Many institutions like to use data collections to gather Plans and Reports for Course Sections and Programs.
There are two ways to build this out:
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One data collection where the workflow contains both the planning and reporting steps
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Two data collections: The first is the plan and the second is the report
There are a few things to consider when deciding which option to choose:
One data collection where the workflow contains both planning and reporting steps
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This option enables the Plan to be “locked”/”uneditable” when the user is filling out the Report.
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Because the Plan and Report are one consecutive data collection, the form has to be on a step for the duration of the data collection. Therefore, if there is 6 months between submitting the Plan and completing the Report, the data collection will need to sit in someone’s action items during those 6 months.
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If you are completing a thorough review process of the Plan, this would limit the time between Plan and Report
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Once a question appears in the form, it will remain visible for the duration of the data collection. With a Plan and Report, this can lead to a long data collection form
Two data collections
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The Plan data collection will be “copied forward” into the Report data collection
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This allows you to only include specific questions of the Plan data collection, instead of all the questions asked in the Plan data collection
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The Plan will be “editable” for the user, because the “Copy Forward” feature preloads text into the fields, which is editable by the user.
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The Report Library does not support reporting across multiple data collections. Any combined reporting would need to be completed outside of the platform.