2024 TES Enhancements

The following information pertains to changes made to TES® in 2024. Twenty-three 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.

New: Search Open and Closed Evaluation Tasks by Comment

Evaluation Comment is now a search criterion in All Open Evaluations and All Closed Evaluations. The field will additionally appear in exported results.

How It Works

The EVALUATION SEARCH helps users find specific evaluation tasks within the Evaluation Tracker workflow. Individuals with the appropriate user rights can use the search criteria to look for open or closed evaluation tasks from a specific institution, assigned to or created by an individual user, containing a transfer or proposed EQ course code, etc.

The evaluation Comment field has been added to the EVALUATION SEARCH with All Open Evaluations and All Closed Evaluations and can be used to locate evaluation tasks containing specific text. When assigning an evaluation task in TES®, users can add a comment to provide the evaluator with additional information or context surrounding the request. Evaluations sent through Transferology® Lab or uAchieve® TES Mode will include a comment noting the system from which the evaluation was generated and the year/terms - or an English translation of the terms - the course(s) was taken. Example: 202204, or Fall 2022.

Users should be aware that when searching by comment, this field is case-insensitive and will return results including—but not limited to—the entered value. Search results can be exported for review.

For further information, see All Open Evaluations and All Closed Evaluations.

Access to TES Public View Granted by Permission

Institutions must undergo an approval process before using the TES® Public View.

How It Works

The TES Public View allows institutions to share transfer equivalencies, articulation agreements, and transfer guides with prospective students. TES Administrators manage the configuration and deployment of the Public View through Public View Management.

CollegeSource will now require that institutions undergo an approval process before using the TES® Public View. This change is necessary to help monitor Public View usage to prevent further data scraping and collection from unauthorized parties. TES Administrators at institutions without grandfathered access will see a request form when accessing Public View Management. Once the user has read and agreed to the TES Terms of Use, the submission will go to a CollegeSource representative, who will reach out to discuss using the Public View. Once access has been granted, the TES Administrator can customize and deploy the Public View through the configurations within Public View Management.

Colleges and universities will not be required to go through the approval process to continue using Public View Management if ALL the below criteria are met. The institution must:

1. Have and maintain an active TES subscription.
2. Store equivalencies in TES.
3. Have a deployed Public View on 12/02/2024.
   • A Public View is deployed when its DISPLAY MODE setting is ON.

CollegeSource reserves the right to deny an institution's request to use the Public View or turn off an institution's current access to it if the TES Terms of Use are violated.

For further information, see Request Access to Public View Management.

Revisions to the TES Subscription Agreement and Terms of Use

Language within the TES Subscription Agreement and Terms of Use has been updated. Section 3h now states that institutions agree not to enter, upload, or store personally identifiable information maintained in student education records in TES®.

For further information, see TES Terms of Use.

ACCESS EQ User Right Required to View Hidden Equivalencies in the Course Finder

The ACCESS EQ user right is now required to view hidden equivalencies within the EQUIVALENCY HISTORY in the Course Finder.

How It Works

User rights control access to the features in TES®. All users have access to some basic features in the application, such as:

• Viewing institution, course information, and equivalency histories through the Course Finder.
• Viewing public equivalencies through the Equivalency Finder (assuming the institution stores equivalencies in TES).

The ACCESS EQ user right allows users to see hidden equivalency information within TES. This user right has been required to view Private Notes within the EQUIVALENCY HISTORY in the Course Finder. It is also necessary to view hidden equivalencies within the Equivalency Finder, along with CREATOR, EQUIVALENCY LOG, EVALUATION LOG, and PRIVATE NOTE details. For consistency, the ACCESS EQ user right will now be required to view hidden equivalencies within the EQUIVALENCY HISTORY in the Course Finder.

For further information, see User Rights and Permissions.

Bug Fix: Deactivated Users Cannot Be Assigned Completed Evaluation Tasks

Deactivated users will no longer appear in the Assign drop-down as individuals to whom completed evaluation tasks can be sent for final review and equivalency creation.

