AMU­SMIS

User Manual

AMU‐SMIS User Manual

Administering Student Department Placement

This handbook is prepared for the best use of Arba Minch University Student Management Information
System (AMU-SMIS) while administering student department placement process.

Target Users: College, Department

[ Handbook for Arba Minch University Student Management Information System ]

AMU – Student Management Information System Mereb Technologies

1. Introduction

In this module, we’ll cover all the necessary steps that you need to follow in order to place
regular undergraduate students who are assigned by the ministry of education to departments
based on department demand & capacity and student preference & result. The assignment task
is expected to be done by the College/Institute using the account they get from the system
administrator.

The main tasks involved in the student placement are:

1. Defining participating departments in the placement.
2. Setting placement preference filling deadline.
3. Issue password to the student.
4. Filling student placement preference.
5. Setting department capacity along with reserved place for female, disability and
developing regions if there is any.
6. Setting placement result criteria/category.
7. Reserve students for each department from each result criteria/category.
8. Auto department placement
9. Auto Placement Cancellation
10. Auto placement report
11. Auto placement approval
12. Manual student department placement
13. Transferring students between departments and canceling the student from
department assignment

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2. Defining participating departments in the placement

Before you let students fill their preference form, you need to specify list of departments that
will participate in the competition based student placement to departments.

Important Note: If you already have list of students who are targeted to join a specific
department, please go to Section 13 “Manual student department placement” for all the steps
you need to follow to place students directly to a specific department.

To define departments that will participate in the placement, please go to the "Placement" tab
and you will get a page that lists students accepted in the current academic year. The page
looks like the following:

Figure 2-1: List of accepted students for the current academic year.

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Under the "Placement" tab you will get number of main menus. Just go to the "Quotas" main
menu and place your mouse on it to find list of sub-menus available. From the list, go to the
"Participating Departments" menu and click the "Add Departments" menu. You will find
the following page which allows you to select academic year and departments that will
participate in the student placement both from your college and other college.

Figure 2-2: List of departments to be participated in the student department placement for the
selected academic year.

On the left side of the above page, you will find list of departments from your own college and
on the right side you will get other departments from other college/institute of the university.

Select the academic year and one or more departments that will participate in the competition
based student placement for the selected academic year and click the "Submit" button which
is found at the end of the page.

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After you click the "Submit", you will get the following success message.

Figure 2-3: A success message after selecting participating departments in the student
department placement.

As you can see the above success page, the system asks you if you want to enter quota for the
selected participating departments. Let us skip this step for the time being and see how to get
list of recorded departments that will participate in the student placemat.

To get list of already recorded participating departments, just click "Participating

Departments" menu which is found under "Quotas" main menu and you will get a page
which is similar with the following the image below. From there you can also delete
departments that you do not want to participate in the auto placement.

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Figure 2-4: List of participating departments view in the student department placement.

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3. Setting placement preference filling deadline

The next step after making available participating department is setting preference filling
deadline to enable students to fill their department placement preference using their account
(we will see on how to issue a password to the student) within the time period you set.

To set preference filling deadline, place your mouse on the "Placement" main menu which is
found under the "Placement" tab. Then click "Add Preference Deadline" which is located
under "Preference Deadline" menu and you will find the following page.

Figure 3-1: A page displaying preference filling deadline recording.

Then all what you need to do at this stage is to tell the system the last date and time the
student is allowed to fill his/her department placement preference and to select the academic
year that this deadline is applied for.

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After selecting the deadline and academic year, click the "Submit" button and the system will
record your selection and display a success message as follows.

Figure 3-2: A success page after recording student department placement preference deadline.

Important Note: You cannot add multiple deadlines for the same academic year.
Rather use "Edit" to apply changes on the previously recorded deadline.

To view already recorded preference deadlines, just click "Preference Deadlines" menu
which is found under the "Preferences" main menu. The system will display all recorded
deadlines as follows.

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Figure 3-3: A page displaying student department placement preference feeling deadline.

From here you can view, edit and delete the deadline using the link/button available on the right
side.

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4. Issue password to the student

After setting student preference filling deadline, you should enable students to login into their
account and fill their department placement preference. You can achieve this by issuing a
username and password to the student. In order to do this, click "Issue Password" menu
which is found under “Accepted Students” main menu and you will get the following page.

Figure 4-1: A form prompting you to enter student ID to generate password.

