An effective way to establish staff assignment rules is to first write out your organizational structure on index cards. Order the cards and associate staff assignment definitions with them. Prioritize the #1 index card and work through your stack.

Create the Rules

The Staff Assigned field is already included in Slate, and you can use this field for your Academic Advising, Career Coach, or counseling assignments, or you can create new assignment fields as needed. To create the rules:

1. Click Database in the Slate navigation bar and in the Automations section, select Rules.

2. Click New Rule. An Edit Details popup appears.

3. Enter the following configurations:

   • Name: Give the rule a name that clearly describes what that rule is doing. In this example, the rule assigns students with an undeclared major to faculty member Sally Smith, so a sensible name for the rule could be "Undeclared Major - Sally Smith," and the next rule could be called "Biology - Phil Johnson."

   • Base: Select Configurable Joins - Person to assign counselors to all records in Slate. Once selected, a Type option list appears.

   • Type: Select Field.

   • Trigger: Select Upon Update (Deferred).

   • Folder: Select Other. Additional fields appear to allow creating new folder names. Add folder called "Faculty Advising Assignments" (save all future faculty assignment rules in this folder).

   • Exclusivity Group: With an exclusivity group, Slate will run a rule with the lowest priority number first and then move to the rule with the next sequential priority number. Once a record meets the filter criteria of one rule, the remaining rules will not be processed. To create the exclusivity group, select Other. Additional fields appear for naming and setting details for the exclusivity group. Name the new exclusivity group "Faculty Advisor Assignment."

   • Non-deterministic: Select Rule is deterministic and has an exclusive priority.

   • Priority: Give the first rule a priority of 10.

   • Status: Select Preview.

4. Click Save. The Edit Rule page appears.

Configure the Appropriate Filters and Action

Create a Filter

Filters define the population the rule will impact. For this example (Undeclared Major - Sally Smith):

1. On the Edit Rule page, click Filter. An Insert Query Part popup appears. 

2. Scroll through the available filters or use the Search feature to locate and select the Declared Major filter. 

3. Click Continue. An Edit Part popup appears.

   

4. Make sure Declared Major is set to IN.

5. Locate and select Undeclared in the list of majors.

6. Click Save.

   

Create the Action

On the Edit Rule page, set the following values:

• Field: Select Faculty Advisor Assigned (or use the default Staff Assigned field)

• Action: Replace Values

• Prompt: Select the appropriate user (Sally Smith)

Note: Every index card should have one rule per counselor.