Transition Counselors Sierra Connect User Guide

IMPORTANT NOTE: This guide was developed as a basis for using Sierra Connect. Please work with your department or supervisor for specifics that apply to your position and how your role utilizes Sierra Connect.

This user guide contains the following sections:

• Tracking Screen
• My Students Screen
• Referral, Notes, Messages, Kudos, Flags
• APPENDIX A - Attributes 
• APPENDIX B – First Year Free Status

The default screen has been set to the Tracking screen when a Transition Counselor logs into Sierra Connect.  The Tracking screen is a list of items that need their attention.

Tracking Screen

Connection = Promise Transition Counselor                            Term = Active

Add additional attribute filters to see recent grads by for specific High School:   

• Sierra Promise High School:  Select High School name from the specific value drop-down list.  Only able to select 1 high school at a time. This will return all students who indicated on their application they attended the chosen high school excluding students with a Sierra Connect Note ‘Not Attending Sierra’. 

• Applied for Fall or Spring Term for Current Year HS Graduates:  Select application term from the specific value drop-down list.   If want to select summer term, use the ‘Applied for Summer Term for Current Year HS Graduates’ attribute. This will return all students who applied for that term and indicated they are graduating from high school from November of the previous year through entire current year.

Click Submit to see students meeting this criteria.

There is an automatic flag raised ‘Create ABR SEP’ for students who have

• Completed Sierra Terms and Conditions
• Have Math or English Placement
• Do not have an ABR SEP in Degree Works yet
• Only raised for students who have HS completion date >= current year and indicated will complete HS.  (This should eliminate current Academic Enrichment students)

The counselor may mark this flag as resolved OR once a student has an abbreviated ed plan in Degree works, this flag will automatically be resolved the next day after the nightly data refresh.

There are also options to filter on the Tracking items.  Since the ‘Create ABR SEP’ is automatically raised it is not assigned to anyone so I recommend always filtering by ‘All assigned and unassigned’ for the specific tracking items assigned to follow up on.

My Students Screen

Settings and filters on the Tracking screen do not automatically carry over to the My Students screen.

Connection = Promise Transition Counselor                            Term = Active

List of recent graduates by high school:

1. Add Additional Attribute Filters

• Sierra Promise High School:  Select High School name from the specific value drop-down list.  Only able to select 1 high school at a time. This will return all students who indicated on their application they attended the chosen high school excluding students with a Sierra Connect Note ‘Not Attending Sierra’. 

• Applied for Fall or Spring Term for Current Year HS Graduates:  Select application term from the specific value drop-down list.   If want to select summer term, use the ‘Applied for Summer Term for Current Year HS Graduates’ attribute. This will return all students who applied for that term and indicated they are graduating from high school from November of the previous year through entire current year.

2. Submit.

3. Add additional cohorts or attribute filters to narrow list as needed.  A list of commonly used attributes are included in Appendix A at the end of this document. Add up to 3 additional attribute filters.  For example, to filter students who do NOT have a future appointment scheduled in SARS, add the following.

Cohorts may be predefined to further filter students based on multiple criteria if you need to filter by more than 5 attributes. Please let Promise management know if there is a situation where a cohort would be helpful.

4. Download.  After you have the list of students, you may click the download button to export this list of students to Excel.

The list will include Last Name, First Name, StudentID, Email, and Phone#

NOTE:  We cannot add fields to this download. There is no need to check the students to include as it will download all students with these filters. 

Referral, Notes, Messages, Kudos, Flags

1. Select one or multiple students by checking the box next to their name. 
2. Use the buttons across the top to add a flag, referral, kudos, message, or Note. 
   If you do not see one of these buttons, you do not have permission to add any of these items.

3. To add a Note, chose Note Type from the drop down list.
   Make sure you use the correct note type for your role.  Most of you also have the general counselor connection to students so will see note types associated with that role as well.

• The date will pre-fill with today’s date.
• Subject is not required but helpful when looking through students notes. 
• Typically do not check send a copy of the note to yourself or student as it will send an email to your Sierra email.
• Note sharing should be shared.  If it is a private note, only you will be able to see it. However, that note will still be viewable when a report is run or student records are requested.

If uncertain who will be able to see the note, a list of roles is always included at the bottom.

There are 2 other note types you can use to indicate if a student is attending Sierra part Time or not planning to attend Sierra at all.

If you use the “not Attending Sierra Note’, this will exclude them from being listed under the Sierra Promise High school filter and thus, they will not show up on your list to work with anymore.

4. For Referrals, choose the Referral from the drop down list and assign to ‘Other provider’.  Comments are optional but can be used to provide more information on why referral is being created.  Who is able to see this information is listed below the comments.

Messages allow you to email the student at their Sierra College email.  Most of the time these students are not frequently checking this mailbox before they enroll.  Also, messages are just like your Outlook email box – no one else can see them but you.

If you do want to email the student AND ensure other staff can see this information, enter a Note and check the ‘send copy to student’

APPENDIX A - Attributes 

Below is a list of commonly used attributes for Enrollment Specialists.

APPENDIX B – First Year Free Status

Currently only shows NEW students Fall FYF status After April 1^st.

Note:  The status is displayed in the following hierarchy.  If a student’s status is In Progress, it means they need FAFSA or Enrolled units and may need to Opt in.

A status of Opt IN, means the student only needs to Opt in.