Starting point of progress dispatch

Automatic dispatch by progress follows the class diary: the share of course hours each class has completed, as it arrives from the academic system. When the diary reaches a milestone (35%, 70%...), the survey for that milestone goes out to the student.

The diary says where the class is, but not when it passed each percentage. So there are moments when the rule starts seeing a student who has already passed one or more milestones — and the question is what to do about them.

The five situations

The rule starts seeing a student with milestones already reached when:

• Rollout — the rule is created, or the class arrives in the system for the first time with the course under way.
• Rule turned back on — the rule runs again after a pause.
• New unit — the class enters the rule's reach, or returns to it.
• New milestone — a milestone is added, or has its percentage changed.
• Student who joins midway — a new enrollment, a reactivated one, or one back to "enrolled" in a class the rule already saw.

The two options

For each situation, the institution chooses:

• Wait for the next one (default) — the diary at that moment is the starting point. The milestone already reached does not go out; the student waits for the next one. Example: rule turned on with the class at 50% — "course start" does not go out, and "mid-course" goes out when the diary reaches 70%.
• Receive the latest — only the last milestone already reached goes out; the earlier ones do not. Example: class at 80% — "mid-course" goes out; "course start" does not.

If two situations apply to the student at once (they joined while the rule was paused) and any of them says wait, the student waits.

Neither option sends every overdue milestone at once: two surveys on the same day, one of them about the start of a course that is almost over, are of no use to the analysis.

When the rule already saw the student

Outside the five situations, the rule has followed the class since before the milestone was reached, and the behavior does not depend on the option:

• Late diary — if the diary jumps several milestones at once (the teacher entered weeks of attendance on the same day), all of them go out, in course order. Keeping the diary up to date is what avoids two surveys together.
• Fixed issue — if the student was left out of a milestone by something the institution fixes (no e-mail or phone, no guardian or sponsor, survey closed, channel or message template unavailable) and, when it is fixed, the diary has already passed the next milestone, only the latest goes out.

What does not change

• The milestone that did not go out is recorded in the dispatch audit, with the reason, the situation, the diary percentage and the milestone that went out instead. It does not go out later, not if the diary is corrected downward, not if the option is changed.
• Changing the option applies from then on; it does not redo what was already decided.
• Completion and dropout milestones do not follow this choice: they have a date, and the rule only sends what comes due after it exists.
• A class that had already finished when the rule started seeing it receives no progress survey under any option.