eBECAS version 10 Setup

Holiday Groups enable you to select one or more sets of holidays for that campus. For example, Australian public holidays as one set and you can also add another set of holiday dates for NSW public holidays. Enter holiday Groups at eBECAS - Main - Setup - Organisation - Holiday.

Holidays are specified with the option "extension" or "no extension". You can specify holidays as part of a group and for a period (from/to date). A holiday with the option extension means that the end date of the course will be extnded by the name of days specified. Using the option "no extension" means that while the holiday dates are noted, there is no course extension provided.

For example of a student enrols to study a 10 week course and the course covers a period of a week where the College has a mid year break, and the week holidays is entered with the option "extension": While the student is studying (in class) for 10 weeks, the period between the start date and the end date is 11 weeks, with one week where the student does not attend classes.

Intake Groups enable you specify one or more intake (start) date sets. This enables you to specify a set of course start dates. If no start dates are specified, any date can be entered as a start date. You can specify Start / Intake Dates at eBECAS - Main - Setup - Organisation - Intake Dates.

College

eBECAS enables you to centralise your College Group in the one system, and supports one or more Colleges being a part of a College Group.

College details

College details include, one or more campuses, shared or separate holidays groups, shared or separate intake groups, separate country, currency, address details and contact details for each College.

Rooms

Rooms can be specified by name, code, campus capacity and status. The specified rooms are used for timetabling and allocation of classes and teachers.

Security

Security comprises Users, Teachers and Roles.

There are 2 types of users, Administration and Teachers.

Administrative Users are licensed annually. eBECAS is license by a College Group for a maximum number of users. A user must be licensed and marked active to enable a user to log in. The user generally uses their email address to login with a password. The number of users licensed by the College Group is the number of users marked active (the number of licensed users is not related to the number of users concurrently logged in). If a College annually licenses 10 users then there can only be 10 users marked as active and able to login, irrespective if they are logged in or not.

Teachers are listed as users if the College Group is licensed to use the web portal. There is no limit to the number of teachers that can be entered to use the College web portal. When the College Group is licensed for the web portal, all current students and any number of teachers can use the web portal. Teachers can view Classes, mark attendance, and enter diary entries for students study in their classes. In a future enhancement to the web portal, we will provide for the entry of class results by teacher for their class, similar to the way that teachers can mark their student presence (an calculate attendance) in the current web portal.

Roles

Roles are profiles setup by your College to limit access to areas for administrative users. A Role is a named set of attributes that enable users to view, edit, add, delete, modify or not areas within eBECAS. A user can have one or more Roles attached to their user profile.

Specifying a new Role

Add the Role name/description, then Save. Move to the option Functions, then select New - Functions. The Find - all the user function options are displayed.

You can select individually the options to be a part of the Role or multi-select options from the grid (select, key shift, move to new entry select) or (select, key ctl, select each line required) then Save or Save and Close. The Role options are then populated.

Make sure you save and close the Role options. The new Role can now be assigned to one or more users, which enables those buttons and actions for those users.

Users

Users details are entered and include name, gender etc. Email address MSUT be specified and used for the login.

Select the Security option to specify the users password.

The Roles are the sets of options that the user is enabled to use. Press New - Role to select previously added and defined Roles (see above).

Products and Pricing

Background

Separation of Products and Prices

One of the main ideas in the separate specification of products and prices/pricebooks is that a price can change for a product. For example prices are adjusted for different markets, adjusted each year, but you are still selling the same product and the same course is studied. We wanted to provide reports and know what product was being delivered by the College, even though for different markets and over time there are many prices options. We did not want numerous courses listed for different markets and over time duplicate course offerings.

We want agents to be able to log in to the system (using directenrol.com) and see their account, and enter new offers and enrolments, without giving agents the options of selecting their product prices. We also did not want agents to select incorrect prices and options. We therefore want the Colleges to specify the prices and the products available to agents, each product nett and gross.

To this end we provide Colleges with pricebooks to be setup for agents. Pricebooks can be used for many agents. Pricebooks list products with prices the College is selling to the agent/s.

Courses

Please enter Courses using Main - Setup - Course - Search. This is where the basic Course details are entered and include modules or session we collectively call "units". Specifying the units enables classes to be scheduled, and students to be assigned to classing that are waiting to study those units.

There are no prices defined for a course here (prices are defined in products where you select the course, and specify the price).

Course Details

The course details that need to be defined include the following.

We now need to specify the units that will enable the classes to be specified for students studying this course. Please select Units.

You can add and specify what needs to be studied for this course. For example for a Language Course, I have specified 2 units one Core for 20 hours, and another for the elective afternoon unit for 5 hours. We can now specify the classes for these units and times and allocate students to classes. see here.

Products

Products are specified here: eBECAS - Main - Setup - Pricing - Products.

Products are the definitions of what you sell, for what period, for what gross price.

Products are identified by product type. Product types include: Accommodation, Accommodation arrangement, airport transfer, course, insurance and other.

Course product types need to identify what course they are. For example you may sell into Asia the General English course product at a particular weekly rate, and to South America sell a product you call Advanced English at a different rate, but students study the same course although the product are marketed separately.

The code and name should reflect the period. For example the Enrolment fee for 2011.

Product details

Products can be active or in-active (available to be selected/displayed, or not), all products have a code, product name, can belong to a single group, and one or more category/s, and belongs to a college, and for a campus, and the product can be made available for a period (e.g. price for course for a year).

Product prices are all gross (i.e. include agent commissions.) There are price options for products (gross) at a weekly rate (option variable with duration type weekly), priced at a monthly rate (option variable with duration type monthly), a fixed rate for 10 weeks (option fixed, duration week, duration 10).

The product can have sales details - name, currency, price and if any taxes are included. You can also specify if you purchase this product, who the supplier is, what their code and product name is and what price you purchase the product for, and if any taxes are included.

There are also some other product options.

Dependent (supported): You can specify other fee/s that are included when this fee is selected. For example you may study Cambridge First Certificate for 12 weeks, and also require the FCE exam fee to be listed separately. The exam fee is added as a separate fees i.e. not included in the course fee.

Composite (yet to be supported): You can include a package of products and the listed as a single item.

Price Books

Price books are a list of products that the College sells to agents that list the agent's gross and net prices. A single price books can be used / applied to many agents with the same commission and available list of products.

For example we have listed below 3 price books. The name suggests the commission and geographical area for the agents.

Price Book details

Price books provide a group of products for agents with their gross and net prices. Price books are designed to be applied to agents with the same commission and list of products.

I suggest the price book name reflects the regions and commission rate. The price book prices are bound by the date period in this instance for the date of the offer item date (otherwise you can choose the offer entry date. You can specify the price book is active or not (for example when dates expire, for history keep the price book, but specify the status is non active, so they will not appear as selectable options.

Price Book price list

The price book price list displays the available products and their net (cost price) and gross (list price). The price book only lists net and gross prices. This means that commission rates e.g. 20% must be calculated into gross and net prices for each product. $2000 course cost at 20% would be entered as $2000 list price (gross) and $1600 cost price (net).

The above price book lists the English products for agents from South America and SE Asia on 20% showing the net and gross prices (cost and list prices).