How It Works

The TES® Evaluation Tracker workflow gives institutions a means to route course descriptions to faculty and staff for review by creating evaluation tasks. Once an evaluator has reviewed a task, the user must select an individual to assign the task to for the next steps. Users must have SERVICE EVAL and (MANAGE EVAL or CREATE EQ) user rights to appear on the Assign drop-down. If the creator of the evaluation task has these rights, that individual will appear first on the list as the Evaluation Task Creator. If the institution has established a Default Assignee for evaluation tasks, this person will appear second on the list. The evaluator can select any user on the list as the next recipient of the evaluation task.

An institution reported that an Evaluation Task Creator appeared in the Assign drop-down after the user was deactivated. The logic within the drop-down has been updated so that deactivated users will no longer appear on the list of eligible recipients.

For further information, see Completing an Evaluation Task.

Bug Fix: Fields with Only Blank Characters Will Not Display in Course Details

Course detail fields will not display when only blank characters are present.

How It Works

Course details provide Transfer Specialists and faculty evaluators with comprehensive information to evaluate transfer courses. This area of TES® includes the course's code, title, description, and units. Other fields - such as lecture hours, lab hours, prerequisite, and corequisite information - display only when supplied in the course catalog.

Additional logic was added so field names will not display when only blank characters appear within these optional fields.

For further information, see My Evaluations: Tasks Assigned to Me.

Copy a Group Report URL from within the Equivalency Manager

The Copy URL button has been added to the VIEW GROUP REPORT DETAIL screen to facilitate the sharing and embedding of Group Reports outside of the Public View.

How It Works

Groups and Group Reports are means by which institutions can display collections of courses, articulation agreements, and transfer guides to students using data from TES®. When a Group or Group Report is created or edited, if the Public View Display? checkbox is marked, the Group or Group Report will display within the TES-subscribing institution’s Public View (assuming it is turned on), within Transferology® (if approved as a Pathway), and within the Equivalency Finder in TES.

Group Reports can also be embedded on college and university websites. Previously, to copy and share a URL, users had to navigate to the institution's Public View, select the Group Report, and copy the URL from the site path. When viewing a Group Report within the Equivalency Manager, individuals with the CREATE EQ user right can now select the Copy URL button to easily retrieve the Group Report link. Within a same-named pop-up, the Group Report name and URL will display. Users can then select Copy to retrieve the URL. A notification will confirm the link has been successfully copied.

For further information, see Groups and Group Reports.

Revisions to the TES Subscription Agreement and Terms of Use

Language within the TES Subscription Agreement and Terms of Use has been updated. Sections 3i and 3j have been added to inform institutions of CollegeSource's right to monitor usage of the Public View and revoke or deny access to parties found to be in breach of the Terms of Use.

For further information, see TES Terms of Use.

Change to Transfer Course Details Provided within the TES Public View

To increase Public View performance and data security, transfer course details within the EQUIVALENCY DETAIL screen within the Public View will be limited to Course Code, Transcript Course (if available), Course Title, Units, and Course Tags. Equivalency Begin Dates, End Dates, and Public Notes will continue to be provided, along with all home course details. 

How It Works

The TES Public View allows institutions to share transfer evaluation decisions, articulation agreements, and transfer guides with the public. It is intended to be used by students to learn how courses, standardized exams, and other credit transfer to TES-subscribing institutions.  

Changes have been made to the transfer course details provided within the Public View to increase system performance and mitigate data scraping incidents. When a student selects a course hyperlink within an EQUIVALENCY LIST, EQUIVALENCY GROUP, or EQUIVALENCY GROUP REPORT, the transfer course details provided within the EQUIVALENCY DETAIL screen will be limited to the Course Code, Transcript Course (if available), Course Title, Units, and Course Tags. The following transfer course fields will no longer be provided: 

• Description 
• Lecture Hours  
• Lab Hours  
• Other Hours  
• Prerequisite  
• Corequisite  
• Recommended  
• Department 
• Source Catalog 
• Course Outline  

Equivalency Begin Dates, End Dates, and Public Notes will continue to display within the EQUIVALENCY DETAIL screen, along with all home course details.  

Institution staff or faculty who need to view additional transfer course details can find this information within the Equivalency Manager or Equivalency Finder in TES, depending on user rights. Any user with an active TES account can view public equivalencies, Groups, and Group Reports within the Equivalency Finder. 

For further information, see the Using the Public View. 

