SSP 2.X Coach Testing Guide

Owned by Patricia Wolfe (Deactivated)
Last updated: Dec 21, 2017 by Mary Mosbrook

Current Text Under Review

 Original text dated 2013. This page is under editing as of Dec 2017

Description/Purpose

The Coach role in SSP is traditionally assigned to advisors and counselors who provide services to student and utilize SSP tools to document and manage student interactions. This testing guide will focus on activities performed by the coach in order to validate SSP functionality. The tools focused on with this testing guide are:

  • Caseload Assignment
  • Main
  • Intake
  • Action Plan
  • Journal
  • Early Alert
  • MAP
  • Documents
  • Notes

Caseload Assignment

Add a student to your caseload
  1. Select the Plus icon in the Caseload Assignment Tool and add a student to your caseload. Enter the students external ID and select to retrieve data from external.
  2. Select the Appointment Accordian and double-click.  Check to make sure the Coach List is populated correctly.  This is a separate sync with your institutions external data and can pose issues if not set-up correctly.
  3. Place an X in the check box to send the student intake request
  4. Review the Special Service Groups, Referral Sources, and Reasons for Service to make sure they make sense
  5. Save the student to your caseload
  6. Note student information for further testing utilizing the student role.
Search for a student in caseload assignment tool

The search tool will only search for students that have already been added to SSP.  Search based on a variety of criteria to ensure your results return correctly.

Main Tool

Review each tab in the Main Tool to ensure the data makes sense.  All the data in the Main Tool is populated from data received pulled from external sources and made available to SSP.
  1. Is a picture of the student appearing in the Dashboard?
  2. Scroll through each tab and confirm the fields are populated correctly.  If you have questions about where the data should be coming from, see the External Data to UI Mapping
  3. Is a picture of the coach appearing on the Coach tab?  

Intake Tool

The Intake Tool allows the coach to review information that has been completed by the student. Typically this is done prior to the first visit with the student. For testing purposes, the Student Intake fields may not be completed. Several data elements may be grayed out.  This indicates that the information is being populated from your institution's Active Directory or LDAP. Save several Challenges for your student that can be used to test in the Action Plan Tool.

Action Plan

The Action Plan Tool provides the coach the ability to add specific tasks for the student to complete as part of their coaching process.  Typically these tasks are linked to pre-populated referrals that are documented by the SSP team as part of the knowledgebase. 

  1. Add an Action Plan task for a student who was added through your Caseload Assignment testing. Select a referral from one of the Student Intake challenges that you selected in the previous step.  Add several action plan tasks to the student record.
  2. Make sure the referral information is populated correctly in the Action Plan.
  3. Are Confidentiality Levels available, if appropriate for your institution?
  4. Email Action Plan - many times email is turned off during testing and training to avoid confusion for the end users. Confirm availability.
  5. Print Action Plan - confirm the data is displayed correctly.
  6. Add a Goal for the student.
  7. Document Strengths for the student.

Journal

The Journal tool provides the coach an area to document interactions with the student that are independent of a specific Action Plan task. Journal notes allow the coach to track specific Track-Step-Details that map to coaching processes and guidelines at your institution. For example, your institution might have a specific process for coaching and counseling students that are displaced workers, honor students, need career guidance, etc. This hierarchy is an easy way for coaches to record their progress with the student.

  1. Add a Journal entry. 
  2. Confirm the Confidentiality Levels are available
  3. Select a Source
  4. Select a Track. Ensure your institution has a list populated that makes sense.

Early Alert

The Early Alert Tool allows the coach to respond to early alerts that have been initiated by faculty members on campus. Unless the coach is filling both the role of faculty member and advisor, the coach will traditionally not initiate early alerts. This tool may be difficult to test depending on your institutional set-up and integration. 

  1. If available, select an Early Alert that has been submitted for your student.
  2. Review the alert and choose to respond
  3. Select the Outcome, Outreach, and add comments. Note that the faculty member that initiated the Early Alert will get a copy of your response.
  4. Identify department referrals and save the early alert

MAP

The sample testing plan for MAP will be covered in the Academic Advising test plan.

Documents

The Documents tool allows you to attach files to the students record.

  1. Choose to Add a document. Browse your files and attach a file
  2. Enter comments and name the file
  3. Select a Confidentiality Level

Notes

The Notes tool provides your institution the ability to display read-only notes that may be captured in another system outside of SSP, and allows coaches to view this information. This tool may or may not be in use at your institution. Check with your SSP implementation manager if you have any questions. The Notes tool is display only. New entries are not allowed in this tool.

 SSP 2.X Coach Testing Guide