After over nine years on the OCM Scheduling Team, Susan Niece is heading into a well-earned retirement! Her last day will be June 6, 2025. If you've ever emailed ocmsched@umn.edu, you know how much she brings to the table—clear communication, deep knowledge of departmental needs, and a genuine commitment to service and student success. Susan played a key role in revamping our final exam process in recent years and is always the first to offer a helping hand to her team. We'll definitely miss her presence, but we're so excited for her next chapter. Congratulations, Susan!
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Spring 2025 final exams
The list of final exams and common exams that have been scheduled is available on the Spring 2025 Final Exam and Common Exam Scheduled Rooms spreadsheet.
If you do not see a class on that list and know the class intends to have an in-person final exam, please fill out the final exam request as soon as possible.
Spring 2025 grading due dates
Spring 2025 full semester and second 7-week session grades are due on Monday, May 19, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. A complete list of grading due dates, how-to guides, and policies are available on the ASR website.
25Live update
25Live will replace Astra as the University’s class and room scheduling system on Tuesday, June 17, 2025.
There are a few things we’d like to make you aware of as we prepare for this change:
- Events scheduled in your departmentally managed rooms in Astra will not be moving over into 25Live. Any event scheduled in Astra happening on June 17th or later, will need to be re-entered in 25Live.
- How can you find your scheduled events in Astra?
- Go to the Events tab in Astra
- In filters:
- Set start date to June 17th, 2025
- Select the rooms you schedule to find a list of scheduled events in those rooms.
- Export to Excel to have your list.
- OCM (and other high-volume event schedulers) have already started moving their events into 25Live.
- New Astra access is no longer being granted and Astra training modules have been retired.
- Training for 25Live will be available the last week of May. This training will be online and required to maintain access to 25Live. You will be automatically enrolled in this training and receive more detailed information shortly before it is available.
- Astra will become view-only at the end of the day on Friday, June 13. This is to ensure a smooth data transition.
- If you have any internal materials (e.g., webpages, handbooks) that refer to Astra, please ensure they are updated to reflect 25Live. Upon launch, z.umn.edu/25live will be the replacement link. Current Astra z-links will be redirected.
You can find more information on the project webpage, including screenshots of frequently-used pages in 25Live.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact ocmsched@umn.edu.
May/Summer 2025 updates
May session begins on May 19th. Please contact ocmsched@umn.edu about May/Summer classes if:
- A class does not have a room assignment and needs one.
- A variable credit class needs to have a set number of credits for summer 2025.
- After financial aid has been disbursed, the number of credits for a class cannot be altered.
- A class with enrollment needs to be canceled.
Waitlist troubleshooting
There are three common reasons why students on the waitlist are not automatically enrolled:
- The Auto Enroll from Waitlist process has not run yet.
- If you increase the number of seats OR a student drops from the class leaving a seat available (that has a waitlist with students waiting), the Auto Enroll from Waitlist process will run overnight.
- The student was justifiably not enrolled for a reason, and they received an email as to why they could not be enrolled.
- Those emails to students are available, per term, on the UM Waitlist Email History page (Records and Enrollment > Term Processing Waitlist > UM Waitlist Email History).
- The “Auto Enroll from Waitlist” checkbox on the class section is NOT checked.
- If this box is unchecked, the Auto Enroll from Waitlist process will NOT run for that section. Instead, the class will look open for any student to enroll, even if there are students sitting on the waitlist.
Review room assignments for fall 2025 (1259)
While OCM is still working to assign classrooms for all classes, most room assignments for fall 2025 are available on the Class Schedule.
- Review assignments for your department to ensure all classes requiring a general-purpose classroom have been assigned.
- If you are planning to schedule some classes in a departmental space, please notify ocmsched@umn.edu if you need assistance, or if a general-purpose classroom will become available as a result.
Please remind instructors that room assignments are subject to change before the start of the term, so they should check the schedule again closer to the semester's start.
Making spring 2026 (1263) classes eligible for Freshman Full Year (FRFY) registration
Freshman orientation will soon be underway on the Twin Cities campus. During orientation, incoming freshmen have the ability to register for both fall 2025 and spring 2026 at the same time, if set up correctly.
For students to be able to register for spring 2026 classes, the Freshman Full Year (FRFY) course attribute must be added to the class. This is done in the UM CCS Maintain Sched of Class page on the Basic Data tab, as seen below.
Classes with the attribute are open for registration, but only to students with the “FRFY Freshman Full Year Registration” student group on their record.
If you discover your department missed applying the FRFY attribute to a class, the CCS scheduler should add the attribute in CCS. A daily query identifies those classes with a newly added FRFY attribute, and the requisite stopping them from registering for the class is removed to allow freshmen to register.
CCS user workshops
Please join us for our monthly CCS user workshops. These workshops allow us to connect with our departmental schedulers and review relevant topics.
These workshops are conducted over Zoom on the second Tuesday of the month from 11:00-11:30 a.m. (15–20 minute presentation with time for discussion).
To attend a workshop, simply add the class schedule production calendar to your Google Calendar:
A Zoom meeting link and materials will be added to the calendar event closer to the day of the workshop.
Upcoming topics
- June 10th - 25Live
- July 8th - 25Live