The Activities section is where you create and manage the programs you provide to improve the lives of students experiencing homelessness. This article focuses on creating Unscheduled Activities.
Unscheduled Activities do not have a set schedule, and people do not sign up beforehand. These activities include services such as tutoring or other staff support for students whenever they're available. Unscheduled Activities also include efforts to coordinate services for youth experiencing homelessness with other agencies. There is no set schedule for these efforts, but time spent on them can be recorded for an Unscheduled Activity.
You must be connected to a specific site to manage activities. Use the Switch Access feature to connect to the desired site. To learn more about Switching Access, please see this article.
Determining which site to set up an activity is very important for reporting purposes.
Set up the activity at the Admin site if any of these apply:
- The activity is offered centrally. (Tutoring is offered centrally at one location.)
- Participants are offered the activity at all sites. (Tutoring is offered at all school sites.)
- It is not important that participation in the activity is associated with a certain school site. (It is only important to know how many students received tutoring, not by school site.)
- If the activity is related to administrative-type efforts and participants are not students. (Coordinating Services with other Agencies or Professional Development.)
Set up the activity at a specific site if any of the following applies:
- The activity will be specifically offered at one site or some school sites and not at all school sites (e.g., Tutoring is only offered at the junior high and high school sites, not at the elementary school sites.)
- It is important that the activity is recorded as having occurred at a specific site. (It is important to know how many hours of tutoring were offered at each school site.)
Select the Activities tab from the left-hand navigation menu. If a red "Bad Request" message appears in the upper right corner of the screen, it means that a Site Calendar has not been set up yet. To learn more about how to add or edit a site calendar, please see this article.
Activities previously created will appear on the Activities page. Please see this article to learn more about editing and deleting Activities and Sessions.
Adding an Unscheduled Activity
Click Add Activity + to add a new activity.
Step 1 - Activity Information
Enter the name of the activity in the Activity Name field. This field is required, as indicated by the red asterisk. If the activity name you enter is the same as an existing activity name, the system will prompt you to avoid duplicates.
You can also enter a description of the activity if desired.
Custom fields may appear on the form. If they are required, as indicated by a red asterisk, you will need to complete them.
Click Next Step.
Step 2 - Session Information
Next, you will establish one or more sessions for the new activity.
Enter a Session Name. If you plan to create more than one session, be sure to give each session a unique name.
You will have the opportunity to create additional sessions (if needed) at the end of the Session Information form.
Complete the other fields as appropriate for your program, including Session description, Session location, and Funder(s).
Schedule Type
Next, to make this an unscheduled activity, select Unscheduled from the Schedule type dropdown.
Default Participation Time
When recording group participation for this activity, the system automatically stores each participant's start and end times.
Two options regarding the times that will be recorded for participants are available:
- The Current Time option is best when entering participation in real-time at an event, and each participant's exact start and end times are needed.
- The Session Start/End Times option is best if you want the participant's start and end times by default to match those of the Session. These times can be modified for each participant.
Choose the appropriate option for this activity.
Who can participate?
Next, indicate who can participate in this activity.
Typical activities are only for participants from one site. If this is the case for this activity, in the Who can participate? dropdown, choose Only participants from this site.
If the activity being created is for participants from multiple sites (for example, a summer program where students from multiple sites attend this activity), select the Participants from any sites option.
Review the session information to ensure accuracy.
If necessary, click Previous Step to edit the Activity information.
If this is the only session for this Activity, click Next Step. If other sessions are needed, click + Schedule Another Session and repeat the steps above.
Note that an activity can only have Scheduled or Unscheduled sessions. One activity cannot have both Scheduled and Unscheduled sessions.
Step 3 - Review and Save
Review the Activity and Session(s) you have created. If necessary, click Previous Step to edit the information. If everything looks accurate, click Save Activity.
After you save the activity, a green notification will confirm that it was saved. You will then be redirected back to the main Activities page, where your newly created Unscheduled Activity will appear in the list.