As you can see from the above page, the system expects from you to give student number for
whom you want to create password. Just give student number/ID and click "Continue" button
to get the page where you can set a password for the student. Password issue page looks like
the following page.

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Figure 4-2: A form prompting you either to enter or generate a password for the selected
student.

From here you can either enter a password for the student or ask the system to generate the
password.

If you want to set the password for the student by your own, just enter the password in the
provided box next to the "Password" label and click "Set Password" button to save the
password.

If you want the system to choose the password for you, just click "Generate" button. The
system automatically choose fairly strong password for the student and click "Set Password"
button to save the password.

Important Note: Please do not forget to give the password you set/generate to the
student and to let s/he know that her/his username is her/his student number/ID.

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After you click "Set Password" button, you will get the following page which confirms that the
password is saved in the system and the student can start using it.

Figure 4-3: A success message after the entry of a password for the selected student.

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5. Filling student placement preference

Student department placement preference can be filled either by the student or by the faculty
on behalf of the student.

How a student can fill his preference?

First the student is expected to get his/her password from the faculty and then to login into the
system by using his/her ID as a username and the given password. Please see "The AMU-SIMS
interface" section of this document to get detail on how a student or any user can login into the
AMU-SMIS system.

After the student is logged into the system, s/he is expected to go to the placement section of
his/her account by clicking the "Placement" tab.

By default the system prompts the student to fill his/her department placement preference by
listing all departments available for choice. Department placement preference filling page looks
like the following image.

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Figure 5-1: A form asking the student to select his/her department placement preference.

The student is expected to select his/her department placement preference for all available
preference.

After the student finished his/her preference selection, s/he is required to click "Submit"
button and the system records his/her preference and display the following success message.

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Figure 5-2: A success message after a student fills his/her department placement preference

The student can view his/her department placement preference selection at any time by clicking
"List preferences" menu which is found under the "Preferences" main menu. S/he also can
change her/his preference as long as the deadline is not passed by clicking the "Edit" button
which is found on the right side of the preference list.

How college/institute fill student department placement preference?

In case a student is unable to fill his/her department placement preference by his/her own, the
college/institute can fill student's preference which is usually presented to the college/institute
in the form of paper.

In order to fill student's preference, click "Add Preference" menu which is found under the
"Preferences" main menu in the "Placement" section/tab and you will find the following
page.

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Figure 5-3: A form asking the user to select academic year to get list of students to fill their
department placement preference.

Select the academic year and click "Continue" button to get list of students whose preference
is not yet filled. The displayed page looks like the following image.

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Figure 5-4: A form asking the user to select a student for whom to enter department placement
preference.

Click "Add Preference" button which is found next to the student for whom you want to fill
his/her department placement preference and you will get the following page that will enable
you to fill student preference.

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Figure 5-5: A form asking the user to select department placement preference for the student.

Based on student placement preference, select department for each given preference and click
"Submit Preference" button. You will get the following success message for correct
department placement preference entry and you will be redirected to the list of students who
didn't fill their preference.

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Figure 5-6: A success message after filling student department placement preference.

If you make a mistake when you fill student placement preference or the student changes
his/her preference, you can update previously recorded student placement preferences.

In order to update, click "List Preferences" menu which is found under "Preferences" main
menu and you will find list of already recorded student’s department placement preferences.
From the list, click the "Edit" link which is found next to the student for whom you want to
apply the update and you will find the following preference update form filled with the already
recorded preferences.

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Figure 5-7: A form asking the user to update student’s department placement preference.

Apply your changes and click "Save All Preference" button. The system then save the
updated preference and display a success message for the update.

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6. Setting department capacity along with reserved place for female,

disability and developing regions if there is any

Before running the auto student placement to departments, you need to apply some settings
that will be used by the auto placement module. One of the settings is defining each department
intake quota/capacity along with its reserved place for female, disability and developing regions,
if there is any. In order to do this, go to "Placement" tab/section and select "Add/Edit
Quota" menu which is found under "Participating Departments" sub-menu and "Quotas"
main menu and you will find the following page.

Figure 6-1: A form asking the user to select academic year for which to set quota for each
participating department in the auto student department placement.

The above page asks you to select the academic year for which you want to set department
quota/capacity. Select the academic year and click "Continue" button and you will get the
following page that will enable you to fill each department quota/capacity.

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Figure 6-2: A form asking the user to enter department capacity, to select regions which are
considered as developing and to enter privileged students’ quota.

