What it does

A placement cycle places students into clerkship tracks by lottery, by rules, or by a lottery first with remaining seats filled later. Coordinators collect rankings, run the draw, and publish. On Optimize cycles they also close hospital dates, set rotation order, and mark people unavailable so the solver does not place into those cells. Students rank their choices and later see which track they received.

Who it's for

Coordinators and program administrators in the administration portal who run yearly clerkship placement. Students in the personal portal who rank tracks and view a published placement. Optimize and leftover-optimize modes need the schedule optimizer on the institution plan.

How it works

A cycle is one campus’s placement run unless campuses share hospital seats — then you use one cycle and a campus group for each campus, not two Optimize cycles against the same seats. Campus membership comes from groups you already maintain, not from special roles.

Before you start

You need administration-portal access to Schedules. The program needs an academic period. Campus groups (for example a North campus group) should already have members if you plan to enroll from a group. Students will not see a placement receipt until you publish.

Do this

Open Optimizer (/schedules/optimizer). You should see the cycle list and the line Place people by lottery or by rules.
On that page, select the New Cycle button. You should see the create sheet. Enter a Name, choose an Academic Period, and keep Block selected. Under How will you place people?, keep Lottery selected for a campus draw. Select Create Cycle. You should see the cycle page with People, Tracks, Lottery, and Capacity in the tab list. A new cycle starts empty: the first screen is Start this cycle until you add rotations or people. The Roster, Tracks, Collect, Draw, and Publish band appears after that.
On the cycle page (/schedules/optimizer/:cycleId), open the People tab, then Enroll. You should see the enroll sheet with Roles, Groups, and Individuals — the same picker language as schedule Participants. Select a campus Group (and optionally people by name), then confirm. You should see a count of people who will be added; existing enrollments are skipped. Membership is a snapshot from that moment: later group or schedule roster changes do not change the cycle. If you created the cycle with Optimize this schedule, People can offer Use people from {schedule} instead of opening the picker first.
On the same cycle page, open the Tracks tab. If Add Track says the cycle has no rotations or blocks, open the Advanced section, add at least one rotation on the Rotations tab (Add Rotations) and one block on the Blocks tab (Add Period), then return to Tracks. Select Add Track. You should see a job sentence under the title, Seats with a short definition, and two lottery-kind cards: Closed — core year (learners rank this as one choice; leftover empty blocks can lottery later) and Open — elective (not used in Stage 1 lottery or learner ranking). Enter a Name and Seats, keep Closed unless you intend an open track, then fill the Year plan. You can add one rotation across several blocks with Add across blocks, paste or upload a rotation,block CSV with Import items, or add rows one at a time with Add item. Select Save Track. You should see the track in the table.
On the cycle page, open the People tab and select Send ranking invites. You should see how many people have not submitted. The dialog says they do not need to sign in, and that each link expires on the date shown in the list. Confirm send. Students open the private link and rank with Rank 1 as their top choice; other students cannot see that list. On that page they expand a rotation to pick a hospital (city and state show when known) and can view Your ranking in rank order, by rotation, or by site — Remove all asks before dropping a group. Use Ranking settings for the ranking window, how many choices people may pick, automatic reminders, and generate or revoke ranking links.
On People, review how many have ranked (for example 12 of 24 ranked). Filter Outstanding only to chase drafts and people who have not ranked yet. Select Remind outstanding if people still need to rank. When you are ready to draw, open the Lottery tab and select Run stage. You should see placements on Lottery; people who never ranked may appear as unplaced.
If some placed students still have empty blocks, Lottery also shows Stage 2 — Leftover electives. Select Open leftover ranking. Students rank leftover electives on My Schedule (/my-schedule) or the same ranking link you already sent. After they rank, select Run leftover lottery. You should see leftover placements; Stage 1 track placements stay. If nobody has leftover electives, Stage 2 does not appear.
Select Publish to schedule from Lottery or Results. Students open My Schedule (/my-schedule), choose the Optimizer tab. You should see a placement card with the track they received and whether it was their 1st, 2nd, or later choice.
On an Optimize cycle (/schedules/optimizer/:cycleId), open Capacity. You should see Capacity Rules, Blackouts, Unavailability, Dependencies, Cohort Quotas, and Participation — not a Constraints sub-tab. Select Add blackout to close dates a hospital cannot host (all sites, or chosen sites). Select Add prerequisite so one rotation must finish before another. Select Add time out for a person who cannot sit overlapping blocks. You should see a Will bind chip when that Capacity policy is on; Cycle constraints opens the cycle Constraints tab for the policy toggles. Optional time-out reasons must not include a diagnosis.

You're done when

The cycle is published and students see a placement card on My Schedule for that cycle. Unpublished cycles show ranking only, not a receipt. On an Optimize cycle, closed dates, time outs, and rotation order you saved on Capacity show in those lists before you run the solver.

