• If a course has a corequisite course that is being cancelled, the department must notify the student that they will be dropped from the class being cancelled as well as the corequisited course they are enrolled in.

Guide to Inactivating/Cancelling a Section in CLSS

CLSS allows you to assign multiple instructors to a course.   If a section has multiple instructors, one instructor must be listed as the Primary.  The percent responsibility may be split between instructors as applicable.  Please note that percent responsibility does directly impact pay for the course.  The guide below provides instructions on how to add an additional instructor.

Adding Additional Instructors to a Course

On the Instructor Assignment box, the drop-down list provided is a list of instructors assigned to the course's department.  For example, when scheduling a MATH 113 course, all faculty in the Math and Statistics department will be in the drop-down list.  Occasionally, departments may need to assign a faculty member outside their department (or may need to find a faculty member not yet assigned to their department).  Use the following guide to search for instructors outside the primary department for the course.

Assigning an Instructor Not Listed in Drop-Down Menu

Still can't find the instructor you need using those instructions?  That means that the instructor has not yet been entered into Banner by Human Resources.  In that situation, you will need to contact HR to get the instructor set up in Banner before you will be able to assign them in CLSS.

If a course has multiple meeting sessions assigned, the instructor of the course must be listed on each of the meeting session. One example of a course with multiple meeting sessions is a Hybrid taught course where there is an in-person meeting session and web meeting session assigned.

For courses with multiple meeting sessions, the instructor of the course must be assigned to all meeting sessions for instructor scheduling and FLAC reasons.  The guide below provides instructions on how to add an instructor to each meeting session on a course with multiple meeting sessions and how to list the instructors assignment type for the multiple meeting sessions.

 ADDING AN INSTRUCTOR TO EACH MEETING SESSION FOR FLAC

During the Planning Phase, most sections should select the "General Assignment Room" which will allow that class to be placed by the Registrar's Office during the Room Assignment Phase.   The Registrar's Office runs an optimization process that ensures general classroom spaces across campus are best utilized.  

If you have specific room needs for your General Assignment Room, you may submit a request using the instructions below.

Submitting a Room Need Request (General Assignment Rooms)

After the Room Assignment phase, if you need a section moved to a different general classroom, please follow the instructions in the guide below to select a new room if one is available at the requested days/times.

Using 25Live Room Seek to Select New Classroom

In order to request multiple rooms for a class, you must set up a Multiple Meeting Pattern schedule and assign the requested classrooms to each meeting.  Review the "Multiple Meeting Pattern" section in the Schedule (Meeting Days/Times) section below for more information. 

The following guide also provide direction on how to assign multiple meeting days or rooms to a section.

Adding Multiple Meeting Days or Multiple Rooms

A Multiple Meeting Pattern is a schedule set-up where more than one meeting line is used. Multiple Meeting Patterns are used in a few different scheduling situations, including:

• Hybrid sections: One meeting line is used for the in-person component and one line is used for the web component.
• Sections that meet in different rooms on different days:  For example, an ENGL 112 class meets in a lecture room on Mondays and Wednesday but meets at a computer lab on Fridays.  In that instance there would be a meeting line for each room, with the appropriate days/times assigned to each meeting. 
• Sections that meet at different times on different days:  For example, UNIV 101 courses meet for one week but the Sunday session is 3:30 p.m.-5:00.pm. and the Monday-Thursday meetings are 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.  In that instance, there would be one meeting line for Sunday and a second meeting line for Monday-Thursday. 
• Sections that use more than one meeting room at the same time:  For example, a welding course may be assigned to both a lecture and lab space as the instructor may move back and forth between the two spaces within a single class session.  In that instance, there would be a meeting line for each room with the same days/times.

The following guide explains how to set up a Meeting Session on a Blended (Hybrid) Delivery Course.

Adding Meeting Session on Blended (hybrid) Delivery Course

The following guide explains how to set up Multiple Meeting Days or Multiple Rooms on a section.

Adding Multiple Meeting Days or Multiple Rooms

Custom dates must be selected if using a Variable Part of Term.  Custom dates allow you to define the specific dates within the established range for your selected Part of Term that the class will actually be meeting. 

For example, the full date range for Variable Term - Early Start - V0 for Fall 2020 is 8/2/20 through 12/10/20.  First Year College Success (UNIV 101) only plans to meet during the week of 8/9/20 - 8/14/20 so Custom Dates must be used to identify those particular meeting dates.

Guide to Changing Custom Dates for Variable Parts of Term

Topics courses (course numbers ending in 96) must provide a custom course title.  Additional courses approved by curriculum may also provide a custom course title.  

To enter a custom title, select "Other..." from the Title/Topic drop-down list.  You will then be prompted to enter in your Title/Topic and click "OK".

Custom Title/Topics must begin with the phrasing listed on the Guidelines for Editable Course Titles/Topics document below.  Course titles have a maximum of 30 characters, including the required title beginnings.  If using an abbreviation in the title, you may use Section Notes to provide the full course title and/or description.  Section Notes will be viewable to students in self-service Banner.

Guidelines for Editable Course Titles/Topics