As you can see from the above image, the system informs you total number of students
available in the system along with total number of female students, students with disability and
students from developing regions. Based on the given data, you are required to set each
department intake quota/capacity along with privileged quota, if there is any. You can also select
region/s which is/are considered as developing regions. Make an entry and click the "Save
Quota" button so that you can become ready for the next setting.

Important Note:
1. The sum of each department quota/capacity cannot exceed from the total number of
students. The same is holds true for female, disability and developing regions quota.
2. Department quota/capacity is the sum of competition based assignment and privilege
quota.

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If you make a mistake or want to apply changes to the already recorded department
quota/capacity, please repeat the same process as you did for the department quota/capacity
entry to update your entry.

7. Setting placement result criteria/category.

The next setting is adding placement result criterion which is mainly used in student talent
distribution across participating departments in the auto student placement.

To start with click "Add Placement Result Criteria" menu this is found under
“Placements Results Criteria” main menu in the placement section/tab and you will find the
following page.

Figure 7-1: A form asking the user to select academic year for which to define result category.

Select the academic year for which you want to set result criteria and check on the
"Preparatory Result" if you are using preparatory result or uncheck if you are using student first

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semester result and click "Continue" button to get the following page that will enable you to
set different result criteria.

Figure 7-2: A form asking the user to define result category.

In setting result criteria you need to specify the name of the result category for example top,
medium, low, .... one at a time and then for each result category name enter range of result for
example for top result category 300 - 400 for medium result category 100 - 299 . . . one at a
time. Your each entry will be displayed at the bottom right side of the page. You can also delete
the already recorded result criteria using the "Delete" button next to each result category.

To view already recorded result categories, click "List Placement Result Criteria" menu
that is found under "Placements Results Criteria" main menu in the "Placement"
section/tab and you will find all recorded result criteria for the current academic year as
follows.

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Figure 7-3: A page displaying list of result categories.

Important Note: Your result category should be unique and includes every student result.
In case of any left students who are not included in the result category, the system will force
you to either redefine the already existing result criteria or to create a new result category
to include those left students.

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8. Reserve students for each department from each result

criteria/category.
The last step in the auto placement setting is distributing students to each department from
each result category. To do this click "Add/Edit Reserved Place For Department" menu
that is found under "Reserved Places" main menu in the "Placement" section/tab and you
will find the following page.

Figure 8-1: A form asking the user to select academic year for which to reserve students from
each result category to each departments.

From here select the academic year for which you want to reserve students from each result
category to each department and click "Continue" button. Below is the page where you can
perform your settings.

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Figure 8-2: A form asking the user to enter number of students for each result category and for
each department.

Using the above page you need to distribute students from all result categories to each
department. The system will assist your entry by displaying a number you are left with or
excessively entered.

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9. Auto department placement

After students fill their department placement preference and you finalize your settings, the
next step will be instructing the system to place students based on the given settings and
student preference. To do this, click "Auto Department Placement" menu which is found
under "Accepted Students" main menu under the "Placement" section/tab and then you
will find a page that will ask you for which academic year you want to run the auto placement.
Select the academic year and wait for few seconds to get summery before you click the "Run
Auto Placement" button. The summery looks like the following image.

Figure 9-1: A form asking the user to select academic year for which the user wants to run the
auto placement.

You are required to view the summery and need to confirm the settings before you click "Run
Auto Placement" button. If you need to make changes on the settings, you need to go back
where you originally perform the settings to apply changes.

If you are comfortable with the settings you see on the summery page then what you are
supposed to do is to click "Run Auto Placement" button. Based on the given settings and
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student preference, the system places students to departments and give you a report which
lists students who are placed under each department. It will also give you an option to export
the auto placement result in Excel and PDF. Below is the page that you will find after running
the auto placement.

Figure 9-2: A page displaying a success message for the auto assignment of students to
departments with the option to export the result.

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10. Auto placement report

The above page details every student and department allocation. If you want to get this report
again, click "Auto Report" menu which is found under the "Accepted Students" main menu
in the "Placement" section/tab and you will find the following page that asks you to select the
academic year for which to generate placement report.

Figure 10-1: A form asking the user to select academic year for which the system to generate a
report for the student auto placement to departments.

Select the academic year and click "Continue" button. The system will retrieve and display a
report on the student placement for the selected academic year.

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11. Auto Placement Cancelation

If you change your mind and want to cancel the auto placement result, click "Cancel Auto
Placement" menu which is found under the "Accepted Students" main menu in the
"Placement" section/tab and you will find the following page.

