Overview

This article will explain how an institution can handle students' request for accommodation and assign them to suitable rooms based on needs/requirements.

Note: This will require the Housing Extension Package and the RIO Ready: Housing Application Form.

(Check out our slides here, or try out our RIO Challenge here for a practical exercise.)

Use case

A student named Paul Baumer is requesting for accommodation on campus grounds.

The student is male, thus, he should be assigned with only male roommates (since there are no available single rooms left).

Paul will make a Housing application via the Student Portal (Community), where he will fill a form to provide his information as well as requirements and medical conditions (if any).

For example, the application form will ask the applicant's sleeping time preference. In Paul's case, he has specified that he prefers sleeping before midnight (meaning he should be paired with a roommate that does the same).

Once the request form has been submitted, a Housing application record will be automatically generated in the admin console.

Admin will then use the Room Allocation Wizard, to identify Paul by narrowing down the list of students based on the arrival date.

When searching for rooms, the admin can compare available rooms and suitable roommates that sleep before midnight, which will be a good match with Paul's preference.

See below on setting up records of facilities (i.e. rooms, dormitories) for student accommodation.

The admin can then allocate Paul to that room. It will now be fully allocated and reflected accordingly.

Here is a sample recording on how to use the Room Allocation Wizard.

Housing fees

Note: This only works for Fee Method = Fixed Term.

The university is billing Paul for his accommodation.

The admin or accommodation team will create a Housing Extra record under Paul's Housing Application record.

The Housing Extra record will link the Housing Application with a Fee created for it.

The status must be set to either 'Allocated' or 'Submitted'.

The admin will navigate to the Term related to Paul's Program Enrollment, and generate Term fees.

• The Fee Method must be 'Fixed Term' at the Program Plan (of the Program that Paul is enrolled to).

The admin or accommodation team will then check the 'Generate Housing Fees' checkbox on the Student Fee from Paul's Program Enrollment.

This will find any related Housing records linked to Paul's Program Enrollment, and create a Fee Line under his Student Fee.

The amount will be taken from the Fee linked in Paul's Housing Extra record above.

Note: It will also look through all related Housing Extras to see if any Fees need to be added to this Student Fee. It will check Applicable Term Labels and Status.

Any new Housing Extras that are added after the "Generate Housing Fees" checkbox has been marked, will not be added automatically.

Configuration

Room Allocation Wizard and facilities

To find out more on configuring the Room Allocation Wizard and facilities for this feature, see here.

Housing Fees

The following are required for generating Housing Fees.

Fee:

• Fees are created as the usual way one would create Fees for Courses, but with the Fee Type set to 'Other'.
  Create your Fee(s), Fee Schedule(s), Fee Schedule Term(s), and then approve the Fee Schedule(s).
  
  See here for a guide.
  
  

Housing Extra:

• This is to link the Fee with a student's Housing Application record.
  See here for the object details.

Trigger Handlers:

Optional:

Term Labels

• Each Term has a Term Label field. This can be used to denote the type of Term.
  
  
• Housing Extras have an Applicable Term label field, and when setting up Housing Extras, you can specify to only add the fee to the applicable Terms.

Custom Label

• There is a Custom Label called Housing_Fee_Description. Every Housing Extra fee line will have this custom label as its description. 
  
  
• You can edit this label and include custom merge fields from the Housing Extra record by using its API name surrounded by {! and }
  • E.g. Using the Quantity field would be {!rio_edhouse__Quantity__c} .
    
    
• There is also a custom merge field if you want to use the standard Fee Description field like our normal Fees.
  • Use {!FEESCEHDULEDESCRITION} .
    
    
• By default, this label is {!rio_edhouse__Quantity__c}x  {!FEESCEHDULEDESCRITION} .