2023 TES Enhancements

The following information pertains to changes made to TES® in 2023. Twenty enhancements and/or fixes have been made to TES within the year.

• See the yearly Release Notes pages within the TES Support Center for details regarding prior enhancements.

Email Evaluation Decisions from the Evaluation Tracker Workflow

Functionality has been added to the Evaluation Tracker workflow to give staff within Registrar and Admissions offices the ability to email students and other stakeholders of evaluation decisions.

How It Works

A new action type of "Send Email" has been added to the Evaluation Tracker workflow. This action will be available within the My Evaluations queue to users with the SERVICE EVAL and (MANAGE EVAL or CREATE EQ) user rights and available within All Open Evaluations to users with the SERVICE EVAL and MANAGE EVAL user rights.

Within the SEND EMAIL pop-up, users can choose between embedding the evaluation decision as HTML in the email or sending it as an attached PDF. Additional information and context can be supplied in the body of the email.

For more information, see Send Emails to Communicate Evaluation Decisions to Students and Stakeholders.

Users with ACCESS EQ Can View Peer Equivalencies

Individuals with the ACCESS EQ user right can now view peer equivalencies within the Course Finder.

How It Works

The Peer Sharing functionality in TES® allows users to compare how peer institutions award credit for college-level transfer courses and non-traditional items like military courses and advanced placement tests. When viewing course descriptions through the Course Finder, users at participating institutions were previously required to have either the CREATE EVAL or CREATE EQ TES user right to see the Peer EQ button and access this feature. Individuals with the ACCESS EQ user right can now also view peer equivalencies.

For more information, see Peer Sharing: Overview and Management and Peer Sharing: View Peer Equivalencies.

Changes to User Added Admin Notes

Three changes have been made to the User Added Admin Note functionality within the Institution Profile page:

1. The Edit Note button has been renamed Add/Edit Note.
2. Previously created notes can now be edited.
3. In the USER ADDED ADMIN NOTE pop-up, notes can be sorted by field name.

How It Works

TES Administrators can create User Added Admin Notes to supplement the information provided within an institution profile. Here, notes can be added to record and convey information that can be used in the evaluation process, such as institution name changes, points of contact, etc. These notes are internal to the college or university and can be viewed by all active TES users at the school anywhere the institution profile displays.

Previously, TES Administrators could add or delete User Added Admin Notes but could not edit existing ones. Now, these users can edit and update existing notes and view the date a note was last edited.

Additionally, when adding, editing, or deleting a note, TES Administrators can sort notes by field names. This temporary sorting does not influence the order of notes on the institution profile. Notes will still appear on the profile in the order of newest to oldest.

For more information, see Create and Manage Institution Profile Notes.

Updates to the Equivalency Export

Two changes have been made to the Equivalency Export:

• TES Administrators can now choose the delimiter type used to separate fields; and
• Course Tags can now be optionally included in export results.

How It Works

Delimiter Types

Before this enhancement, data was exported in a tab-delimited format. When utilizing the Equivalency Export, TES Administrators can now select either a <tab> or pipe ( | ) character as the delimiter used to separate identifiers and associated data.

Course Tags

Per request, home institution Course Tags can now be included within the results of an equivalency export. If included, since users can make a single equivalency to up to ten courses, ten Course Tag fields will appear in the export. A comma will separate multiple Course Tags pertaining to a single course.

See Export Equivalencies from TES for further information.

New: TES Site Map

To increase product accessibility, a site map has been added to TES®.

How It Works

A link to a site map has been added to the footer in TES. This footer appears on every page in TES, but the link is only visible when users are logged in to the application.

The TES site map plots out the organization of the main pages in TES and provides a hyperlink to each. As User Rights control the visibility of and access to pages within TES, only those pages that the user has permission to access will display to the individual.

See How to Navigate through TES for further details about site organization.

Character Counter Added to Groups and Group Reports

Character limitations for text fields within Groups and Group Reports are now visible in TES®.

How It Works

Within the Equivalency Manager, an institution can create Groups and Group Reports to display groupings of courses, articulation agreements, and transfer guides to visitors of the institution's Public View. These reports can also be featured on the college or university's school profile in Transferology as a Transfer Pathway.

There are character limits for the text elements in Groups and Groups Reports. When adding/editing Groups and Group Reports, users will now see a character counter to the right of the following field names, indicating both the number of characters used and the maximum number of characters permitted within that field:

• Public Note (1024 characters maximum)
• Private Note (1024 characters maximum)
• SubHeader Text (2048 characters maximum)

For more information, see Groups and Group Reports.

Catalog Status Tracking: Changes to Watchlist Management

Two enhancements have been made to the Catalog Status Tracking functionality in TES®:

1. An institution's Catalog Status Tracking watchlist can now be viewed and managed within/from the TES Dashboard; and
2. A TES Administrator can now remove any catalog title from the institution's watchlist.

