Dropped Courses and Refunds

[TinaMSwanton]

Hi all. I am new to Catalog and we have not officially launched yet but I am trying to ensure I've got the proper processes in place. Just wondering how do you handle refunds? We are using authorize.net. 

1. Does Catalog notify you as the admin when a course is dropped? If not, how do you manage users?
2. Is the refund automatic? If not, what process are you using to ensure the enrollee is refunded in a timely manner?

Thanks in advance for your help. 

[kevinhitt]

Hello Tina!

Welcome to the Catalog family! I've been fortunate enough to have been here for 1 year; there are some great people in the forums with a lot of insight, so you've come to the right place. I'll try to offer my novice experience from what I've encountered so far: 

• Catalog does not send notifications when a user drops a course. My institution actually has added customization to hide the "Drop" buttons in both Catalog and Canvas. That way, students must get in contact with us directly to request a refund / unenrollment. Then, as an admin I would masquerade as the student - by adding a manual Canvas login, logging into Catalog as the student, and then clicking the "Drop" button after making it visible again with some jQuery. Following this, we would proceed with the refund in Touchnet (or your case authorize.net) and the student would receive notification. 
• The student is not refunded automatically. Luckily my office offers non-credit programs outside of the main University undergrad & grad programs, so our volume isn't as high and we can offer a satisfactory turnaround time for refund requests.

Let me know if I can clarify anything at all!
Best,
Kevin Hitt

USF Corporate Training 

[jsowalsk]

We are using authorize.net as well.

1. Does Catalog notify you as the admin when a course is dropped? If not, how do you manage users? Unfortunately, no. I have submit feature requests for this, when a new course is posted, when a new promotion is offered.
2. Is the refund automatic? If not, what process are you using to ensure the enrollee is refunded in a timely manner? No, first the refunds do not appear in Catalog -- only positive transactions. I use a separate spreadsheet to keep track of positive and negative transactions. Because if you provide a refund the analytics will not be correct in Catalog. I have a feature request for this as well. In addition, we have the admins of our subcatalogs drop students on behalf of the student in Catalog and then provide the refund in Authorize.net or ask the student to drop themselves from Catalog to provide a refund.

I hope this helps.

Jessica

[jsowalsk]

I forgot to mention I hid the drop button in Canvas and only students can drop the course from Catalog.

[TinaMSwanton]

Thank you this is very helpful information. I will be sure to vote for these feature requests.

[jsowalsk]

Thanks.

[univsys]

Hi jsowalsk@umd.edu‌!

Is there a difference between dropping in canvas vs dropping in catalog?

Does the recent "sync" functionality resolve this?

Thanks!

[jsowalsk]

Hi univsys@widener.edu‌,

Before this new feature, when you dropped in Canvas it did not reflect in Catalog. The new feature that got pushed out at least for our Catalog instance is not reflecting this (dropped in Canvas, reflects in Catalog). I have submitted a ticket and still waiting to hear about a fix. But, it should fix this if it works correctly. You can test it out in Beta - it works fine there.

[jsowalsk]

Also, we used CSS in Canvas to remove the button for dropping courses in Canvas. I would recommend this as well.