Timetable Sessions: Short v Practical

Session pathways are how Vasto connects scheduled face-to-face training to student results. When a curriculum activity requires in-person attendance — such as a practical session, workshop, or event — a session pathway is what links that activity to a scheduled date, a trainer, and a venue, and determines what the trainer must record before the activity is considered complete.

There are two types of session pathway, each suited to a different delivery model:

• Practical sessions — used when sessions need to be scheduled individually per curriculum activity, with fine-grained control over what trainers must submit for each one.

• Short course sessions — used when a delivery has five or fewer face-to-face days and a single set of sessions should drive completion across all units in the course simultaneously.

Both types feed into the same completion logic: once all required grading is submitted for a session, the corresponding Practical Session activity in the student's unit is marked complete, which in turn drives overall unit and course completion.

Practical Sessions (Per-Activity Sessions)

When to use

Use practical sessions when your delivery has more than five face-to-face sessions, or when different units or activities in a course need to be graded separately against their own scheduled sessions.  You can also use Practical sessions where you are already making use of the Unit Clustering feature.

Admin setup

Practical sessions are configured from the Timetable Item Detail page, accessed by clicking the calendar icon next to a curriculum activity in a timetable item.  For more information on their setup check out this guide.

Completion logic

A practical session is considered complete for a student when all trainer task requirements configured on that session have been satisfied:

• If attendance is required: the student must be ticked as attended

• If pass/fail is required: the trainer must have set a pass result (not just marked attendance)

• If grade is required: the student's grade must meet the activity's passing grade threshold

• The session date must be today or in the past

When all compulsory sessions (and at least one optional session, if applicable) are complete, the linked Practical Session activity in the student's unit result is marked complete, triggering unit completion logic.

Short Course Sessions

When to use

Use short course sessions when a delivery is fully or partially face-to-face and has fewer than six face-to-face sessions. This mode is designed for intensive short courses where a single block of sessions covers all units in the course — the same attendance and grading record drives completion for every unit simultaneously rather than unit by unit.

Admin setup

Short course sessions are configured on the Timetable Item Profile page.  For more details around Practical Sessions, check out the Timetable Item guide

Completion logic

Short course sessions always require all three of the following before a student's activity is marked complete — there are no per-session flags to toggle:

• The trainer must have ticked the student as attended

• The trainer must have set a pass result (pass/fail flag)

• If the activity has a passing grade set above 0%, the student's grade must meet that threshold

When all short course sessions are complete for a student, the result is pushed to the Practical Session activity in every unit of the course that does not have its own regular sessions scheduled. This means a single short course grading record simultaneously completes the practical component across all units.

Note: Because short course sessions operate at the course level rather than the unit level, all units receive the same outcome. If units need to be graded independently, use practical sessions instead.