Courses: the summary and the catalog

From the Growth Plan

Courses is where your church teaches: a discipleship course, a leadership school, a course for newcomers. A course is what gets taught, with its lessons and the attendance it asks for to pass. It’s taken by a group of several people or by just one person, and each class has its attendance list, like a meeting.

Without the plan, Courses shows a lock and what you would get. Groups already running can still be seen through: you can take their attendance, record their homework, finish them or cancel them. Opening groups, enrolling and scheduling classes need the plan.

The first steps

While your church has no courses, or has courses but no groups, the screen shows How a course gets going with three steps:

1. Create the course: its name, its lessons in order and the attendance it asks for to pass.
2. Form a group, or give the course to one person: you choose the course and who teaches it.
3. Schedule the classes and take attendance: the group copies the syllabus as classes, you give them dates and, after each one, you take attendance.

The step you’re on has its button, if you can take it. Under Optional, each step keeps what you can also adjust even if you don’t need to: the courses it asks for first, who has already passed it, the rung that asks for it, the capacity, requests, extra classes, homework or a class given in a follow-up. At the end, Afterwards tells you what comes next: finishing the group and what a passed course leaves behind.

What’s waiting on you

Summary is the tab Courses opens on for the team. At the top, Waiting on you gathers what you can sort out:

• Rolls to take: classes already given, with no attendance.
• Groups to finish: the ones that have given all their classes.
• Requests: the people who asked for a place.
• Classes to schedule: the groups with undated classes.

Each tile says how many things are waiting, and only the ones you can sort out appear. Tapping one shows its list, oldest first, each row with its action: take attendance, finish, answer or schedule. A roll waits on whoever gives the class or, if the class has no teacher chosen, on whoever teaches the group; whoever manages the groups sees them all. If nothing is waiting, you see All caught up with the next class.

Next to it is the week: one day per row, each class with its group or its student and how it stands, for example how many came or whether it’s missing attendance. Tapping a class opens it in its panel, and the arrows change the week. On a phone, the week reads one day at a time.

Below, Groups under way shows what’s next in each group, how many classes have been given, who teaches it, how many students it has and what’s still waiting in it.

The catalog

Catalog holds your church’s courses, as a table, as cards or as a route. To create one:

1. Select New course.

2. Under The course, enter the Name, the Description and the Attendance to pass: the percentage of the classes given that each student has to attend. By default it’s 75%, and each group can ask for a different one.

3. Under Syllabus, add the lessons in the order they’re given, with Add lesson. A course has at least one lesson.

4. Under Prerequisites, choose the Courses it asks for first, up to 20: to enroll, each student has to have passed them.

5. Select Create course.

When you open a course you see What it asks for and what it opens (the courses it asks to have passed and the courses or rungs that ask for it), its Syllabus, the Attendance to pass counted in classes, its Open groups and how many people Passed it. From there, New group and Give to one person start teaching it.

Whoever manages the catalog reorders the syllabus by dragging each lesson, or with the keyboard. Open groups keep the classes they already copied: the new syllabus applies to the groups opened from then on.

Archive takes a course out of what’s on offer and keeps its groups and its results; Restore brings it back. A course can only be deleted if it never had any groups or completions and no course or rung asks for it.

The route

The Route view orders the catalog by what each course asks for: each one goes in the column after the ones it asks to have passed first, from To start to Then, Further on and At the end. Each card shows its lessons, the attendance it asks for, its open groups, the rung that asks for it and how many people passed it.

Tapping a course highlights the ones it asks for first and the ones it opens, and the rest fade. On a wide screen, the chosen course opens next to the route. On a phone, the route reads as numbered steps and the course unfolds in its place, with See the course and New group. The search fades the courses that don’t match instead of removing them, so the route keeps its shape.

Earlier completions

If someone passed a course before your church kept it in Inperia, for example at another church or on paper, record it: in the course, select Record earlier completions, choose Who passed it, the Day passed and, if you like, Where or how. It counts as passed wherever the course is asked for first, in a rung too, and it can be removed.

Nobody records their own completion, or that of someone who already passed the course in one of its groups. What you write in Where or how isn’t shown to the person.

Who sees what

• See the courses and the groups within reach opens the team’s tabs: Summary, Groups and Catalog. Requests also appears for whoever manages the groups or teaches one.
• Each role has its Courses scope: Only the ones they teach, Theirs and their descendants’, Their whole branch’s or Every group. A person always sees the groups they teach, whatever their scope.
• Studying doesn’t require any permission: a member with an active record in the church sees My courses and Available. Someone on the team who also studies finds them separately, under As a student. Your courses as a student explains it.
• Each action requires its own permission. They’re all in the Permissions reference.

Continue with Groups and one-to-one courses.