At Mines, Smart Plan is a degree planning tool that works in tandem with Degree Works, guiding students through their degree plan to stay on track and to graduate on time. It allows students to dynamically plan, register, and collaborate with their academic advisor while at Mines. This tool does not replace advising or Degree Works, which should continue to be used to review official progress toward degree completion.

Smart Plan is available for most students pursuing a BS degree beginning with the 2025-2026 catalog. Students using a catalog prior to 2025-2026 should continue to use Degree Works and Student Registration in Trailhead.

Smart Plan is accessed through Trailhead. 

1. Log in to Trailhead. 
2. Locate the “Smart Plan” card.  (If you don’t see the Smart Plan card, you may need to switch from “Home” to the “All Cards” option via the three-line “hamburger” icon on the upper left, the type “Smart Plan”.)
3. Select the card to open Smart Plan.

Build My Plan

Once you select Build My Plan, you will see a box appear with the following four instructions:

1. Add, remove or change a course.
2. Block time, if you wish to personalize your schedule.
3. Advice, so that Smart Plan can check your changes.
4. Register or Update Registration, so that your course schedule can be updated.

New Class Schedule Releases

Whenever a new term is available in Smart Plan, you will see the ‘New class schedule is available’ message to the right.

Follow the steps below:

1. Click on the Cancel button.  *If you select the Advice button, you will likely receive an “Oops…” error; continue to next step to resolve.
2. Press the “Reset to Declared Planned” under the Goals section of Smart Plan.
3. Press the “Advice” button so that Smart Plan can check your changes.

Reset/Refresh Your Plan

Click on the Reset to Declared Plan link at the bottom right of Smart Plan.

Resetting to declared plan will force a refresh of your entire plan and will re-import course requirement data from the system (the course information database, Banner, which contains updated course information such as prerequisites, updated course lists, and schedule offering availability, etc.).  This refresh also pulls in updated data from Degree Works for your program and catalog year.  Many changes can occur behind the scenes every semester, to resetting to declared plan ensures that your course requirement information is as up-to-date as possible.

Status/Advice

When a change is made to a schedule, Smart Plan needs to check to ensure your changes are valid for still meeting graduation requirements.  The status will show as “Pending Review” until the Advice button is selected.  The validation process can take up to a minute to complete. 

You can make multiple changes (add, drop, or change a class, change an instructor, etc.) at once and wait for Smart Plan to validate all your changes at the end.

Customize Schedule

To customize your schedule for classes with open seats, you can: 

• Select/deselect the day(s) that you wish to be affected 
• Block times on a given day by dragging the cursor over the desired cells 
• Drag the Campus and Day bars across the bottom to specify campus and days of classes.
  

Once a semester becomes registerable for a student, the Update Registration button will turn blue.  At that point, students can begin adding, choosing, or dropping courses.  Once the courses are selected, a pop-up box will appear asking the user to continue registration.

Finding Classes and open sections:

• To find classes, enter the subject or the subject/course number in the search bar. This will return a list of classes meeting that criteria.
• Select the course, which will bring up all sections, each with an indicator whether it’s available or full.
• Select the specific section

Linked Sections:

• To find linked sections, select the link icon that appears underneath the course.
• This brings up below box, so click on the “Select linked section” icon, which brings up the above.  Select an open section that fits with your schedule

Dropping Classes

• Change (on right side of course box)
• Mark to Drop
• Update Registration (blue button at bottom of schedule)
• Continue Registration
• A success or failure notification will pop-up

Show Prereq Line(s)

To view prerequisite paths for future courses, click on the gear icon, select All or Critical Only, then click on the Advice button at the top.  The courses with the longest prerequisite path (appearing as lines) will show in green.  Other prereq paths will show as dashed lines, if you select All.  If using Firefox, you may need to log out and back in again to view the change.

Once prereq lines are enabled, you can click on the green line or on any of the dashed lines to view the prereq paths for a series of classes.

Add a Term/Remove a Term

You can both add and remove terms from your degree plan.

To add a term:  Select the “+” symbol that appears between existing terms, then press Save.

To remove a term:  Select the trash can icon just to the left of the term you wish to remove, then press Save.

Most majors include a summer field session during your junior year that will serve as a prerequisite for other required courses. Though Smart Plan may recommend courses during each summer, you may delete the summer terms as you prefer. However, it is highly recommended that you keep and register for the summer field session at the recommended time. Discuss with CASA or your applicable department for any questions regarding this degree requirement.

Change Term Limit

Change Term Limit:  Depending on your program, the default limit could be between 15-17 credits, but you can change this to be anywhere between 12 and 19 credits without the need for advisor approval.  You can change this value by selecting the “Term Limit/credit hour” link. 

Note: Changing this value in Smart Plan is only for planning within Smart Plan. 

View Completed, Scheduleable and Future Terms

Slide the scroll bar across the bottom of the screen; or use the dynamic elements, which appear/collapse on the far left and right of the screen as you scroll across. 

Transfer credit will display in either your first term semester at Mines or the term preceding it.

Goals – Declared

This section of Smart Plan will reflect your current degree program.

You can perform a “What-If” by selecting the Change button and then using the Change or Remove option.

Note:  Performing this function only changes your degree program in the Smart Plan tool and it does not affect your officially declared major. 

Requirements

This function allows you to view an outline of the requirements for your specific degree. It provides a breakdown of completed, incomplete, and in-progress courses, with the credit hours included. It is an overview of your degree progress and works in tandem with Degree Works.

Finalizing Your Plan

Once you’ve developed a plan that looks good to you, and clicking on the Advice button only results in a dialog box that confirms the efficacy of your plan, it’s suggested that you meet with your advisor to review your plan so that they can help you make any revisions based on their knowledge and experience concerning your particular program.  Once you have an advisor-approved plan, you can use the Save button at the top-left of Smart Plan to name and save your plan (your advisor can also do this).