eBECAS Setup

The purpose of this documentation is to provide assistance in setting up eBECAS for your College.

Index

Background

What information do I need to add before I can enter students?

Things you wanted someone to tell you about eBecas

What type of Colleges is eBECAS designed for?

eBECAS was specifically designed for Academic or Language Colleges or a hybrid College setup of both.

Academic College

What we mean when we use the term Academic College relates to the method of study. Academic Colleges by our definition are module or subject based. Subjects are studied for a period of weeks or a semester and are tested and graded. Examples of Academic Colleges are Secondary, Foundation and University Colleges.

The period subjects can be studied can be a term, semester or number of weeks. Each subject can comprise multiple classes, lectures, and tutorials. Classes can be scheduled to be repeated for a period of time, for example lecture Monday 10-11am and Wednesday 2-3pm, with Tutorial on Thursday 2-5pm. Any combination is possible. A grade result is stored for the subject / module.

Language College

What we mean when we use the term Language College relates to the method of study also. Language Colleges by our definition usually teach continuously for the period of the enrolment, and are not subject based.

Results and grades are stored for the course, not the class. Classes are assigned by sessions. Typically a Language College runs classes for 4 sessions. The sessions may be called AM, PM, Options, Private or other names that relate to the time of day or grouping of classes for a course. For example, an AM session may run every day from 9am to 12 noon, the PM Session may run from 1pm to 2pm, the Options session from 2pm-4pm and the Private session is designed for odd class times outside the core sessions.

Each course has the sessions the classes are run. A General English full-time course may have students attend AM, PM and Option sessions. Classes are run during a session. A student is assigned to a class depending on the student's overall English level. For example a student is assigned to an intermediate class "INT-1A" which is run during the AM session, the class "INT-1B" is run during the the PM session for intermediate students and may or may not include the same students from the moring class, and may or may not be run by the same teacher, and may or may not be in the same room.

There may be specialist Options session classes like English for a course designed for example Medical students desiring entrance for Nursing pathway course.

Does eBECAS support multi-company and multi-locations?

eBECAS is specifically designed for multi-campus and multi company financials. Many Colleges are using a centralised Marketing and Admissions team. Colleges can have common Agents and obtain performance and Financials for the group and by College campus. Users can be defined to have access to all students or only view their particular campus students. Class rolls and class allocation can be made by campus location.

Company setup See here for Screen

Company details See here for Screen

To display the location/s already entered for eBECAS go to Main - Utilities - Setup Configuration - Geographic - Location. See here for Screen

Login to eBecas

Ok I assume 'the network guy' has installed the eBecas software on your LAN server and provided access to your workstations, users can access and run eBecas from the eBecas incon installed in each workstation. So you start the application and are looking at this. See here for Login Screen

eBecas is supplied with 2 users already installed - one username is BECAS and it's password is BECAS the other username is BECAS2 and it's password is BECAS2

These 2 user accounts should be updated immediately (change the details to a genuine user). Both accounts have the user rights to enable each user to add or change any user. Go to Main - Utilities - Users - Search - highlight user, Modify

Each account has user access levels associated with that account, this is to be able to control user access to every area of eBecas. The 2 supplied accounts (BECAS and BECAS2) have the user access to create new users and specify what those users can access. The supplied user accounts BECAS and BECAS2 have access to all areas of eBECAS.

Each eBecas installation is licensed annually to continue to use eBecas and access the database information. Each College is licensed for a concurrent number of users to access the database. These are in multiple of 5 (5, 10, 15 20 etc users). Each user MUST have a separate user login, the user access should always be the name of the staff member, to ensure you know who is doing what. All activities are logged as to who has added, created and modified data. If accounts are shared, and a user logs in using an account that is already logged in, then the previous user will be logged out.

When you login you see the main screen. See here for main Screen

The bottom line of the main screen displays the version of eBecas, displays the date the system is licensed until, and displays the user name you are using to access eBecas.

Moving around eBecas

eBecas is built on industry business logic and is designed for customer relationship management, record keeping and industry workflow assistance. eBecas customers are students, homestay providers and agents.

Students are the central focus of eBecas. Agents send students. Agents place students into Colleges and the College may compensate or pay agents for this service. Students are placed with accommodation providers. The accommodation provided may be in homes, lodges, hotels, apartments or dormitories for one or more nights.

