Administrative Editing of Data

Last Modified: May 1, 2026

Overview

With very few exceptions, data entered into Spartan Connect cannot be edited or deleted. These guidelines should cover most common situations where data changes would be acceptable and how they would be accomplished.

When in doubt, reach out to SpartanConnect@sjsu.edu for assistance.

Use Cases

• Changing Date/time (e.g. backdating, adjusting duration)

• Changing reported service for appointments

• Accidentally saved blank or incomplete entry

• Saved data for wrong student

• Supplemental or contextual data needed

• Undoing a student No-Show entry

Some desired edits are not worth the time it would take to make the request to edit. For example, basic spelling or grammar mistakes that do not fundamentally alter the understanding of the data entered can be ignored.

Archiving Data

For some data edits, keeping the previous version of the entry may be necessary. In these cases, the data is copied out of Spartan Connect to a secondary location for archiving. This process is only necessary when the data edit is for redaction of inappropriately entered information or changes the context of data entered and the University may need to view the content as it was entered before redaction or removal. Archiving isn’t necessary when changing simple data elements like date/time or adjusting reported services.

In general, if the edit fundamentally changes the context of an interaction or removes data from a student’s record that was not entered in error (i.e. saved for the wrong student) then it should be archived.

For archiving, the general guidelines would be to create a separate Google Doc for each archive entry and capture a screenshot of relevant data to be edited (i.e. capturing the “before” context) as well as a copy/paste of the raw text for ease of searching later. The student name and ID number must be noted as well.

For context and explanation of the reason for editing, and by extension the reason for archiving must be included in the archived document. This could include a copy of the email conversation where the user requested the edit of data.

Finally, the archiving of data before it’s edited (or deleted) allows for undoing what may have been a mistaken edit or deletion, in the case of user error or confusion. Having a backup copy can be useful.

Editing Data

For those users with the administrative permission to edit appointment summary reports or notes for others, a button on these entries for “edit” will appear and unlock the normally read-only fields. Changes can be made to the original entries (with appropriate archiving taking place beforehand, if necessary) and re-saved.

Editing an Appointment Summary

For users with “Edit Report” permission, when viewing an existing appointment summary, the edit button will be visible near the cancel button.

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When the necessary edits are completed, the report must be saved again.

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Editing a Note

For users with “Edit Note” permission, a link to reopen the note for editing appears in the student history timeline.

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When the necessary edits are completed, the note must be saved again.

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Edits are permanent and irreversible, so extra care must be taken to ensure the edit is absolutely necessary and is being done on the appropriate record entry.

Deleting Data

For data entries that must be deleted, these changes are required to be done by system administrators. Reach out to SpartanConnect@sjsu.edu to proceed with the deletion request.

Avoiding the need for Deletion

For some situations, the need for deletion can be avoided by trying to correct a mistaken data entry with another entry for the same student.

For example, if a user saves a blank appointment summary or a note for a student, realizes their mistake and saves a second, correct, summary or note right after, this creates duplicate data entries for the same student interaction and produces bad data. One of these entries will need to be deleted to clean up the data, but this would then require a system administrator to take care of it. The deletion can be avoided if the user does not create a second entry and instead asks for the first entry to be edited.

This situation also applies to adding supplemental data to a student record for the same interaction. Instead of adding a second summary or note, ask for the first one to be edited to include the additional information.

Inadvertent no-shows are included in this scenario, wherein a user marks a student as a no-show preemptively and the student ends up attending the appointment anyway. If the appointment is completed with a second summary, the duplicate data entry problem will happen, requiring a deletion. Asking for the no-show entry to be edited with the appropriate summary (and removal of the no-show by marking the student as attended) is the correct pathway to get the data updated.