Overview

This article describes how you can manage a student's PE Pathways if said student skipped 1 or more Terms, and returned again subsequently.

Note:

This article only applies if your institution:

• Is using the manual “Enrollment Method” for the Program Pathways.
   
• Has linked each Term record to lookup to its previous Term. This makes every PE Pathway to automatically lookup to a Term record.
  
  
  
  
  • If your Terms are not linked together, then, students will need to select the Terms on their own.
    
    
    
    Which means that this use case below will not be a problem, and thus, this article is not relevant.

Use case

Let's assume that your institution has 2 Terms every year, which are Fall and Spring.

A student is studying a program that lasts 4 Terms. Let's assume that the student starts in Fall 2024, and is expected to complete in Spring 2026.

Thus, the student's PE Pathways would look like this below.

Note that Program Pathway and Pathway Units can be set up so that the student will see different recommended courses in Term #1, #2, #3, and #4.

Let's assume that this student has completed Term #1 and #2 as expected.

But the student skipped Fall 2025, and only returned in the next Term (Spring 2026).

This means that when the student returns in Spring 2026, the student is actually doing Term #3.

Term #4 is to be done in Fall 2026 (one Term further, due to the delay).

Thus, update the PE Pathway with My Term = 3 to lookup to the Term in which the student is returning (e.g. Spring 2026).

The next PE Pathway (My Term = 4) also needs to be updated to look up to the subsequent Term (e.g. Fall 2026).

The end result should look this below, where the PE Pathways for Term #3 and #4 are looking up to the new Terms.

This will ensure that when the student returns in Spring 2026, they will see the courses recommended for Term #3, instead of seeing Term #4 courses.

Notes

Preparing Course Offerings and Sessions

Make sure to create the same set of recommended Course Offerings and Sessions in the Term which the student will be returning.

For example, the student may be expected to take BUS101 and FIN101 in Fall 2025.

Course Offerings and Sessions for these 2 have been created for Fall 2025.

But since the student skipped Fall 2025, and only returned in Spring 2026, those Course Offerings and Sessions will not appear.

So, you will need to create another duplicate set of Course Offerings and Sessions for the recommended courses (e.g. BUS101 and FIN101) in the next Term (e.g. Spring 2026).

If you recommend courses only on specific Terms

Some institutions arrange the Program Pathway such that students should only see Fall-recommended courses in Fall.

Conversely, students should only see Spring-recommended courses in Spring.

For example, your institution may have set up your Program Pathway such that:

• Term #1 and #3 are only meant for Fall.
• Term #2 and #4 are only meant for Spring. 

Let's say the same scenario occurs and the student skipped Fall 2025, where they were supposed to do Term #3.

In this case, consider allowing the student to return only in the next Fall Term (e.g. Fall 2026).

This will avoid situations where the student ends up doing Term #3 in a Spring Term.

This will ensure that the student will continue to see Fall courses in Fall, and see Spring courses in Spring.