Students study courses (for a period of time) which in eBecas are called enrolments.

Student details stored include address, email and phone, contacts (family and friend/relation contact detail), diary details, homestay requests and placements, airport pickup requests and transfers, visa and eCoE details, insurance and photo.

In order for student and agent's inquires to be followed up, each student can have one or multiple offers. An offer is an unconfirmed enrolment for course. Each offer has a status, when the status is changed to an accepted status generating an enrolment.

Each enrolment (student course) has a start and end date, attendance calculated for the course, the agent (if any) that sent the student, financial account, changes stored to the enrolment (change of start date, cancellation or change of course length), course results, classes the student is attending or is due to attend, absence details and leave.

The important concept from above is that each student can have one or more offers and enrolments. The student then may have details about a future, current or past course attendance.

What information do I need to add before I can enter students, offers and enrolments?

You need to enter your background data in this order: (# is mandatory)

1. Regions Utilities - Setup Configuration - Geographic - Regions (used for reporting) see here for screen

2. # Countries that students and agents come from: Utilities - Setup Configuration - Geographic - Countries (used for student and agent addresses, and reports) see here for screen Make sure when you add the country, you select the Region for the country from the drop down list.

3. Agent categories e.g. gold, silver, bronze, information only, not country we know this from the agent address. Utilities - Setup Configuration - Agent - Categories (used in reports and selection filtering) see here for screen

4. Agents Main - Agents (Agent search screen 2.0) Please remember to always look to see if the agent already exists - press Search. Like with students and homestay providers. Search by code, name, filter by categories and or country, active and inactive. All grids can be customised. see here for screen. Agent Details include code, name, categories, custom fields, tax registered and abn, and notes. see here for screen

4.a. Agent - # Address including street and postal address including # country, company phone, company fax, company email and company web site. see here for screen

4.b. Agent - employees including title, first name, last name, position, phone, fax, email, active and primary contact. see here for screen

4.c. Agent - Student enrolments are automatically listed as entered (no entry required). This screen displays all student enrolments (default) or offers for this agent, filtered by all, current only, current and future (default), future only, completed only, cancelled only. see here for screen

4.d. Agent - Contact details no entry required. Used for anotating any requests, comment agreeements or feedback. see here for screen

4.e. Agent - # Commission. Required for calculation of agent commission on courses. Please remember to add 10% for Australian local agents gst rate. ie. 20% would become 22% with gst charged by agent and pickup by College. see here for screen

5. Homestay details

5.a. Homestay provider categories. Main - Utilities - Setup Configuration - providers - categories. see here for screen

5.b. Homestay provider bed categories. Main - Utilities - Setup Configuration - providers - Bed category. see here for screen

5.c. Homestay provider custom fields. Main - Utilities - Setup Configuration - providers - Custom fields. see here for screen

5.d. Homestay provider Word Templates. Main - Utilities - Setup Configuration - providers - Word Templates. Please refer to section on Using Templates here

For greater detail see documentation on using homestays here

6. # Faculties (groups of courses at a location eg. Manly ELICOS, Sydney Foundation Studies, Brisbane VET)

A faculty is a grouping courses for a location and company, with the course type either Academic or Language. Each faculty must have a Company and Location specified, with the Faculty type selected - either Language or Academic.

Courses are assigned to a Faculty, so faculties must be entered before Courses. Holidays can be defined by Faculty.

The Faculty type determines how timetables, classes and results are assigned. Courses assigned to Language type faculties have students placed into Language Classes and students have Language type results. Courses assigned to Academic type faculties have students assigned to Academic classes and store academic results.

All courses defined under a faculty can be selected to have the study option fixed week, weekly or for Academic faculty by semester. The semester option is only enabled by EIT, if you require this option, ask EIT to enable this.

To add or view faculties go to Utilities - Faculty (press search) see here for screen

Press search to display all Faculties and press Modify to display the Faculty details (alternatively double mouse click the highlighted faculty to display details) see here for screen

To display or modify the Faculty details, highlight the faculty and press Modify see here for screen

For a Language based Faculty, all course study options are fixed week (e.g. 12 week Certificate course) or weekly. The faculty defines the number of hours of attendance for the courses. Holidays can also be defined for all courses in the faculty. see here for screen

Holidays can be specified for a period, and can be specified to extend or not a course enrolment.