Change to Course List Report EQ Audit Export Column Order

The SendInstitution and ReceiveInstitution fields have moved to increase the clarity and readability of the Course List Report EQ Audit export.

How It Works

Course Lists Reports are groupings or collections of courses from an institution. Amongst their uses are advising students and planning articulation agreements. Institutions that store equivalencies in TES can run an equivalency audit (EQ Audit) to see equivalencies (or where there is a lack thereof) to the courses in the list and export the results to Excel®.

CollegeSource received feedback from users that the location of the SendInstitution and ReceiveInstitution fields in the report didn't align with the organization of data. Instead of appearing at the end of the report, SendInstitution and ReceiveInstitution will now appear before the send institution course code and receive course equivalency, respectively.

For further information, see Course List Report and Display the Equivalency Report.

Bug Fix: Deleting or Replacing Migrated Course Outlines

The business logic behind course outline migration has been updated to prevent the migrated outlines from being deleted from all data sets when they are replaced or deleted in one.

How It Works

Within Course Tags & Outlines, TES Administrators can attach learning outcomes or curriculum outlines to the institution's home courses within a data set. Other institutions can view these outlines alongside the course details and use this supplementary information to evaluate the transfer courses. Since course outlines are attached at the data set level, institutions are given the option to migrate them from one data set to another.

A user reported that after replacing a course outline in one data set, the same outline disappeared from prior and subsequent data sets. This is because TES reused the same file in the migration. The system did not create a copy of the outline under a new name but rather established a relationship between the one outline to multiple data sets. Thus, when the outline was deleted from one data set, it was deleted from all data sets it was referenced in.

Going forward, when course outlines are migrated, they will be attached to a unique course identifier in each data set. When a course outline is replaced or deleted in one data set, it will not be deleted in any other data set it was migrated to or from.

For further information, see Course Outlines and Course Outline Migration.

Multifactor Authentication Verification Screen Streamlined

The Resend button has been moved and renamed, and the instructions within Verify Your Identity have been simplified to make the Multifactor Authentication (MFA) process in TES® clearer.

How It Works

Multifactor authentication – also known as “MFA” – protects a user’s account – and the data within – from unauthorized access if the user’s password becomes stolen or compromised. It does so by introducing a second verification step to confirm the user’s identity. When logging into TES, users will receive a prompt indicating that CollegeSource sent a one-time verification code to the individual’s registered email. Instructions will appear on the screen to guide the user through retrieving and entering the six-digit code.

Based on customer feedback, the Resend button has been moved away from the code entry box and renamed Resend Code. Instructions on the screen have been shortened, and a link to How to Log In to TES has been provided as a resource for further information.

Current Date Excluded from Usage Statistics Reports

The TES General Use and Evaluation Tracker Use reports will no longer contain statistics from the current date.

How It Works

Usage Statistics provides insight into how individuals at an institution use TES®. A TES Administrator can review these to glean valuable insight into what features staff and faculty use and how. In addition, the TES Administrator can view infographics to see the distribution of equivalencies by state and institution.

When generating TES General Use and Evaluation Tracker Use reports, users are required to select a From Date and To Date. Historically, the To Date has defaulted to the last date of the current month and, if selected, has included calculations from the current date. Statistical data from the current date will now be excluded from these usage statistics reports to increase their accuracy and improve system performance. The default To Date is now yesterday's date. Users can no longer select a current or future date within the date picker.

From Date and To Date have also been added to the TES General Use report results to align with the display of Evaluation Tracker Use report results and give users visual confirmation of the dates used to generate the data on the screen.

For further information, see Usage Statistics: Overview.

Increase in Course Outline File Size Limit

The size limit for uploaded course outlines has increased from under 4 MB per file to under 10 MB per file.

How It Works

Within Course Tags & Outlines, TES Administrators can attach learning outcomes or curriculum outlines to the institution's home courses. Other institutions can view these outlines alongside the course details and use this supplementary information to evaluate the transfer courses.

For further information, see Course Tags and Outlines and Course Outlines.

Updates to the Equivalency Batch Editor EQ Search

When using the Equivalency Batch Editor EQ Search, users with the CREATE EQ user right can now:

1. Narrow search results based on whether an equivalency is visible within or hidden from the TES® Public View.
2. Change the home (or equivalent) course code when editing selected equivalencies.