How It Works

Within Course Finder, users have the ability to view and track the availability of other institutions' catalogs and course data sets in TES®. From there, the user can:

1. Add the catalog to the institution's watchlist to track it through the production cycle; or
2. In instances where no information is available about the catalog and it has not already been requested from CollegeSource, request it be added to TES.

Prior to this enhancement, a watch list could only be accessed through the Course Finder. This meant that to view and/or manage a list, the user would have to repeat the steps required in order to check a catalog's status. Now, the watchlist can quickly and easily be accessed via the TES Dashboard.

Previously, only the user who added a catalog title to the institution's watchlist could remove it from said list. Under this business rule, TES Administrators would have no way of removing catalogs from institution watchlists in the instance where the individuals who added the catalogs no longer have access to TES or have since left the institution. Now, a TES Administrator can remove catalogs that any user at the college or university has added to the institution's watchlist. This can be done either through the STATUS TRACKING page within the Course Finder or within the TES Dashbord.

For more information, see Catalog Status Tracking: Check the Status of and Request a School's Catalog.

Priority Departments: Fix to Page Index Navigation

A bug has been fixed that prevented users, when assigning Priority Departments, from navigating past the first page of a Department list within a data set.

How It Works

Within User Management, TES® Administrators can select the Departments whose courses an individual faculty member is approved to or frequently make equivalencies to from the institution's course data sets. When reviewing an evaluation task and selecting an equivalent course from the ADD/EDIT COURSE page, if the evaluator has one Priority Department assigned, the courses from that Department will automatically appear from within the latest institution course data set. If the evaluator has multiple Priority Departments assigned, the department whose full name appears first alphabetically will be automatically selected.

If an institution has more than 200 Department names within a data set, a page index appears to enable quicker navigation. Users reported the page index was unresponsive when selected. Adjustments have been made to enable navigation between pages.

For more information, see Priority Departments: Overview and Management. 

New Feature: Peer Sharing

New functionality has been added to TES® that allows users to compare how peer institutions are awarding credit for college-level transfer courses and non-traditional items like military courses and advanced placement tests. This information can be used as a reference point when evaluating credit or advocating for practice and/or policy changes. System and statewide collaborative groups can also use this feature to work with one another on aligning transfer-of-credit decisions.

How It Works

A new page called Peer Management has been added to the Manage menu in TES®. Here, an institution's TES Administrator can opt to participate in Peer Sharing on behalf of the college or university; once participating, the Administrator can select up to six peer institutions for comparison/review. Institutions with TES Public View usage of greater than 100 log entries between April 18 and May 18, 2023, will automatically be opted-in to Peer Sharing; all others institutions will need to turn this feature on.

When viewing course descriptions through the Course Finder at participating institutions, users with either the CREATE EVAL or CREATE EQ TES user right will see a new button called Peer EQ. Once selected, the user will be taken to the Peer Equivalency page, where the user will see a list of the college or university’s chosen peer institutions and how each institution has evaluated the selected course. Only active equivalencies that are not hidden from the TES Public View will display. On the EQUIVALENCY DETAIL page, the user can further view a side-by-side comparison of the transfer and home institution course descriptions, the equivalency BEGIN DATE and END DATE, and the PUBLIC NOTE (if applicable). The PRIVATE NOTE (if applicable), CREATOR, EQUIVALENCY LOG, and EVALUATION LOG field details will not display.

For more information, see Peer Sharing: Overview and Management and Peer Sharing: View Peer Equivalencies.

New Feature: Institution Profile Notes

New functionality has been added to TES® that allows Administrators to create user added notes within the TES Institution Profile of United States schools (including User Added Transfer Institutions). Colleges and universities can use these notes to record information about the institution for use in the credit evaluation process; for example, institution name changes, points of contact, etc. These notes are internal to the college or university that created them and can be viewed by all active TES users at the school.

How It Works

When viewing an institution profile via the Course Finder, the TES Administrator can select the Edit Note button to create user added notes for that college or university's TES® users to see. Within the USER ADDED ADMIN NOTE pop-up, multiple notes up to 255-characters each may be added. Notes can additionally be deleted from this area if no longer applicable or if revisions are needed.

Users at the institution can view the user added note when reviewing an institution profile anywhere it is available in TES. If more than three notes exist, the user can select the View More button to see the comprehensive list of notes.

For more information, see Create and Manage Institution Profile Notes.

New Feature: Catalog Status Tracking

New functionality has been added to TES® that allows institutions to view and track the availability of other institution's catalogs and course data sets in TES. From there, the user can:

1. Add the catalog to the institution's watchlist to track it through the production cycle; or
2. In instances where no information is available about the catalog and it has not already been requested from CollegeSource, request it be added to TES.

