Integration
Timetabling alongside Banner
Banner builds the schedule around the section and the CRN. A timetabling system builds it around the room and the week. This page maps the two, field by field, in the form names your registrar’s office works in.
The unit of scheduling is the section
In the British model a module has a teaching pattern and the sessions are generated from it. In Banner the section is the thing itself: it is created on SSASECT, it is given a CRN, and its meeting times, instructor and room hang off it. Students register against the CRN.
That difference is the whole integration. Everything below follows from it, and it is also why the American half of the timetabling glossary is worth reading first if these words are new to you.
Which Banner field holds what
| Banner | What it holds | What the timetable does with it |
|---|---|---|
| CRN | Course Reference Number — the section’s identifier | The key everything else is matched on. Carry it through and keep it. |
| SSASECT | The form the schedule is built on | The source of almost every row below. |
| Term code | Which term this is | The academic year and the period inside it. |
| Subject and Course Number | Which course | Becomes the course. |
| Section | Which offering of it | Becomes the turn, and the groups under it. |
| Schedule Type | Lecture, lab, seminar | The teaching type, which is what most room rules are written against. |
| Instructional Method | In person, online, hybrid | Whether a room is needed at all. See online meeting links. |
| Part of Term | Full term, first half, second half | The week range. This is the field most often lost in an extract, and losing it books a room for twice as long as the class runs. |
| Meeting Times and Instructor | The block holding days, times and the teaching staff | The session itself. |
| Building and Room | Where it meets | The room, if Banner already holds one. Often it does not, and that is what the timetabling is for. |
| SSAMATX | Building and room schedules | The occupancy picture to reconcile against. |
| SSAXLST | Cross-list definitions | Sections taught together in one room. See combining student groups. |
| Maximum Enrollment and Waitlist Maximum | How many may register | The planned size a room has to hold. |
| SIAASGN, Percent of Responsibility | Who teaches it and how much of it | Lecturer assignment, and workload balancing. |
| SSARRES | Section restrictions | Who may register. Not timetabled, but it explains group sizes that look wrong. |
Which direction each thing travels
Into the timetable: the section list for the term — CRN, subject, course number, section, schedule type, part of term, maximum enrolment, instructor. That is the schedule request, and it is usually a single extract per term.
Out of the timetable: the meeting days and times and the building and room, matched back by CRN. Whether that is written into SSASECT or published beside Banner is your institution’s decision; both are normal, and the second avoids a change-control conversation you may not want in year one.
Registration is the constraint on timing. Rooms have to be fixed before students register, because the meeting time is part of what they are choosing. That is a harder deadline than the British equivalent and it is worth putting on the plan first.
The general form of this argument, without the field names, is in integrating your timetable with your SIS.
What we do not have, said plainly
There is no Banner connector in this product, no Ethos integration and no Ellucian partnership. If you need a certified integration, we are not it, and it is better to know that now than in week six of an evaluation.
What there is: Excel, CSV, XML and a documented REST API — importing data covers the 67 custom import codes and the 112-page reference, and SIS integration covers scheduled synchronisation. A Banner extract is a CSV, and that is the whole mechanism.
GET https://wise-tt.com/api/v2/meta answers with no token and no account, so your IT people can judge the API before anyone books a call.
Want to see this working?
Book a 45-minute online presentation and we will walk through it against your institution's own scheduling problem.