Boundaries and limits

Lottery tabs exist only on block (clerkship) cycles. Shift and session cycles do not show Tracks or Lottery.
On Constraints, Type starts as the cycle family. A session cycle lists session rules; rotation-only rules (for example Dual credit) stay hidden until you choose All schedule types. Those extra rows are for reference — the cycle still only enforces session rules.
Overlap budget is a live soft goal on clinical rotation cycles. Extra placements in a period cost a penalty instead of failing the run. If the helper asks you to raise One assignment per period first, the budget cannot overlap yet because the hard cap is still 1.
Shift hour-balancing remains planned. Choose Shift when you create a cycle to run the same placement solver as a block cycle. It does not yet build a daily staff roster.
Optimize and Lottery, then optimize leftovers need the schedule optimizer on the institution plan. Lottery-only programs can still run the draw.
Hybrid leftover-optimize stays off until you select Lock lottery as starting placements on the Lottery tab. Re-running the lottery clears that lock until you lock again.
Leftover electives (Stage 2) appear only on a Lottery cycle after Stage 1, and only when at least one placed student still has an empty block. Unplaced Stage 1 students are not leftover students. Hybrid leftover seats go to the optimizer, not Stage 2.
Campuses are groups plus optional cohorts. Do not invent roles such as a campus-only year role. The enroll sheet still includes the shared Roles tab so you can snapshot existing program roles (for example PGY-2).
Two Optimize cycles must not compete for the same hospital seats. If campuses share hospital seats, use one Optimize cycle with a campus group for each campus; the solver uses cohort quotas, not a combined hospital-wide solve.
Duplicate creates a draft of tracks, blocks, and capacity. It does not copy published assignments. Enroll same people is off unless you turn it on.
Ranking and capacity messages go to people who have a user record. Site contacts without a user still use the copied capacity link.
Add across blocks and Import items add rows to the draft only. They do not save until you select Save Track. Import matches rotation and block names already on this cycle, not IDs.
Capacity does not offer a JSON constraint editor. Custom constraint rows never reached the solver. Policy on/off for blackouts, time outs, rotation order, and cohort caps lives on the cycle Constraints tab.
Closed dates apply to all sites or to chosen sites. They do not target a single rotation.
Rotation order is must complete A before B only. Other dependency types are not offered.
Time outs you add as coordinator are saved as approved. The optional reason must not include a diagnosis or clinical detail.
Turning a Capacity policy off on Constraints does not currently reopen those blocks — the solver still omits those cells.
Participation pauses capacity rules when a site is not participating. The solver does not read the participation roster as its own constraint list.
Cohort caps use each person’s primary cohort.

Common questions

Q: What is the difference between a closed track and an open track? A: Closed tracks are ranked and used in Stage 1 lottery. Open tracks are not used in Stage 1 or in ranking. Unused blocks on a closed track can go to leftover lottery after Stage 1.

Q: Should each campus get its own lottery cycle? A: Yes, when they do not share hospital seats. If they share seats, use one Optimize or hybrid cycle and a campus group for each campus.

Q: Can students see other people’s rankings? A: No. Rank 1 is their top choice. Other students cannot see the list.

Q: Where did the Preferences tab go? A: Ranking invites, reminders, export, and who has ranked now live on People. Use Ranking settings for the ranking window and links.

Q: Why is the optimizer tab disabled after a lottery? A: On a hybrid cycle, lock lottery placements first. Until then the optimizer will not run, so it cannot move those seats.

Q: Why don’t I see Dual credit on a session cycle? A: Type on Constraints starts as Session. Choose All schedule types to list rotation-only rules for reference. This cycle still only enforces session rules.

Q: Why does Overlap budget tell me to raise one assignment per period first? A: A learner cannot hold two placements in one period until that hard cap is above 1. Raise the cap, then set the overlap budget.

Q: Why don’t I see leftover electives on Lottery? A: Stage 2 appears only when a placed student still has an empty block. Students who were not placed in Stage 1 are not leftover students. Lottery, then optimize leftovers uses the optimizer for remaining seats, not Stage 2.

Q: Why did a student not get an invite email? A: Send ranking invites goes to people who have not submitted and have a ranking link. Failed rows stay on the list so you can copy the link.

Q: Where do students see why they got a track? A: After you publish, My Schedule shows the track and their choice rank. What does this mean? explains the lottery seed (equal chance at pick order) or that the optimizer used rankings and site capacity.

Q: Why is there no Constraints tab on Capacity? A: Capacity authors the objects the solver uses: seats, closed dates, time outs, rotation order, cohort caps, and participation. Policy toggles for those objects live on the cycle Constraints tab. Use Cycle constraints from Capacity to open it.

Q: Can I close dates for one rotation only? A: Not in this version. A blackout is all sites or chosen sites. It does not target a single rotation.

Q: Can a coordinator add a time out for someone on the cycle? A: Yes, for an enrolled person on that cycle. You cannot add a time out for someone who is not enrolled.

Lottery and optimizer placement cycles