As well as study type "fixed week", the faculty type Academic has an additional study type option "semester".

Study type "fixed weeks" means that all courses will be defined by the number of weeks for the course. Study type "semester" means that you define the dates and number of semesters in a year. In Academic faculties, each course entered for the faculty comprises one or more semesters, and one or more subjects (modules). Each subject (module) can be defined as studied during a semester.

To specify the period (dates) for the semesters Go to Utilities - Setup Configuration - Academic - Semesters. Semesters are defined for all faculties (not for individual faculties). There can be no overlapping of dates. You must define all semesters for all enrolments i.e. if a student is studying a 3 year course, you must define the semesters for the next 3 years. Please note you cannot enter holidays for a semester based Faculty. Holidays are the breaks between semesters, and defined in Academic - Semester setup. see here for screen

7. # Language Courses and sessions

Sessions are used only by faculty type Language for Classes and Courses. Sessions are used to identify groups of classes. You can have many classes for the one session. The session can be used to identify when the class takes place or what is taught during the classes.

For example, some Colleges use 4 sessions, and call the sessions AM, PM, Elective and Private. The AM session could be defined as the core session that runs each day from 9am to 12 noon. The PM session could be defined as the session that runs from 12:30- 2:30pm. The Elective session runs from 2:30pm to 3:30pm, and Private session are for classes that run when arranged.

The AM session has many classes, with different class levels. The classes the DOS (Director of Studies) has created for the AM session may be called BEG-1, BEG-2, INT-1, INT-2 etc or any name that identifies the class. Each class has students assigned to the class, in a particular room, with a particular teacher. Classes are often identified by level. The PM session has different classes, and can have different students allocated for each class. The Elective session can be used to identify special classes the student needs to attend for the course.

Alternatively some Colleges use up to 8 sessions and identify the sessions by what is taught. For example, the session names may be: Writing, Reading, Listening, Speaking, Options and Friday Activities. The Writing Classes may be every day from 9-10am, and the Reading Classes from 10-11am, this allows the students to be assigned to different classes based on the different levels they have attained for Reading and Writing etc.

Please refer to this setion of the manual for additional Language Classing details: Language Classing

Language Course Details to add/display Courses go to Utilities - Courses, To display what Courses are already entered, press Search. Filters can be applied to show a single Faculty, Location for both Active and in-active courses. To display Course details press the modify button (alternatively double mouse click the highlighted course to display details). see here for screen

Course Details for a fixed week Language course. see here for screen

Language Courses can be fixed length or weekly. If the course is fixed week then the cost is the standard cost for the period of the course (in this case $3000 for a 10 week course). Alternatively a course can be charged at a weekly rate. see here for screen

In this example the Course charge is $285 per week. How this works is when an enrolment (enrolment = course of study for a period of time) is entered for a student, the start date is requested and number of weeks are specified. If a student was studying for 20 weeks then the course cost would be $285 x 20 = $5,700. Notice for each course the Language Class sessions are specified.

8. # Academic Courses and modules

Academic Subjects / Modules can be accessed from the Main menu - Utilities - Modules. Press Search to display those already entered, or new to add a new Module. see here for screen

Module details. see here for screen

The module can contain other modules also as assessment items see here for screen

The Assessment type can be tailored to use whatever you want, for example, examination, project or test. The Assessment types can be defined from Main menu - Utilities - Setup Configuration - Academic - Assessment types see here for screen

Please refer to this section of the manual for more details: Academic Classing

9. # Fees

Fees are defined by Faculty. Fees can be active and in-active. If a fee is marked in-active, it will no longer be listed to select. Fees can be entered by 7 fee types. Fees are displayed and entered from Main - Utilities - Fees see here for screen

The fee types are:

Tuition

Agent

Insurance

Accomodation

Accomodation placement

Airport Transfer

Other

Each fee type is hardcoded and not alterable.

