Degree Works Academic Plan Training

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Degree Works Plans The Plans area of Degree Works allows students and advisors to create an academic plan that organizes

course information in an easy to understand format. Plans are customizable, accessible online at any

time of day and can be adjusted to student needs as they change.

Once all students have a Plan in place, Wayne State University (WSU) will be able to better forecast

course demands and adjust our offerings to meet their needs. Plans tie directly to the Clear Academic

Pathways goal included in the Strategic Plan created by President Wilson. Ultimately, we want to ensure

all students have a clear path to graduation.

Objectives Learn to create an academic plan using Templates

Learn to create an academic plan by creating a Blank Plan

Understand the many different features of Plans

To Create a New Plan using a Template A Template has been approved by the department and is most useful for a traditional student who plans

to attend WSU full-time. Once an academic plan has been applied to a student’s record, it can be edited

or changed at any time. If a change needs to be made to the master template, please contact

degreeaudit@wayne.edu.

Use Chrome as your browser.

Begin by logging into Degree Works .

Enter either the Access ID or the Student ID number into the Student ID field.

Select the “Plans” tab near the top left of the page.

mailto:degreeaudit@wayne.edu

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If a plan exists, the page will default to the active plan. You can create a new plan by selecting “New

Plan” in the upper right corner. If a plan does not exist, you will be prompted to create one; in this

example, a plan has not yet been created.

Choose “Select Template.”

Enter the template you are looking for in the “Search by Template Description” box and click Go.

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The search will find all templates that include your search terms. Make sure you select the correct template for the student as there could be multiple degree programs for each major. Click on the template and click the “Open” button or double click on your chosen template.

Choose the start term for the Template, then click the “OK” button. For students who are not in their

first year, you can select the term they started and then make adjustments to the plan accordingly

(Deleting terms, reassigning courses, etc.). Currently, only Fall is available based on parameters set-up

within templates.

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Enter a Description such as “Graduation Plan.”

Check the “Active” box to make this the current plan. The previous active plan will become inactive. Also

check the “Locked” box. This allows you or any other advisor to make any changes. Students cannot

make adjustments to the plan once it is locked. Students must have both the “Active” and “Locked”

boxes checked in order to have accurate reporting.

At this point, save the plan before proceeding. Click the “Save” button in the lower right corner.

Button Functionality

Create Block - No current function.

Audit - Opens a worksheet. It shows Completed, In Progress, and Planned courses. Save As… - If you would like to preserve the content of a current plan, but add a second version to make

changes on, use this button.

Save – Use this button often.

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Editing an Academic Plan To make any changes to an Academic Plan, you must be in Edit View.

Select Edit from the “View” drop-down menu.

Moving a course To move a course between two different terms, it must already be part of the plan. Save the plan

before moving courses to different terms.

Select the course from the current term.

Drag and Drop it into the desired term (you will see a blue check mark next to the course when you are

able to “drop” it).

Deleting a course To delete a course from a term, select the course (click in the white space, it will be highlighted a darker

blue).

Click the button and the course will immediately disappear from the plan.

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Reassigning a Term You can also reassign a term. Just click the “Reassign” button, select the new term, then click the “OK”

button.

Deleting a term Click the “Delete this term” button in the title bar.

You will get a pop-up asking if you wish to continue, click “Yes” and the term will disappear.

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To Create a Blank Plan Begin by logging into Degree Works .

Enter either the Access ID or the Student ID number into the Student ID field.

Select the Plans tab near the top left of the page.

If a Plan exists, the page will default to the active plan. You can create a new plan by selecting “New

Plan” in the upper right corner. If a Plan does not exist, you will be prompted to create one; in this

example, a Plan has not yet been created.

Choose “Blank Plan.”

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Enter a Description such as “Graduation Plan.”

Check the “Active” box to make this the current plan. The previous active plan will become inactive. Also

check the “Locked” box. This allows you or any other advisor to make any changes. Students cannot

make adjustments to the plan once it is locked. Students must have both the “Active” and “Locked”

boxes checked in order to have accurate reporting.

