Schedule Builder


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Overview

Schedule Builder is a MyPlan feature that helps you with course schedule planning. It provides a visual calendar that allows you to see up to 25 possible schedules. You can select which courses and sections will best fit your calendar for the upcoming quarter. You can pin schedules and save them for later. When it is time to register, you can refer to your pinned schedules for easy access to course and section information. Once you have your final schedule, you can easily send courses to registration.

Accessing Schedule Builder

To access Schedule Builder, log on to MyPlan or go through the MyPlan link on MyUW. Once you have logged on, go to the Academic Year View. To use the Schedule Builder feature, you will need to have some courses in your plan for the upcoming quarters that have a published time schedule. If you don't have any courses in your plan, you will need to add some first. For our example, we will add COM 220 and POLS 202 to our course plan. To find out more about how to search for courses, review the Find Courses guide. Once you have courses in your plan, select Build Your Schedule in the navigation bar at the top of the screen.

 

 Screenshot of the MyPlan sidebar navigation highlighting the

 

Schedule Builder can create up to 25 possible schedules to view. Selecting a calendar block displays schedule details. You can compare different schedules by selecting one of the blocks under the section "Possible Schedules." 

 

Screenshot of the

 

Different schedules are denoted by different colors. You can display up to three possible schedules at a time in the calendar grid. If you want to select another schedule, you'll first have to deselect one of the three schedules that are currently displayed. 

 

Annotation 1: You can select multiple blocks to compare multiple schedules. Annotation 2: Different schedules are denoted by different option numbers. Annotation 3: Switch between calendar view or list view.

 

Planned sections or courses that are clustered together (Cluster and FIG courses) will show in Schedule Builder. Adding these clustered courses and FIG sections from the Course Details Page will automatically group all courses in that cluster to your plan. Please note that schedule builder is currently not optimized to compare multiple FIG clusters at the same time.

 

 Screenshot of the Schedule Builder calendar blocks with option 1 indicating it's a cluster.

 

Planned Courses

The Planned Courses section displays all of the courses included in your current planned items. You may generate different schedule options by deselecting specific courses and sections. Schedule Builder can also create schedule options for courses with special or irregular meeting times (eg. courses that allow duplicate enrollment).

 

 An alert icon will appear beside the planned courses if there are any issues. Select this button and a tooltip will appear about why your planned section was excluded.

Section Filters

On the Schedule Builder page, you will see an area titled "Include Sections that" with a default option selected. This default option ensures that Schedule Builder will only return open sections, those that require faculty/add codes and/or independent study sections, and those that do not conflict with your current registered courses. Schedule Builder excludes sections that are currently closed or overlap with courses you are already registered for. You can change these options by checking the boxes "Are currently closed" and "Overlap with my registered courses" respectively. If there is a course with enrollment restrictions and/or add codes that you want to take, speak to your adviser to learn more about how you can do so. If you want to know more about enrolling in a Professional and Continuing Education (PCE) course, visit the PCE website. To view your changes, select the Update Schedule Options button.  

 

 Screenshot of MyPlan Schedule Builder's Section Filter. Selecting options will configure visibility of courses and sections that require faculty and or add codes, overlap with registered sections, are currently closed, or are UW PCE sections.

Exclude Days and Times

You can also exclude sections that meet on days or times that conflict with your other activities by selecting Add days/times under "Exclude sections that meet on" in the center of the screen.

 

Screenshot of the pop-up menu showing different day and time options for sections to exclude.

  1. Select Add days/times to open a pop-up menu.
  2. Select the day(s) and adjust the slider bar to choose the times you would like to exclude from your schedule. Select Add. If you want to edit or delete, select Edit/Delete.

Add to Plan

Select 'View Details' (which leads to Schedule Details View) on a schedule option to see section level details and check if a course section is currently available or has enrollment restrictions. To add all courses of an entire schedule option, select the "Update My Plan" button.

 Screenshot of Schedule Builder View Details pop in with instructions on how to pin or add the schedule to your plan

To add only a specific section, select an individual calendar block, check your preferred section, and click "Add to Plan & Update Schedule Options." 

 

Screenshot of the courses in schedule blocks that can be clicked to show all available sections.

Screenshot of the pop-up menu where you can select different sections if available and update the plan.

Important Note: You still need to register after adding the schedule to plan. Do this by going to Register.UW, click "Import from MyPlan", and then click "Register".

Pin Your Schedule

  1. You can save a possible schedule by selecting the Pin button on your preferred schedule option block on the top of the calendar.
  2. Once you have selected the schedule you want, your pinned schedule will appear in the rightmost corner of you screen under the "Pinned Schedules" block. You can pin up to 3 schedule options for future planning. You can also select click the X to delete the pinned schedule. You can add those courses to your plan by selecting the View Details button below the pinned schedule, and clicking "Update MyPlan". Once you have added that schedule option to your plan, you can go to Register.UW to import your plan and register.

 

Screenshot of the different option cards in which you can pin to save your schedule or view more details about the option.

Troubleshooting Schedule Builder

Troubleshooting 0 Schedule Options

Go to the current quarter Registration Preview page, which can be found under Manage on the navigation sidebar. The Registration Preview page shows details for courses and will highlight common issues like time conflicts between planned courses or registered courses. Screenshot of the sidebar navigation pointing to the current quarter Registration Preview page where you can troubleshoot for conflicts.

Ensure you have scheduled courses in your plan

Schedule Builder will not be able to find any potential schedules if there are no courses in your plan. Find or add courses first to be able to view schedule options.

Review what filters have been added

Excluding too many days may result in limited schedule options. You can even include closed sections to your schedule options using filters.

Check your planned courses that are used to generate schedule options

Try adjusting your selected courses and / or filters to resolve having no schedule options. The courses in your plan may not be offered this quarter and cannot be used to build a schedule.