Seating chart designer

Overview

The Seating Chart Designer helps you create a visual layout of your classroom. You can build and save multiple seating chart layouts, move students without starting from scratch, and reuse layouts from current or past terms. You can also add or remove students as needed.

Seating chart features

Feature	Description
Seats	Use these options to add rows of students, a table grouping of students, or an individual student chair to the seating chart layout.
Objects	Use these options to add classroom objects to the seating chart layout.
Controls	Use the controls to perform the following functions: Remove a selected object or chair from the layout. Undo the previous action. Save the layout.
Add students	Use Populate and Clear All to move students to and from the chairs on the layout.
Zoom slider bar	Use the slider bar to increase or decrease the size of the Seating Chart.

Prepopulate a blank layout

If there’s no seating chart yet, you can prefill the layout with student photos before customizing it. This is helpful if you don’t want to build a full layout but still want to use the student selector tools.

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Click OK to populate student photos in a standard grid layout. You can then choose to customize the layout. Alternatively, click Cancel to customize the layout before populating the student photos.

Create a layout

Design a seating chart by placing chairs and objects on the layout, then populate it with students.

When you add chairs and objects to a layout, they are automatically highlighted, so you can move the object to any location on the layout.

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout menu, select [New Layout].
Enter a name and description for the new layout.
Select Create a new layout from scratch and then click Finish.
Add seats to the layout.
- Click Chair to add a single box representing a seat.
- Click Rows to add multiple chairs in a row configuration.
  1. From Add Rows of Chairs, select the number of rows and the number of students per row from the lists. A preview image of the row configuration appears on the seating chart and updates based on the options selected in the dialog.
  2. Click Add to add the row configuration to the seating chart.
- Click Tables to add multiple chairs in a table configuration.
  1. From Add Chairs in a Table Format, select the number of tables, the number of chairs per table, and the table orientation. A preview image of the table configuration appears on the seating chart and updates based on the options selected in the dialog.
  2. Click Add to add the table configuration to the seating chart.
Optionally, click an object to add it to the seating chart.
Use the Text object to represent anything that you want to place on the seating chart, such as a fire extinguisher, sink, or a phone, represented as a text box,
Select chairs and objects to move then to different locations on the layout. Click Undo to cancel the previous action.
Click Save.

Access an existing layout

Saved seating chart layouts are available for the class in which they were created.

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout list, choose an existing layout.

Create a new layout from a pre-existing layout

Use an existing layout as a template when creating a new layout or create a template with no students populated to use as a starting point for all of your layouts.

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout menu, select [New Layout].
Enter a name and description for the new layout.
Select Start from a pre-existing layout and then click Next.
Choose the layout and click Finish.
Modify the layout as needed.
Click Save.

Save an existing layout as a new layout

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout menu, choose a seating chart.
Click Edit.
Enter a name and description for the new layout.
Click Save As New.
Click Continue.

Populate students to a seating chart

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout menu, choose a seating chart.
From Add Students, click Populate.
Choose how to add students to seats, and then click Add.
Optionally, click Clear to remove the students from the seating chart.
When all student are added to chairs, click Save.

Add a single student to the seating chart

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout menu, choose a seating chart.
Add the student:
- Click Chair to a seat on the layout. Then, from Add Student, select the student and drag and drop the photo to the chair.
- From Add Student, select a student and drag and drop the photo on the layout. A chair is automatically created.
Repeat to add additional students to the layout.
Click Save.

Remove students and objects from a layout

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout menu, choose a seating chart.
Select an object and click Remove.
To remove students, do one of the following:
- Click the x on the student photo. The student is returned to Add Students, but the chair remains on the layout.
- Select a student photo, and then click Remove. The student is returned to Add Students, and the chair is removed from the layout.
- Click and drag the student photo to Add Students. The student is returned to the Add Students bar, and the chair is removed from the layout.
- Click and drag the cursor across a row or table group to select multiple students, or select multiple student photos, and then click Remove. The students are returned to Add Students, and the chairs are removed from the layout.
- Click Clear All to remove all student photos from the layout. The student photos are returned to Add Students, but the chairs remain on the layout.
Click Save.

Switch student seats on a layout

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout menu, choose a seating chart.
Select the two students you want to switch seats. A double-arrow icon is displayed on both student photos.
Click the double-arrow icon on either student's photo. The student seats switch.
Repeat to switch additional student seats.
Click Save.

Combine layouts

For multi-section classes, you can combine layouts to use the seating chart features on a single layout.

From the navigation menu, select a course.
Navigate to Seating chart designer and click Launch designer.
Select Seating Chart Design.
From the layout menu, choose a seating chart.
Click Edit. The Edit Layout pop-up appears.
From Edit Layout, enter a name and description for the new layout.
Select a layout or multiple layouts to combine with the current layout from the available list.
Do one of the following:
- To save the combined layout as a new layout, enter a name for the new layout in the Name field, enter a description, and Click Save As New.
- To save the combined layout to the selected layout, click OK.
Optionally, update the layout.
Click Submit.