How It Works

Within Course Finder 2, if a user is unable to find a catalog and/or data set from an institution that has at least one catalog or data set available, the following hyperlinked message will appear:

If information is not available: check a catalog's status, manage a watchlist, or request a catalog be added to TES.

Once a user selects the hyperlink, the individual will be taken to the Status Tracking page. Within this page, there will be a pre-populated drop-down of previous catalog titles from that institution along with a drop-down with the ten most recent academic calendar years (including the upcoming academic year, once available) displayed in 1-year ranges. After selecting the appropriate criteria, the user can select Check Status to review catalog availability. Catalog status will be reported as one of the following and will change if/when files are received and processed:

• No information available
• File Received
• In Progress
• Quality Control
• Completed

Where no information is available about a catalog or a catalog file has, at a minimum, been received (but not completed), the user can add the catalog to the institution's watchlist. Where no information is available and the catalog has not yet been requested from CollegeSource, the user can also request the catalog be added to TES®.

Within Status Tracking, the user can also manage the institution's catalog watchlist. Since the watchlist is institution-wide and not user-specific, any changes to the watchlist will span across the institution's TES account.

For more information, see Catalog Status Tracking: Check the Status of and Request a School's Catalog.

Public View INSTITUTION SEARCH Box Focus Removed

TES® Public View pages no longer automatically scroll to the INSTITUTION SEARCH box when loading.

How It Works

Institutions reported that Public View pages were loading below the Read Me Text field, causing students to miss the information at the top of the page. It was determined that this was caused by a "focus" within the INSTITUTION SEARCH box; when the page was loading, it would scroll to this area automatically. This "focus" has been removed. Public View will now load from the top instead of scrolling directly to the search.

For more information, see Using the Public View and Public View Management and Customization.

New Feature: Priority Departments

New functionality has been added to TES® to make the selection of equivalencies faster for evaluators, cutting down on the length of time required to complete an evaluation task within the TES Evaluation Tracker workflow. 

How It Works

A new button has been added to User Management called Set Priority Depts. The TES® Administrator selects the Departments whose courses an individual faculty member is approved to or frequently make equivalencies to from the institution's course data sets. When reviewing an evaluation task and selecting an equivalent course from the ADD/EDIT COURSE page, if the evaluator has one Priority Department assigned, the courses from that Department will automatically appear from within the latest institution course data set. The evaluator will not have to use the drop-down menu to locate that Department to begin selecting an equivalent course. If the evaluator has multiple Priority Departments assigned, the Department whose full name appears first alphabetically will be automatically selected. If the evaluator were to select the Department drop-down, all assigned Priority Departments would appear in a list at the top.

For more information, see Priority Departments: Overview and Management. 

Updates to Evaluation Tracker Usage Statistics

The fields, labels, and definitions within the Evaluation Tracker Use report (within Usage Statistics) have been updated for better reporting, statistical accuracy, and useability.

How It Works

Multiple enhancements were made to the Evaluation Tracker Use report:

1. Six new fields have been added to help institutions better understand evaluation turnaround time:
   1. APPR/DENY MIN reports the shortest timeframe (in days) between when an evaluation was created and then approved or denied. 
   2. APPR/DENY MAX reports the longest timeframe (in days) between when an evaluation was created and then approved or denied.
   3. APPR/DENY AVG reports the mean (average) number of days between when evaluations were created and then approved or denied.
   4. APPR/DENY MEDIAN reports the median number of days between when evaluations were created and then approved or denied.
   5. CLOSED MIN reports the shortest timeframe (in days) between when an evaluation was created and closed.
   6. CLOSED MAX reports the longest timeframe (in days) between when an evaluation was created and closed.
2. Three existing field names have been updated:
   1. REASSIGNED NOT BY CREATOR is now called REASSIGNED BY OTHER.
   2. AVERAGE is now called CLOSED AVG.
      • This label change helps better convey that this field reports the mean (average) number of days between when evaluations were created and closed.
   3. MEDIAN is now called CLOSED MEDIAN
      • This label change helps better convey that this field reports the median number of days between when evaluations were created and closed.
3. The EVALUATION STATISTICS SUMMARY (formerly called EVALUATION ACTIVITY SUMMARY) has been split into two sections to reflect the type of information being reported. Statistics are additionally arranged in a more chronological order in accordance with the "lifecycle" of an evaluation task. 
   • Section names:
     • Evaluation Actions
     • Evaluation Turnaround Time in Days
4. EVALUATION STATISTICS PER USER (formerly called EVALUATION ACTIONS PER USER) has also been separated into two sections to reflect the type of information being reported. Statistics are additionally arranged in a more chronological order in accordance with the "lifecycle" of an evaluation task. 
   • Section names:
     • Evaluations Actions Per User
     • Evaluation Turnaround Time in Days Per User
5. Label definitions have been revised to provide better clarity regarding the statistic being captured. 