Figure 11-1: A form asking the user to select academic year for which s/he wants to cancel the
auto placement.

Select the academic year for which you want to cancel the auto placement and click the
"Continue" button. The system displays summarized auto placement report and asks if you
want to cancel the result as follows.

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Figure 11-2: A page asking the user to confirm the cancelation of the auto assignment of the
students to departments.

Click "Cancel Auto Placement" button to confirm the cancelation. The system then cancels
the placement and gives you a success message as follows.

Important Note: Auto placement cancelation will not be allowed if students are accepted
and processed by the departments. Rather you need to use department transfer to make
changes.

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Figure 11-3: A success message for the cancellation of the auto student placement to
departments.

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12. Auto placement approval

After placing students to departments, the next step you need to do is to approve your
assignment to departments so that the result become officially appears to the student,
department, registrar and other privileged offices.

To do the approval, click "Auto Placement Approval" menu which is found under
"Accepted Students" main menu in the "Placement" section/tab and the following page will
appear that asks you to select the academic year for which you want to make your approval.

Figure 12-1: A form asking the user to select academic year for the auto placement approval.

Select the academic year and click "Continue" button and you will find the following page that
will enable you to make your approval.

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Figure 12-2: A form asking the user to enter minute number for the approval of the auto
placement of students to departments.

On the above page enter the minute number and click "Approve" button to make available the
result to the public (student, registrar, department, and other privileged offices).

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13. Manual student department placement

You have also an option to place selected students directly to a specific department. This
usually happens when students are already selected by the Ministry of Education to join a
specific department or the university wants certain students with some criteria (for example in
written exam) to join a specific department.

Important Note: Manual placement of students to departments should be done before

running auto placement.

To place selected students to a department, click "Manual Department Placement" menu

which is found under "Accepted Students" main menu under the "Placement" section/tab
and then you will find the following page that will enable to make the actual student assignment
to a department.

Figure 13-1: A form asking the user to select academic year to get list of students for manual
student assignment to department, cancellation and moving.

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From the above page, select the department to which you want students to join and then select
one or more students from the available list of students for the selected academic year and
click "Assign To Selected Department" button to place selected students to the selected
department.

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14. Transferring students between departments and canceling the student

from department assignment
After you run the auto placement, you can transfer the student from one department to
another department and cancel his/her assignment AS LONG AS THE STUDENT IS NOT
APPROVED by the department. If the student is already approved by the department, you are
required to follow the formal procedure of transferring the student from one department to
another department.

To do the above mentioned tasks, click "Manual Department Placement" button which is
found under the "Accepted Students" main menu in the "Placement" section/tab and then
you will be prompted to select academic year for which you want to perform the transfer or
cancelation as follows.

To transfer the student from one department to another department, select the target
department and then the student and finally click "Transfer to Selected Department"
button to instruct the system to transfer selected students to the selected department.

To cancel the already assigned student/s, select the student and click "Cancel Selected
Student Placement" button to instruct the system to cancel the student assignment to a
department.

After you perform both operations, the system will display a success message but do not forget
that the operation can only be performed if the student is not processed by the department.

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15. Other AMU-SMIS Manuals

If you are unable to get what you are looking from this manual, please check also the following
AMU-SMIS manuals.

No AMU-SMIS Manual Target Users

1. The Basics All Users
2. Administering Student Admission Registrar
3. Administering Student Department Placement College/Institute, Department
4. Managing Accepted Students Department
5. Section Management Department, College/Institute
6. Curriculum Management Department
7. Semester Course Publication Management Department, College/Institute
8. Student Course Add, Drop, Substitution and Department, College/Institute
Exemption Request Management
9. Registrar Course Registration/Add/Drop Registrar
Management
10. Exam and Grade Management Department, College
11. Registrar Grade Management Registrar
12. Student Billing Management Registrar
13. Student Clearance/Withdraw Management Registrar, Department, College,
Offices which gives clearance
14. Student Readmission Management Registrar, College
15. Course Schedule Management College
16. Exam Schedule Management College
17. Student Dormitory Management Dormitory Service
18. Student Meal Management Meal Service
19. Student Medical History Management University Clinic
20. System Administration System Administrator

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Please find the above manuals from your either System Administrator of AMU-SMIS or help
desk for AMU-SMIS

If you are looking for further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the help desk for
AMU-SMIS.

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