Superterms

Not every school needs Superterms! If you think you do, contact Populi Support to ask about enabling them for your school and we'll help you evaluate whether it would be best for your school (and if the answer is Yes, we'll flip the switch).

Superterms combine multiple terms together for the purpose of billing, financial aid, calculating enrollment statuses, or displaying enrollments on a transcript. They can combine any terms, regardless of whether their Term Types allow overlapping dates. Terms combined within a Superterm are called Subterms. For example, the "Summer 2027-2028" Superterm might contain a group of Subterms, including terms that can overlap and terms that cannot:

• Superterm: Summer 2027-2028
• Subterms:
  • 2027-2028: Summer
  • 2027-2028: Summer-Online
  • 2027-2028: June Session
  • 2027-2028: July Session

Term Types

You'll set up Superterms and Subterms

After you create a Superterm, you use program mappings to define how the Superterm will be used—for transcript purposes or billing (and financial aid). For example, with our Summer 2027-2028 Superterm:

• You map the Subterms for transcript but not billing: Student transcripts show enrollments for those three Subterms under the 2027-2028 Summer Superterm. But with billing excluded, each Subterm has its own start/end dates on which things like refund policies, course charges, etc. are based.
• You map them for billing but not transcript: A student's transcript shows his courses under their respective Subterms. However, his tuition schedule captures all enrollments across the three Subterms and charges him accordingly—in this case, he might be charged as a full-time student instead of the part-time rate.

Setting up Superterms

1. Go to Academics > Settings > Term Types.
2. Click Add a Term Type.
3. Give the Term Type a name and display name. Set the Level to Superterm.
4. Enter the default dates, overlap settings, add/drop days, and Use For flags for the Superterm.
5. Click Save.
6. Create one or more Subterm Term Types and select the Superterm Term Type as their parent.
7. When you create a new academic year, Populi will generate the Superterm and link its Subterms automatically.

After creating the Superterm and Subterm Term Types, you'll need to define how the generated Superterm will be used—for transcripts and/or billing/aid—in a program's academic term mappings. You can also map a single term to another term. For example, say your school offers a Fall term and a separate Fall Workshop term that has different billing. If you want it to appear as one term on the transcript, you would not need to add the Fall term as a Superterm, but would rather use the Map one term to another option, mapping Fall Workshop to the Fall term. Enrollments will be grouped in the Fall term on their transcript, but billing can be separate per each term.

1. Go to Academics > Programs and select a program.
2. In the right column, click add next to Academic Term Mappings.
3. Select whether to use a Superterm's mappings or simply map one term to another.
4. Check to use the mapping for transcript purposes or for billing/financial aid (or both!).
5. Click Save to finish.

Now that you've done this, for students in that program...

• Their transcripts will show courses taken in a Subterm as taken during the Superterm (both in Populi and on exported transcripts).
• Charges incurred during a Subterm will be handled via the Superterm.
• Financial aid awards that cover Subterm charges can be disbursed in the Superterm.

Some notes about reporting:

• Superterms appear with a [*] next to them in reporting tools like the Data Slicer, term drop-down selectors, et. al.
• Students with Superterm enrollments will have a [*] next to their names in certain reports like Academic Term > Students.
• To report on enrollments in Subterms mapped to Superterms, you would use the Data Slicer filter Enrollments Reported in Term.

Superterms and Term Type levels

Most Term Types are Term level: standalone academic terms such as Fall, Spring, or Summer. If your school needs to group terms together for billing, transcript, or registration purposes, you can use Superterms and Subterms.

To use Superterms:

1. Create a Term Type with level Superterm.
2. Create one or more Term Types with level Subterm and select the Superterm as the parent.
3. When you create a new academic year, Populi generates the Superterm and links its Subterms automatically.

A childless Superterm type (one with no Subterm types) will not generate any terms when an academic year is created.

About Superterms

Superterms are only available if the Superterms feature is enabled for your school. If you do not see the Superterm option when adding a Term Type, your school does not have Superterms enabled.

If your school uses Superterms, a Superterm groups two or more subterms together for billing, transcript, and registration purposes. For example, you might have a Winter Superterm that contains Winter Part 1 and Winter Part 2, The Sequel. Students enroll in courses within the subterms. Billing and transcript reporting roll up to the Superterm level when the Superterm's Term Type is checked for Billing and/or Transcript, respectively.

To use Superterms, first create a Term Type with level Superterm. Then create one or more Term Types at the Subterm level and map it to the Superterm as the parent. When you create a new academic year, Populi will generate the Superterm and link the subterms automatically.