Summary
This article provides Degree Planner advisors the procedure to approve, review or return plans using the administrator capabilities in Degree Planner. It also provides some guidance for non-advisors on how to get students an approved plan.
Before you begin
This article is intended for Shoreline Staff ONLY. Most students and many other staff members will not have access to administrative features, so this article will likely not prove helpful to understanding or using Degree Planner. If you are not an administrator for Degree Planner or do not have access to view or change student plans, please use the link to learn about Degree Planner for students. This article also assumes you have some familiarity with Degree Planner, so it will not be replicating information provided in the Knowledge Base articles for students, instead supplementing it with the additional powers granted to administrators for Degree Planner. If you do not have familiarity or need a refresher, the link is also a useful resource for you to explore before continuing with this article.
Knowledge Base: Degree Planner for Students
General Approval Structure
Please note: ONLY ADVISORS CAN APPROVE PLANS
The conditions for approval are completely up to each individual advisor. Advisors can use their professional discretion to determine what constitutes an approved plan for them and those criteria may differ between advisors. Leaving placeholders in plans is perfectly OK and will not stop a plan from being approved.
Approving a plan is simple, as the link is available in the menu bar in every plan.
You can leave a comment about this plan when approving it.
Any comment made here will also populate in the plan history.
Approved plans will get a status change to Approved, and will always populate at the top of the list of plans in Degree Planner.
The best way to differentiate between plans students or other staff members have made and plans that have been reviewed by advisors is in approving plans.
If you are not an advisor and want an advisor to review and approve a plan made in Degree Planner, be sure to ask the student to review the plan and use the Request Approval link in the plan.
The student can leave a comment in the request that they had help with this plan from staff member.
This will also appear in the plan history.
Student-Submitted Plans
When a student has Requested Approval of a plan, they will be able to leave a comment about it, which can include details about their goals and why they had chosen this plan. This request will change the status of the plan to Approval Requested.
Approval requests will always go to their assigned advisor, if they have one. This person will be shown at the top of the Request Approval link. If there are more than one assigned advisor, the student can choose which advisor to send to the request to. If they do not have an assigned advisor, the request will be forwarded to the general advising email address.
The request will automatically generate an email to the assigned advisor chosen. It will be structured like this:
From: notices@degreeplanner.starfishsolutions.com < notices@degreeplanner.starfishsolutions.com >
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2025 9:11 AM
To: [Advisor Email Address]
Subject: Email From Starfish: Plan Approval Request
Dear [Assigned Advisor], [Student Name] has requested approval on their degree plan with the following comments: “[student comments]".
Returning Plans
If upon review of a student-submitted plan, an advisor believes that more work is needed they have the option to Return a plan.
This essentially allows the advisor to send a message to the student, asking follow-up questions or requesting a further meeting to refine or rework a plan. Returned plans will have the status change and an email sent to the student with the comments.
They will also appear in the plan history with the comments made.
Students may continue to work on plans and resubmit them for approval several times as they work on the plan.
After Approval
Any administrator in Degree Planner can change or modify an Approved plan without changing its status as Approved. It is designed that way so that advisors can make minor changes to plans without needing to constantly approve them. However, it is recommended that if you make any significant change to a plan that you approve the plan again, so that the change is fully captured in the plan history with any comments needed.
Student actions can cause plans to lose its Approval status, returning it to 'In Progress.' Students are free to choose courses from placeholders without changing its status, but any other change made to an approved plan can cause it to lose approval. Students will be warned when they attempt to make such a change.
Support Options
If you run into a problem using Degree Planner, use the link to file a ticket for support:
Starfish Support: Degree Planner Platform
You can also find more articles about Degree Planner and how to build plans using the link:
Knowledge Base: Degree Planner for Students