Tuition and Agent fees You do not directly enter a tuition or agent fee. These fees are calculated when the student is offered a course and the student enrolment is made by an agent. The course charge = tuition fee plus agent fee. For example is a course charge is listed as $1000, and the agent that has sent the student receives a commission of 20% then the tuition fee is calculated and listed as $800 and the agent fee is calculated and listed as $200. When entering an offer see here

Insurance fees are designed to be used for student health cover. see here for screen Details stored for each insurance entry are code, display name (item name), status (active or in-active), fee category* (used in reports), sale amount (price product is sold to a student), tax (exclusive or inclusive), if tax code is applied (usually gst), provider product description, purchase amount (price), provider name* (who you purchase this item from), provider item number (provider's code), whether the insurance cover is for a single (a single student) or the student and family and the period of cover in months. see here for screen

* are items that are setup by the College. Fee category is setup in Main - Utilities - Setup Configuration - Finance - Fee Category see here for screen . Providers are setup in Main - Utilities - Supplier.

Accomodation fees are what is offered and charged to the student for homestay or accomodation. see here for screen . Details stored for each accomodation fee include code, display name (item name), status (active or in-active), fee category, weekly sale amount, daily sale amount, (price product is sold to a student), tax (exclusive or inclusive), if tax code is applied (usually gst), provider product description and price paid to provider weekly and daily. see here for screen

Accomodation Arrangement (placement) fees are what is charged for arranging a placement for homestay or accomodation. see here for screen . Details stored for each accomodation arrangement fee include code, display name (item name), status (active or in-active), fee category, sale amount (price product is sold to a student), tax (exclusive or inclusive), if tax code is applied (usually gst), provider product description and price paid to provider. see here for screen

Airport Transfer fees are what is charged for arranging a placement for homestay or accomodation. see here for screen . Details stored for each transfer fee include code, display name (item name), status (active or in-active), fee category, sale amount (price product is sold to a student), tax (exclusive or inclusive), if tax code is applied (usually gst), provider product description and price paid to the transfer provider. see here for screen

Other fees are what is used for any other fees. see here for screen . Details stored for each fee include code, display name (item name), status (active or in-active), fee category (these are good to use here to group and categories details by enrolment, exam fee categories etc), sale amount (price product is sold to a student), tax (exclusive or inclusive), if tax code is applied (usually gst), provider product description and price paid to the transfer provider. see here for screen

10. Security - Users and Roles / access levels

Each user now has Roles and Security Overrides - see here for screen .

Prior to version 7.7.0.0 each user had to have every User access level specified as can still be done in the Security Override see here for screen .

Instead of using Security Overrides, we suggest you remove all overrides for each user, and specify Roles.

Setting up Roles

Please go to eBECAS - Main - Utilities - Security - Roles. You need to add Roles and define the access levels for each Role. Examples of Roles could be based on areas of responsibility. For example I have entered Admissions, DOS, Finance - Receipt, Front Desk, HOD - Classing, Homestay - APU, Super User and Teachers. see here for screen .

Once Roles have been defined, you can then add one or more Roles for each user. see here for screen .

11. # Rooms

12. # Teachers

** You are now ready to enter Students, Offers and Enrolments. See the Admissions area of this manual here. **

Things you wanted someone to tell you about eBecas

Where do I find my Students?

Student search is used to locate any student in history, current or future. Language or Academic Enrolment search displays current course enrolments as of a day. Offer search displays unconverted offers for follow-up by offer date, course start date, homestay start date or airport transfer date.

You can search for an student in eBecas in the past current or the future by name or student number from the screen Main - Student see here for screen

You can enter the first few characters of the surname or first name or last numbers of the student number (or any combination) in the student search. These are students who are or will study for past, current or future courses. You can search for students who are studying currently (as of a date, now in the past or future) from the menu option language Enrolments or Academic Enrolments.

Before adding any new record - student, agent, homestay provider ALWAYS search to see if the student, agent, homestay provider already exists.

Every report has the option to print report output to a pdf file>

After pressing Report - preview the following screen is displayed see here for screen

If you press the icon on the top line that looks like a floppy disk (black square two icons to the left of the close text button) the following option is displayed see here for screen

Type the name of the report, and select the location to save the report, and make sure you select Save as type - PDF on the bottom of the panel before pressing Save

Every search and grid display has the option to tailor the layout for every user's workstation

With every grid in eBecas you can select the top line with the labels, and press the right mouse button. The grid menu appears see here for screen

As well as sorting (or you can simply just click on a column to sort by that column), you can remove columns, select new columns to add see here for screen