How It Works

Institutions that store equivalencies in TES® can use the Equivalency Batch Editor to identify and edit equivalencies. There are two components to this feature:

1. The EQ Search.
2. The Health Check.

The EQ Search, or Equivalency Search, locates specific groups of equivalencies in the institution's TES database based on selected criteria. From there, equivalencies can be exported, edited, or deleted. When updating the selected equivalencies, users can change the Begin Date, End Date, the visibility of the equivalency in the Public View, the Public Note, and the Private Note.

A new criterion called Public View Visibility allows users to refine search results based on whether an equivalency is visible or hidden within the Public View. New functionality also allows users to change the home course code within the equivalency. When a user enters a specific Course Code and toggles Equivalent Course within the EQ Search, after selecting Batch Edit, the individual can replace the home course within all selected equivalencies. Users can select one replacement course using the data set and department drop-downs.

Users should know that replacing a home course updates that course within all selected equivalencies – including those containing multiple home course codes. Batch Editor will not remove the other courses from the equivalency. Users should review all updated equivalencies containing multiple home courses to ensure accuracy and verify if manual updates are needed. Updated equivalencies can viewed by entering the replacement Course Code within the EQ Search. Any changes to other fields above (such as Begin Date) will also apply to all selected equivalencies when updating a replacement course.

For further information, see Find Equivalencies through the Equivalency Search and Batch Edit Equivalencies.

New: Scheduled Email Reminders

Users can now create a rule to send weekly scheduled email reminders to evaluators with open evaluation tasks.

How It Works

The Send Email Reminders feature in TES® allows individuals with the MANAGE EVAL user right to send reminder notifications to evaluators who have not completed evaluation tasks. Previously, this could only be done manually. Users would select email recipients from a list of evaluators with open tasks and initiate the email through TES. The process would be repeated each time reminders were needed.

Functionality has been expanded to allow users to also automate email reminders. Institutions can create one email reminder rule based on the number of days since an evaluation task was created. By default, this rule is turned off. When on, email reminders will be sent to any user assigned evaluation tasks meeting the established criterion. Reminders will be sent every Monday at 8:00 a.m. (PST).

For further information, see Send Email Reminders for Open Evaluation Tasks: Create and Manage an Email Rule.

Transcript Course Field Available in Course Details

The Transcript Course field has been added as a data point within TES® course details to help convey known differences between course code formatting within TES course catalog data sets and institution transcripts.

How It Works

Course catalog information within TES® is supplied directly from the institution. As a result, course codes appear in TES® as documented in the college or university's official catalog edition. While the transfer course codes in catalog data sets generally match those used on the college or university's transcript, they sometimes differ, resulting in difficulties, in some instances, in retrieving equivalencies in Transferology®. Best practice when creating transfer rules in a transfer solution system (such as uAchieve®) or a Student Information System (SIS) is to format the transfer course codes as displayed on the transcript to ensure the student's transfer credit can be correctly processed upon entry.

In instances where transcript and catalog data set codes differ, Transferology Lab users with the Transfer Specialist or Program Admins roles can submit a request to CollegeSource asking that the transcript course code be displayed in place of the transfer course code in the application. The display of the transcript code is controlled through the population of the transcript course field within each catalog data set edition in TES.

When CollegeSource adds the transcript course code into TES, TES users will see the code displayed to the right of the Transcript Course field within the course details. This information can be used to determine how to build the transfer rule in systems such as uAchieve for transcript processing and use by Transferology. If the transcript course code has not been supplied to TES, this new field (located directly under the course code and title) will be absent from TES course details. When data is present, this field also displays in uAchieve 5.1 when using TES Mode.

Character Counter Added to Note Fields within the Evaluation Tracker Workflow

A character counter has been added to Note fields within multiple SELECT AN ACTION drop-down choices.

How It Works

Users selecting the actions of Approve, Deny, Need More Information, or Re-Assign from within an evaluation task can (or, depending on the action type, must) enter supporting comments into the Note field. When the 2,000-character limit is reached, text within this field is truncated. A character counter has been added to help prevent users from exceeding this limit.

