Advanced Features

Toodle includes more sophisticated functionality for allocation planning, session-level work management, and accountability.

These features build on the basic allocation and intermediate workflow systems by supporting complex staffing decisions and changes to individual teaching responsibilities.

Allocation Planning and Drafts

Toodle's allocation architecture supports preparing proposed tutor assignments separately from published course allocations.

Allocation drafts allow proposed assignments to be represented as a collection of entries associated with a draft plan.

Draft information can include proposed tutors, courses, working hours, reasons, and allocation explanations.

This structure supports reviewing allocation proposals before final staffing decisions are made.

Allocation Constraints

Allocation decisions are evaluated against the same core requirements used elsewhere in Toodle:

• Verified academic marks and minimum course requirements.
• Tutor availability.
• Timetable compatibility.
• Weekly working-hour limits.
• Existing assignments.
• Course staffing requirements.

The backend applies these rules when validating proposed changes.

Where supported, allocation locks and recorded reasons help staff maintain control over allocation decisions.

Dated Session Swaps

Toodle supports exchanging teaching responsibilities between tutors for specific scheduled session occurrences.

Unlike a change to a recurring course allocation, a dated session swap affects the responsibility for selected sessions without transferring ownership of the original course allocations.

A swap may involve tutors assigned to the same course or to different courses.

Session Selection and Suitability

Tutors can select a future session they are responsible for and identify another tutor's session for a proposed exchange.

Before submission, the system evaluates whether the exchange is suitable for both participants.

The checks consider:

• Whether each tutor meets the academic requirements for the incoming course.
• Whether each tutor is available for the proposed session.
• Whether the exchange creates timetable conflicts.
• Whether the adjusted workload remains acceptable.
• Whether the relevant session responsibilities are still available for exchange.

The system also considers the dates of the exchanged sessions, including cases where the sessions fall in different weeks.

Swap Request and Consent

A tutor initiates a swap by selecting the proposed sessions and submitting a request.

The receiving tutor must consent before the request can proceed to staff approval.

During this process, the original teaching responsibilities remain unchanged.

Pending swap requests do not automatically reserve or transfer session responsibility.

Staff Review and Approval

An administrator or authorised course coordinator reviews the proposed swap.

The reviewer can inspect the participants, session information, consent status, and eligibility results.

The swap is approved only after the relevant checks have been satisfied.

Approved swaps update responsibility for the two dated sessions while preserving the underlying course allocations.

The backend uses transactional processing and conflict checks to protect the consistency of these changes.

Session Responsibility Management

Toodle represents dated teaching responsibility separately from recurring course allocation ownership.

A session responsibility identifies:

• The original allocation and scheduled session.
• The specific session date.
• The original tutor.
• The tutor currently responsible for covering the session.
• Relevant scheduling information.
• The workflow responsible for the change.

This distinction allows a single session occurrence to be transferred without changing every future occurrence of the course's weekly timetable.

Connected Workflows

Approved responsibility changes are reflected throughout the application.

Feature	Behaviour
Calendar	Displays the affected dated sessions and incoming coverage
Calendar Feed	Represents transferred occurrences in subscribed calendars
Tutor Dashboard	Displays relevant incoming responsibilities
Timesheets	Allows work to be recorded against the actual responsible tutor
Excusals	Supports requests relating to a session received through a swap
Overflow Volunteering	Supports replacement coverage for affected dated sessions

These integrations maintain consistency between allocations, actual teaching responsibility, and recorded work.

Swap History and Reversal

Toodle records important swap actions, including requests, consent decisions, cancellations, staff reviews, and reversals.

Participants and authorised academic staff can review relevant swap history.

Reversing an Approved Swap

An approved swap can be reversed when the required conditions are satisfied.

The system checks that:

• Neither affected session has started.
• The recorded responsibilities still belong to the swap.
• No incompatible timesheet or excusal activity has occurred.
• The original tutors remain eligible to resume responsibility.

A successful reversal restores the original session responsibilities while retaining the history of the earlier decision.

These checks protect the consistency of downstream workflows.

Allocation and Workflow Auditing

Toodle records selected significant application actions through audit logs and workflow history.

Audit information can include:

• The action performed.
• The affected entity.
• The user responsible for the action.
• The date and time of the change.
• Relevant information before and after the operation.

This supports accountability and investigation of important administrative decisions.

Session swaps provide additional workflow-specific history for consent, review, approval, and reversal.

Data Consistency and Transaction Safety

Advanced allocation and session-management workflows may involve several related database records.

Toodle uses backend validation and database transactions to protect operations that must be completed consistently.

For example, approving a dated swap changes responsibility for both involved sessions. The system validates the proposed changes and uses transactional processing to avoid leaving an incomplete exchange.

The same principles support appropriate handling of competing decisions, outdated allocation information, and changes affecting already-assigned work.

These mechanisms help maintain consistent tutoring records across course allocations, calendars, timesheets, and session coverage.

Further Information

For instructions on submitting and reviewing session swaps, managing tutor allocations, and working with course-specific responsibilities, see Role Workflows.

The underlying REST endpoints are documented in the API Reference.

For database relationships and transaction support, see Database Design.