For more information, see Usage Statistics and Evaluation Tracker Use.

Change to State Field Requirement: User Added Courses

Users are no longer required to select a state from the State drop-down menu (if available) when creating international transfer institutions within User Added Courses.

How It Works

Prior to this update, when creating a user-added institution for an institution outside of the United States, if state information were available within TES®, users were prompted to select the state the country was within from a drop-down menu. If state locations were not available, the State field and drop-down would not appear. 

As not all countries have states, and CollegeSource does not actively collect state data for all international holdings, changes have been made to the ADD INSTITUTION screen so that:

1. If state locations are not available (or do not exist) for a particular non-US country, a message will display next to the State field noting "State is currently unavailable."
2. If state locations are available for a particular non-US country, users will be prompted to select a state from the drop-down menu but are not required to do so.

State continues to be a required input field when creating transfer institutions within the United States within User Added Courses.

For more information, see User-Added Transfer Courses.

State Field Added to Equivalency Grids in Dashboard

The Schools with which we have equivalencies. and New catalogs for schools to which we have equivalents. grids have been updated to display the state locations of the institutions being reported.

How It Works

Within Dashboard, institutions can see a map of how equivalencies are distributed across the United States, as well as a listing of schools with which equivalencies have been established. Within this listing, the number of equivalencies is reported. With this change, institutions will additionally be able to see the state that each institution in the grid view list is located in. 

Institutions also have the ability to view 10 institutions to which equivalents have been established that have new catalogs in TES®. The institution name is reported, along with the number of equivalencies established at the institution. With this change, institutions will additionally be able to see the state that each institution in the grid view list is located in. 

For more information, see Dashboard. 

Bug Fix: Private Notes Over 1,024 Characters No Longer Truncated When Editing Equivalencies

A bug fix will ensure that when editing an equivalency, existing Privates Notes are no longer shortened to 1,024 characters.

How It Works

When creating an equivalency, institutions can opt to add a Private Note to document the evaluation process or the rationale behind an evaluation. These notes have a limit of 2,048 characters. When editing an equivalency within the Equivalency Manager or the Equivalency Batch Editor, it was found that a bug was causing existing Private Notes to be truncated if they were over 1,024 characters. This bug has been addressed and resolved. When creating and/or editing equivalencies, the 2,048 character limit will be observed.

For more information, see Creating an Equivalency from an Evaluation Task, Create new equivalencies using the Equivalency Manager, Edit or Delete Equivalency, and The Equivalency Batch Editor.

Updates to Instructions: Requesting Schools' Catalogs 

The language that instructs users how to request other schools' catalogs and course data sets be added to TES® (or request information about missing catalogs) has been updated for clarity.

How It Works

When catalogs and/or course data sets are unavailable in TES®, users will see a bolded hyperlink at the bottom of the Course Finder with one of two options:

1. Request a catalog be added to TES.
2. Request more information. 

Following these prompts will lead to the Data Request screen, wherein users select or fill in the details of the request.

For more information, see Request a School's Catalog.

Expanded Access to Private Notes

Individuals assigned the CREATE EQ user right can now view Private Notes within equivalencies displayed in the Course Finder and the Equivalency Finder.

How It Works

While staff with the CREATE EQ user right could view equivalencies' Private Notes within the Equivalency Manager, individuals were previously required to have the ACCESS EQ user right to view these notes when accessing equivalencies via the Course Finder and Equivalency Finder.  

Now, when viewing equivalency histories within the Course Finder, if the individual has the CREATE EQ user right, Private Notes will display within the EQUIVALENCY DETAIL. Similarly, when viewing an equivalency from the EQUIVALENCY LIST in Equivalency Finder, those with the CREATE EQ user right will also be able to see Private Notes within the EQUIVALENCY DETAIL screen.

For more information, see Using Course Finder and Equivalency Finder.

Change to Ability to Add/Remove TRANSFER COURSES within an Evaluation Task

When completing an evaluation task, the MANAGE EVAL user right is now required to add or remove TRANSFER COURSES within the ADD/EDIT COURSE page. 

How It Works

When a user without the MANAGE EVAL user right selects the action of Add/Edit Course within an evaluation task, when the ADD/EDIT COURSE page loads, the buttons that enable adding (+) and removing (x) of TRANSFER COURSES will be grayed out. The user can add and remove courses from the home institution but not those from the transfer institution.

For more information, see Completing an Evaluation and User Rights and Permissions.