Body
Finding Information about Students
Navigate provides multiple ways for staff to locate information about students. Your role and level of access may limit what information about certain students you are able to view. Advisors should be able to see most information about students assigned to them. Please reach out to stars@uwplatt.edu if you believe you do not have access to information your role requires.
Additionally, you may recognize that there are multiple methods for determining the same information about a student or group of students. There is overlap between advanced searching, running reports, and creating lists and saved searches. Generally, you can use whatever method works for you, but please feel free to reach out to stars@uwplatt.edu for further discussion or help identifying if there are more efficient methods.
Student Profile
All students have a profile page within Navigate Staff. You can view a student's profile page by searching for their name, student ID, or email address in the search bar at the very top of every Navigate page. If you do not have that search bar at the top, contact stars@uwplatt.edu to discuss your role and permissions.
As you enter your search terms into the search bar, results will start to populate based on your search. Select the correct student from the dropdown results. (Students with identical names will need to be distinguished by their student ID numbers or email addresses.)
On the student's profile page, the Overview tab will display, showing high-level information about the student in the Student Summary. Continue to scroll down to see additional information about the student, including their current major and major history (if applicable). Note that the student's ID photo and Options menu persist across all the student tabs.
Several tabs are available at the top of the student's profile. Below are the ones you're most likely to use as an advisor.
History
The student's history tab can display essentially every interaction the student has had within Navigate, including Appointments and their summaries; alerts, cases, and progress reports; and notes (if visible to you). The default will be to display all activity types with the most recent activities at the top. You can choose to filter to fewer types to narrow down your results. Note that you must click "View Appointment Summary" to see the appointment summary for an appointment.
Courses
The courses tab lists the courses the student is or was enrolled in for the current (default) term. Other details are included, such as the instructor, time and location for course meetings, and any posted midterm or final grades, including withdrawals. Courses dropped before the start of the semester have "Dropped Section" included.
Scrolling down to Term Details, you can view all courses and final grades for previous semesters, as well as term and cumulative GPA by semester. To see the details for a past semester, scroll back up to the Courses menu at the top, and select the term from the dropdown Term menu.
Appointments
In the appointments tab, you can see upcoming and recent appointments the student has had for any Care Unit your role has permission to see. For instance, if you encouraged a student to attend a tutoring appointment, you will be able to see here if they scheduled or attended that appointment. You can click on the "Show Cancelled" toggle to see appointments that were scheduled but later cancelled.
"Recent appointments" will display any appointments for Care Units you have the permission to view from the last 90 days. If an appointment summary was completed, you can view it by selecting the "Details" link, highlighted in green. If you are looking for a record of an appointment that took place more than 90 days ago, use the History tab.
If the student has been marked as a no-show for an appointment within a care unit you have permission to view, they will be listed here. Note that these appointments listed extend further than 90 days into the past.
Conversations
This tab will bring up the Email and Text Message Communications menu.
First, please note that the "Status" column will always say "Unread". This should not be used an indication of whether the student has read your email or text message.
Clicking on the "Topic" link for each message will open up the conversation.
This menu defaults to only showing messages sent by an individual person. To see any messages sent through an automatic generation, such as appointment reminders, click the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) to the right of the "Search in Results" bar, and then select "Clear All Filters and Sorts". Alternatively, you can scroll all the way to the right to the "Type" column, and then clear just that filter to see both Personal and Automatic messages.
Advanced Search
The advanced search feature can be accessed by selecting the magnifying glass with a plus sign icon along the left side menu.
The advanced search is a powerful tool for quickly identifying students who share certain characteristics. Each menu visible can be selected to show more options. There are too many options to review all of them here, but let's review one example.
Let's say you want to see which of your assigned advisees have a cumulative GPA of less than 2.5. Under "Performance Data", enter 2.5 as the Max. Cumulative GPA. To limit the results to students assigned to you, you can select the check box at the bottom for "My Students Only". Hit search to generate the list of students that meet these criteria.
As with many other menus, you can now use the Actions menu to take further actions for the students included in your search results, including sending them a message or adding them to a student list. You are also able to save search parameters by selecting the gray "Save" box immediately to the right of "Unsaved Student Search."
After saving a search, you can select it from the "Saved Searches" drop down menu at the upper left of the Advanced Search tool.
Lists & Saved Items
Lists & Saved Items can be accessed by selecting the icon of a bulleted list from the left side menu.
This menu provides you with different tools for different needs.
- Student Lists are static lists of students. Once they are added, they will remain on the list unless they become inactive in Navigate (graduate) or you manually remove them.
- Saved Searches are saved search parameters that will provide updated results each time they are run. You must choose to save a search from the Advanced Search page (see "Advanced Search".)
- Saved Reports are similar to saved searches in that the parameters are saved and the results are dynamic. See more about Reports.
Reports
Access the Reporting menu by selecting the icon of the small magnifying glass over a spreadsheet, from the left side menu.
When accessing the Reports menu, the default tab is "My Saved Reports". Toggle to "Standard Reports" to get started with building reports.
The "Report Type" refers to the primary reason you are running your report. What are you trying to learn about a group of students? If you're looking for something general that doesn't appear in any of the other reports, "Students Report" might be a good place to start.
This reporting tool can feel confusing or overwhelming to start, as users have to build each field from scratch. Using Advanced Search and then saving those searches may be all you need in your position.
If you choose to use this reporting function, recognize that when you start to build a filter, you must start with the "Field", not the result you are looking for. For instance, let's say again you want to identify which of your students have a cumulative GPA of less than 2.5. In "Field," you will not search for 2.5, but instead, "Cumulative GPA". We recommend typing search terms into the field first and letting the system search for the corresponding entry, rather than scrolling, as there are a lot of options. Additionally, the search feature identifies any word in the filter; e.g., you can type "GPA" in the search, and the system will return all the filters that include "GPA", including Cumulative GPA, Major GPA, etc.
Once you have selected the field you are looking for, then select the "Condition". For this example, you can select "less than" because you are looking for students with a cumulative GPA less than 2.5.
Finally, enter the "value" of 2.5. You have now created the filter of "Cumulative GPA less than 2.5".
For most reports, you will want to add additional filters using the " + Add Filters" button. Continue to add filters to further refine your results.
The check box options of "Include Inactive Users" and "Include My Students Only" are also available. Consider checking "Include My Students Only" to easily restrict your search results to your assigned students.
After running the report, you can review the report results. As usual, you can select one or more students and then take an action with that student or group of students.
If you are interested in saving this report, choose "Save As" from the "Unsaved Report" banner. Saving this report will then allow you to run this report repeatedly without needing to recreate the filters. You can add or edit filters later, using the saved report as a baseline.
Dashboard
The Dashboard is a customizable page that can show you any information available to you within Navigate at a glance. Access your Dashboard by selecting the icon on the left that looks like speedometer.
By default, an advisor's dashboard will include several tiles displaying useful information about your students and activity. You can use the "Settings" menu to modify the default tiles as well as add new ones. Saved reports can be added as tiles in your dashboard.
You can also drag individual tiles to rearrange them on your dashboard.
Note that this dashboard automatically refreshes only once per day when you first log into Navigate. Each tile has a refresh button, or you can select the overall "Refresh" button at the top right to refresh your entire dashboard.
Need help?
If you have questions, please contact Student Advising and Academic Resources at 608.342.1081 or stars@uwplatt.edu.