Discontinue Student Program/ Plans in Batch (Batch DISC Process)

Purpose: Use this document to reference the student program/plan batch discontinuation process in ctcLink.

Audience: Student Records staff

You must have at least one of these local college-managed security roles:

  • ZD_DS_QUERY_VIEWER

If you need assistance with the above security roles, please contact your local college supervisor or IT Admin to request role access.

Student Program Plan Discontinuation

It is recommended to discontinue student program/ plan stacks for students who are no longer active or likely to enroll. Discontinuing program/ plan stacks helps to keep student program/ plans accurate and reduces the number of outstanding active program/plan stacks. It also ensures that jobs and processes that include students with active program/ plan stacks, such as term activation, only include students who are enrolled or are likely to enroll in the future.

A staff member can manually discontinue program/ plan stacks by adding a new effective-dated row with a program action of DISC. They can also be discontinued in batch by SBCTC CS Support at the college's request. This QRG provides instructions on identifying batches of students for program/ plan discontinuation and submitting this information to the SBCTC CS Support.

SBCTC CS Support will discontinue program/ plan stacks in batch for 25 or more program/ plan stacks at a time. Colleges with less than 25 program/ plan stacks will need to discontinue these program/ plan stacks manually.

The batch discontinuation process cannot process EMPLIDs that begin with X; therefore, all fraudulent and test account EMPLIDs must be manually discontinued.

Identifying Records to be Discontinued

Colleges can use SBCTC-developed queries to identify program/ plan stacks for discontinuation. Colleges can also identify program/ plan stacks using locally developed queries or manually create lists of program/ plan stacks to be discontinued.

Regardless of the identification method, the college must review any lists of program/ plan stacks before submitting them to the SBCTC CS Support team for discontinuation. Any program/ plan stacks that are "accidentally" discontinued due to providing incorrect information will need to be manually corrected by the college.

Batch discontinuation processes cannot be undone in batch. Any program/ plan stacks that are "accidentally" discontinued will need to be manually corrected by the college. Review all program/ plan stack files before submitting them to SBCTC CS Support to ensure that the appropriate program/ plan stacks are discontinued. SBCTC CS Support is not responsible for confirming whether program/ plan stacks included in submitted files should be discontinued.

Batch Discontinuation Queries

SBCTC CS Support has developed four queries that can be used to identify program/ plan stacks for discontinuation. To use the results of one of these queries as a discontinuation file:

  1. Review the query descriptions below to choose the appropriate query.
  2. Run the query. Take a screenshot of the query parameters (the query prompts) and save the image. Attach this image to the ticket submitted to SBCTC CS Support.
  3. Download the query results to Excel.
  4. Review the query results and remove any students who should not be included in the batch discontinuation process.
  5. Save the file as a .csv file. Attach this .csv file to the ticket submitted to SBCTC CS Support.

CTC_DISC_TERM_RANGE

CTC_DISC_TERM_RANGE can identify students who have not had enrollment activity between the prompted terms. This query can identify students without recent enrollment activity for program/ plan discontinuation. The following prompts are required:

  • Institution
  • Career: UGRD or CNED
  • DISC Term: Program/ plan stacks will be discontinued the day after the end of the prompted term. Example: "2251" will indicate that the program/ plan stacks should be discontinued the day after the Winter 2025 (2251) term ends. DISC terms must be current or future terms. Terms after the DISC term must not have batch term activation activity.
  • Enrl Term From: The earliest term to check for enrollment activity.
  • Enrl Term To: The latest term to check for enrollment activity. Keep in mind that recently admitted students might be included in query results if they have yet to enroll in classes. Students with recent program/ plan stack activity (such as admission) can be manually removed from query results by downloading the query results to Excel and sorting the Effective Date column by date. Remove students with "recent" Effective Dates to reduce the likelihood of discontinuing the program/ plan stack of an active student. ("Recent" dates are defined by local college business practices.)

