What is Starfish?
Here at SUNY Sullivan, we want to see You succeed! That’s why we’ve adopted an early alert system and communication tool called Starfish®. Throughout the semester, students and advisors receive alerts when academic concerns arise that may interfere with a student’s success. The Student is then connected with advisors, faculty, and other offices on campus that can help. Students can also use Starfish to view staff and faculty office hours or schedule appointments with their primary advisor, instructors, or staff online.
Starfish is available to all currently enrolled SUNY Sullivan students.
Access the Starfish link easily by logging in to your Brightspace account.
Computer Users:
- Log in to Brightspace and click on the Starfish link on the homepage.
- Log in to Starfish with your SUNY Sullivan username and password.
Pulse App Users:
- Click the SUNY Sullivan homepage link.
- Select Starfish from the drop-down menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
- Log in to Starfish with your SUNY Sullivan username and password.
- Open the navigation menu (top left corner) and click your name, and then Institutional Profile to open your profile.
- Upload your photo and update your details, but please leave the title field blank. Your title will display by default for students.
- Click the Submit button to save your updates.
Set up Office Location (must be set up to enter office hours)
- Open the navigation menu (top left corner) and click your name, and then Appointment Preferences.
- Click the Add Location button.
- Enter details and click the Save button.
Adding Office Hours
- Select the arrow to the right of Appointments option from the navigation menu (top left corner) and then select Agenda.
- Click the Office Hours button to create single or recurring set of office hours.
- Tips on completing the Add Office Hours form:
- Title: Displays on your calendar to distinguish sets of office hours.
- Where?: Options are added via Profile > Appointment Preferences tab.
- Office Hour Type: Schedule Only
- Appointment Types: Select Teaching and Advising (if applicable)
- Tips on completing the Add Office Hours form:
Edit or Cancel Office Hours
- Select the arrow to the right of Appointments option from the navigation menu (top left corner) and then select Agenda. Your existing office hour blocks are displayed in the right-hand side panel titled “Availability”.
- Open the Office Hours pop-up by hovering over the office hours icon to the left of the Office Hour block title.
- Select Edit from the Office Hours pop-up to edit an existing block.
- You cannot modify the “What Day(s)” settings, but you can modify the frequency of recurrence, start and end times, locations, durations, appointment types, instructions and overall start/end dates for the meeting series.
- To cancel an occurrence of the Office Hour block, select Cancel, and from the Cancel menu, select “Just this one.”
- To cancel all occurrences of the Office Hour block, select Cancel, and from the Cancel menu, select “The entire series.”
- Update the desired fields and click the Submit button to save your edits.
- Click on the drop-down/hamburger menu in the upper left-hand corner of your screen.
- Click on your name
- Click Email Notifications
- Check the box next to Read busy times from my external Google calendar
- Click on Click Here for further instructions to find the Google calendar link.
You can adjust your settings to receive a daily summary of flags instead of several separate emails.
- Log in to Starfish
- Click on the drop-down menu
- Click on your name and then select Email Notifications
- Navigate to the Summary Emails section. If you would like to receive this information in a summary email, select daily to set the frequency and specify the day/time when the summary should be emailed to you. Do not set the frequency to weekly only as the information needs attention in a timely manner and should be received daily.
- Navigate to the Tracking Items Notification section. Uncheck the ‘an item is raised’, ‘an item is cleared’, and ‘an item is assigned to me’ boxes if you do not wish to also receive individual messages.
- Click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.
Instructor Tasks
Select Outstanding Progress Survey hyperlink from the Starfish Home page.
- Check the appropriate box for each student
- Click the comments icon to add notes
- Click submit when complete
Important Note: Do NOT click Submit until you are done. You cannot modify a submitted survey.
Click Here to view a list of flags and kudos raised during progress surveys, along with the correlating emails that students receive. [Link only available to current SUNY Sullivan Staff & Faculty]
If you raised a flag for a student manually or via progress survey and you communicated with the student, the concern is no longer relevant, or the flag was raised by mistake, follow the steps below to close/clear the flag:
- Outreach was made to student and a plan was developed to address issue (ie Instructor communicated with the student) OR
- The concern is no longer relevant OR
- The flag was raised by mistake
- Open the navigation menu (top left corner) and click on the arrow to the right of the Students option
- Click Tracking
- Select the Connection drop down box to select All My Students or a specific class section
- Check the box next to the student’s name
- Click the Resolve button
- Complete the information in the pop-up window and select Submit
If you are concerned about a student and would like to connect them with support resources, raise a manual flag in Starfish. This method can be used when there isn’t a recent or upcoming Progress Survey.
- Open the navigation menu (top left corner) and click on Students
- Type the student’s name in the search box at the top of the page
- Check the box next to the student’s name
- Click on the Flag button and choose the appropriate flag in the pop-up window drop down list
- Select the course that the flag pertains to if necessary
- Add comments as needed and click Submit
- The student and student’s advisor will receive notification of this flag
- Open the navigation menu (top left corner) and click on Students
- Type the student’s name in the search box at the top of the page
- Check the box next to the student’s name
- Click on the Kudos button and choose the appropriate kudos in the pop-up window
- Select the course that the kudos pertains to if necessary
- Add comments as needed and click Save
- The student will receive notification of this kudos
Advisor Tasks
If you receive an email of concern for your advisee, you should immediately reach out to the student via email and phone.
You should then close the flag for one of the following reasons:
- Outreach was made to student and a plan was developed to address issue (ie Advisor communicated with the student) OR
- Outreach was made to student at least 2 times (via phone & email) but student has not responded after 1 week OR
- The concern is no longer relevant (ie Student withdrew from class, Student no longer failing, etc.
Important Note: Closing/Clearing a flag and communicating to your student via the Add a Comment section is ineffective. This is an internal message that the student cannot see. Please utilize the Starfish Send Message feature, email, TextFree/Pinger, or phone to communicate with a student.
- Open the navigation menu (top left corner) and click on the arrow to the right of the Students option
- Click Tracking
- Select the Connection drop down box to select Primary Advisor
- Check the box next to the student’s name
- Click the Resolve button
- Complete the information in the pop-up window and select Submit.
Important Notes:
- Remarks entered in the Add a comment section will not be sent to the flag raiser. However, remarks entered in the bottom field will be sent to the flag raiser if the Send a message to [Instructor Name] to close the loop box is checked. Both remarks will be saved in student’s file and can be viewed by staff or faculty with permission. Student cannot view these comments.
- Academic Concern, At Risk, Student Billing Hold, and Not Registered Next Semester flags cannot be cleared manually. They are automatically cleared by the system when they are no longer relevant.
Click here to see how clearing flags can communicate the resolution and close the loop.
- Open the navigation menu (top left corner) and click on the arrow to the right of the Students option
- Click Tracking
- Select the Connection drop down box to select Primary Advisor
- Click the Edit Filters button on the top right
- A pop-up window will appear. Next to Status, click Active
- Next to Tracking Type, only check Flag from the drop-down menu. Leave the other options unchecked
Click the Submit button
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