Updating the semester description

When changing the semester description in Synergetic to either semesters (1-2) or terms (1-4) you need to update:

• fields in Student File Term Maintenance window
• reports that have been hard-coded for the term or semester number.

There are no financial impacts in Synergetic when changing the semester description as billing uses different periods, such as a yearly billing run. Alternatively these might also be charged using a billing period.
The Synergetic tables that refer to years and semesters/terms/report periods are:

• FileYear - stores the year. For example, 2009, 2010 etc.
• FileSemester - stored a number, depending on how many semesters/terms/report periods you have.

How to update the semester description:
To update the semester description:

1. Open the File Semester tab of Student File Semester Maintenance. See Student File Semester Maintenance - File Semester tab.
2. Set the Number of Semesters Per Year field to:
   • 4 (for terms)
   • 2 (for semesters).
3. Set the Override Semester Description to the new semester description. For example:
   • Long: Term, Short: Term (for terms)
   • Long: Semester, Short: Sem (for semesters).
4. Click the Next Semester Creation Rules tab and update the rules as they will now need to apply to the new format. For example, to refer to 4 terms rather than 2 semesters.
   Any new rules that you create reflect the new semester/term format.
   
   Note: After changing the semester definition you can still access the information from prior years though the old selections now reflect the new definitions. For example, if you have changed from two terms a year to four, a selection from File Year 2010 semester 2 reflects term 2 under the new system, leaving terms 3 and 4 with empty data.
    
5. If your organisation uses any Crystal Reports that have been hard-coded or have a selection to show the FileSemester or FileTerm, update the reports to reflect your changes.
   
   Tip: In Crystal Reports you can use the field ActualSemester instead of FileSemester to avoid this problem.
    
6. If your organisation uses FileSemester or FileTerm as selection criteria for any Crystal Report that uses both historical and current data, update the report to reflect your changes. For example, a comparison of student results over several years.