CTC_DISC_ACAD_STNDG

CTC_DISC_ACAD_STNDG can identify students with specific Academic Standing statuses for program/ plan stack discontinuation. For example, this query can identify students on Academic Probation or Suspension for program/ plan stack discontinuation. The following prompts are required:

  • Institution
  • Career: Select Undergraduate or Continuing Education. Most colleges do not assign Academic Standing statuses for Continuing Education students.
  • DISC Term: Program/ plan stacks will be discontinued the day after the end of the prompted term. Example: "2251" will indicate that the program/ plan stacks should be discontinued the day after the Winter 2025 (2251) term ends. DISC terms must be current or future terms. Terms after the DISC term must not have batch term activation activity.
  • Academic Standing Status: Select the academic standing status for students whose program/plan stacks will be discontinued. Acad Stndg Term: Select the term for the academic standing status that was applied.

CTC_DISC_ACTIVE_IN_PLAN

CTC_DISC_ACTIVE_IN_PLAN can be used to identify students who have active plan stack with a specific plan code. This query can identify program/plan stacks for discontinuation if a particular academic plan code will be inactivated. The following prompts are required:

  • Institution
  • Career: Select Undergraduate or Continuing Education.
  • Acad Plan: Select the plan code that will be inactivated.

CTC_DISC_STDNT_GRP

CTC_DISC_INVALID_PLAN can be used to identify students active in a particular student group for program/plan stack discontinuation. The following prompts are required:

  • Institution
  • Career: UGRD or CNED
  • DISC Term: Program/ plan stacks will be discontinued the day after the end of the prompted term. Example: "2251" will indicate that the program/ plan stacks should be discontinued the day after the Winter 2025 (2251) term ends. DISC terms must be current or future terms. Terms after the DISC term must not have batch term activation activity.
  • Stdnt Group
  • Stdnt Grp Eff Status: Choose to include students who are Active in the prompted student group or Inactive in the prompted student group 
  • Stdnt Grp Eff Date From 
  • Stdnt Grp Eff Date To

QCS_SR_STDNT_LAST_ACTIVITY

This query was built by a college user and does not meet the file requirements for the batch discontinuation process. Files generated using this query must be manually modified to match the file requirements in the "Custom Discontinuation Files" section below. Files that do not meet the file requirements, generate excessive processing errors, or include X/ XX/ XF EMPLIDs will be rejected.

QCS_SR_STDNT_LAST_ACTIVITY can be used to check student enrollment records as well as admit term on Student Program/Plan (both student records and admissions) to determine the last contact a student had with the college. The following prompts are required:

  • Institution
  • Career: UGRD or CNED
  • Min Elig Stu Enrollment Term
  • Min Elig Student Admit Term

Custom Discontinuation Files

Colleges can create custom lists of program/ plan stacks for discontinuation. Custom files must be saved in .csv format and include the following fields:

  • EMPLID
  • Academic Career
  • Student Career Number
  • Effective Date MM/DD/YYYY (the effective date of the last row in the program/ plan stack)
  • Sequence Number
  • Institution

Files that do not meet the file requirements, generate excessive processing errors, or include X/ XX/ XF EMPLIDs will be rejected.

Submit Discontinuation Files to SBCTC CS Support Ticket

Submit a ticket to SBCTC CS Support under the following request type:

  ctcLink Support > Campus Solutions > CS: Program/ Plan Data

Include the following information in your ticket:

  • A .csv file of the program/ plan stacks to be discontinued.
  • If the .csv file came from the results of a query, provide a screenshot of the query parameters (query prompts) to document how the query was run. If the .csv file was created using a custom query or created manually, include a statement indicating this as such.
  • The DISC term. Program/ plan stacks will be discontinued the day after the end of the prompted term. Example: "2251" will indicate that the program/ plan stacks should be discontinued the day after the Winter 2025 (2251) term ends. DISC terms must be current or future terms. Terms after the DISC term must not have batch term activation activity.

Remember, batch discontinuations cannot be undone in batch. Only submit a batch discontinuation ticket after first reviewing the batch discontinuation file for accuracy. Any program/ plan stacks discontinued due to being "accidentally" included in batch discontinuation files will need to be manually corrected by a college staff member.

2 Comments

Natalie Elyea

When are we supposed to run batch discontinuations?

Tanjagay Martin

Hi Natalie, Thank you so much for your question! Student Program Plan Discontinuation is a beginning of the term process. Before you batch term activate students for enrollment appointments, you should submit a support ticket to CS Support requesting discontinuations. ~Tanjagay Martin | CS Core Trainer

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