At this point, save the plan before proceeding. Click the “Save” button in the lower right corner.

Button Functionality

Create Block - No current function.

Audit - Opens a worksheet. It shows Completed, In Progress, and Planned courses. Save As… - If you would like to preserve the content of a current plan, but add a second version to make

changes on, use this button.

Save – Use this button often.

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Adding Coursework to an Academic Plan

Select the symbol to see a list of available terms and add a term to the plan. Terms must be created

before courses can be added to the plan.

Select an upcoming term - Fall 2018, for example.

NOTE: You can add multiple terms at this point.

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After selecting the term(s), you will see them appear near the top of the page.

Courses Still Needed Option To add a course using the Drag & Drop method, click the blue arrow next to the requirement which

needs to be fulfilled.

This student needs to choose (1) Critical Thinking class.

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To add a class to a term, select the class from the “Still Needed” menu on the right and drag it to the

term header until you see the course has a blue check mark next to it – then ‘drop it’ into that term.

Continue adding classes from the “Still Needed” menu until you are satisfied with the plan. Courses will

still appear under “Still Needed” until you click the “Refresh” button.

You can also add a class from the “Courses” menu on the right and drag it to the term. Courses will be

listed by Subject Area and Course Number.

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Add Requirement Option

This option is useful when you have a choice of electives. After adding a term, select the symbol to expand the “Add Requirement” options.

Use “Choice” when the student has an option between two or more classes during a given semester.

Select the button.

Select the Enter the first course number. As you begin typing, courses will populate according to

what is typed. You can type out the full course, or select from the list.

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Then select “Add another option.”

Enter the second course number and select “Done.”

The choice requirement now appears on the plan. If necessary, you can indicate a

minimum number of credits.

Use “Course” when you prefer to type in the exact course number rather than searching through a

menu or using the drag and drop option. Simply type the course number in the Course Requirement

field and hit ‘Enter’ on your keyboard and it will appear in the planned term.

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Adding Notes to a Plan Notes are a great tool to add comments to different areas of the student’s plan. Make sure to save

before adding any notes to the plan.

A note is indicated by the icon. There are three note types: Overall, Semester and Class.

The “Critical” and “Honors” boxes may be used in conjunction with Notes. When the “Critical” box is

checked, it will appear in each View available to the student.

When you click on the icon, the following window will pop up. Click on the “Add Note” button in

the top-right corner.

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The window will change and you will be able to add the note. Click the “Done” button in the bottom-

right corner when you are finished.

When a note has been successfully added, the icon will change from to . When you hover over

a note, you can see what is written.

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Views of an Academic Plan You can change the look of the Academic Plan from the “View” drop-down menu in the top right corner.

NOTES VIEW: All notes that have been added to the Plan can be seen at one time in this view. We

recommend using this view for printing, as it will show everything for the student.

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EDIT VIEW: You can make changes to the Plan by moving classes around, deleting terms, reassigning

terms. Please refer to the “Editing an Academic Plan” section mentioned earlier in the training on page

12.

CALENDAR VIEW: Term by term view of the courses and credit hours the student plans to take each

semester.

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AUDIT VIEW: You can see the evaluation and how the classes fulfill various requirements, as well as a

quick term by term view of the classes the student needs to complete.

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Academic Plan Tracking Tracking is a feature within Plans that indicates whether a student is registered for the courses that have

been planned each semester. The plan must be ‘Active and Locked’ in order for tracking to display. Once

students are eligible to register for classes, the tracking notifications will appear as either ‘On-Track’ or

‘Warning/Off-Track’. Note that the semester will show as ‘Off-Track’ until the student is registered.

Below is an example of a student that has registered for all of the proper courses.

If the student registers for a course that was not previously planned, it will still appear as ‘On-Track’;

however, if the student does not register for all planned courses, they will see a warning flag and the

semester will be ‘Off-Track.’