For more information, see Completing an Evaluation.

TES Terms of Use Added to the Public View

Links to the Subscription Agreement and Terms of Use have been added to the TES® Public View.

How It Works

Within the Public View disclaimer, visitors will be referred to the Terms of Use for guidelines regarding appropriate use and restrictions in using TES.

For more information, see the TES Subscription Agreement and Terms of Use and Using the Public View.

Change to Column Sort-Order Within User Management

When sorting by column name in User Management, rows containing checkmarks are now filtered to the top.

How It Works

Data within the User Management table can be sorted by column name to help TES® Administrators see how user rights are distributed among individuals at the institution. Previously, when sorting by column name, No values (user rights not assigned) were filtered to the top. Now, Yes values (communicated through checkmarks) are sorted first.

For more information, see User Management.

Change to User Rights Required to Receive Externally Generated Evaluation Task in TES

Any TES® user with the SERVICE EVAL user right will now be eligible to be assigned evaluation tasks generated from Transferology Lab® or uAchieve® 5.x.

How It Works

TES Mode provides a means for users of Transferology Lab and uAchieve 5.x Self-Service to initiate an evaluation task in TES® directly from these systems.

Transferology Lab

Within Transferology Lab, School Administrators can enable a setting that allows users with the TES Evaluator role to assign TES evaluation requests to a specific user. Previously, if this setting was enabled, all users with the SERVICE EVAL and (MANAGE EVAL or CREATE EQ) user rights in TES would appear on the list of users to whom a request can be assigned. If the Transferology Lab School Administrator does not enable the setting to allow TES evaluations to be routed to a specific user, then all evaluations will go directly to the default assignee for externally generated tasks as established in TES. Within uAchieve 5.0 and 5.0.1 Self-Service, previously, users could send evaluation requests to any user with the above-noted TES user rights in addition to the default assignee.

Evaluation tasks initiated within TES can be assigned to any individual with the SERVICE EVAL TES user right. To bring Transferology, uAchieve, and TES into alignment, individuals will only need the SERVICE EVAL user right in TES to be eligible to be assigned externally generated evaluation tasks.

Within Transferology Lab, assuming the Allow users to assign TES Evaluation requests to a specific user checkbox is marked in the General Information tab, all users with the said right in TES will appear on the list of assignees, along with the default assignee.

Within uAchieve 5.0 and 5.0.1, all users with the said right in TES will appear on the list of eligible assignees, along with the default assignee.

For more information, see TES Mode: Creating Evaluations through Transferology and uAchieve.

Change to Multifactor Authentication Verification Code Expiration

One-time verification codes to confirm user identity now expire after 10 minutes instead of 5 minutes.

How It Works

When logging into TES®, users will receive a prompt indicating that CollegeSource sent a one-time verification code to the individual’s registered email. Instructions will appear on the screen to guide the user through retrieving and entering the six-digit code. Previously, users were given 5 minutes to retrieve and enter the code into TES. If not entered within that period, the verification code expired, and users had to request a new code be sent. Now, users will have 10 minutes to enter the verification code before it expires. Since TES automatically ends user sessions after 10 minutes of inactivity, if a user’s session has timed out before the verification code has been entered, the individual will be redirected to the TES login page and prompted to start the MFA process again.

For more information, see How to Log In to TES.

Multifactor Authenticated Login Required in TES®

TES® will now require multifactor authentication - also known as “MFA” - to help protect a user’s account - and the data within - from unauthorized access if the user’s password becomes stolen or compromised.

How It Works

When logging into TES®, users will receive a prompt indicating that CollegeSource sent a one-time verification code to the individual’s registered email. Instructions will appear on the screen to guide the user through retrieving and entering the six-digit code. Users will have 5 minutes to retrieve and enter the code but can request a new verification code sent via email if the previous one expires.

After entering the code, users must indicate whether the device used to log into TES should be remembered as a secure device. If Yes is selected, additional two-step verification will not be required for the next 90 days when logging into TES via this device. Two-step verification will be required upon the next login from the device if No is selected. Upon submission, users will be redirected to either the individual’s default home page or the main TES home page. It is important to note that each time a user logs into TES from an unrecognized device, MFA will be required.

For more information, see How to Log In to TES.