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How do you handle Incompletes?

Shane.S.150

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone in the community could provide examples of how they are handling incompletes. For example, we have a number of students (hundreds per semester) who will receive incompletes and get an extension to have extended access to a course to complete assignments etc… if they meet specific criteria. If approved they essentially have access to the full course until a Final Grade has been submitted.

Currently, we are a Blackboard school and students remain with access to the full course until a Final Grade has been submitted. This is configured via our Information Systems team managing the SIS integration. When a student is given an incomplete they won't have a Final Grade, so they would have full access to the course. Once the Final Grade is submitted by the instructor at a agreed upon date the student would lose access to the course 2 weeks later. However, within Brightspace we are using Ellucian ILP for our SIS integration as opposed to what was being used in Blackboard, so we need to find a way to implement this in Brightspace as it is our understanding this cannot be configured via Ellucian ILP.

We were presented with possibly using Intelligent Agents to complete this however it was our understanding the Instructor would need to create multiple Intelligent Agents within the course. It was explained that you would have one Intelligent Agent for the Assignment where the extension has been granted and then another or many others for each area that relates to the content of the assignment as it was explained that there was no way to give access to the whole course using this method. Is this possible?

Our goal is to ensure that when a student is given an Incomplete they will continue to have access to the full course and its content until a Final Grade has been submitted. This is not something we can do as a manual process as we receive hundreds of students with incompletes per semester.

Is it possible to set up one Intelligent Agent to give a student access to the whole course until the Final Grade has been entered? If not what are some methods you are using?

We appreciate any feedback you may be able to provide in regard to these questions.

Thanks,
Shane

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Andrea.M.553

Hi Shane,

I assume your courses close from student view at a certain date. One option is to create an additional "Incomplete Student" role that allows those specific students to access past courses. You are correct that sending this "Incomplete" role is a limitation of ILP, and would need to be done manually via bulk upload in the interface or via API. Via API, this could be completely automated, both the changing to the incomplete role and the changing back to the regular student role.

Intelligent agents work via release conditions and could do a role switch to this "incomplete student" role, but unfortunately, there is no release condition for final grade NOT released. Even if there was a Release Condition for this, I am unsure even if this would work in your use case, as their final grade may be released as an Incomplete.

I hope this helps. Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager for additional assistance.

Best,

Andrea

Paula.C.2956

Hi -

Have there been any updates on the question above about allowing specific users access to a closed course? This was definitely tricky to find, and it's exactly what I need to do! :) - We do have the "new experience" - not sure if that matters. Right now, I have been going in and extending the course offering end date, but I would rather not do that. Thanks for any suggestions.

Paula

Victor.B.4864

Hi @Paula.C.2956,

I hope you are doing well.

If you prefer not to extend the course offering end date, you can update the student’s role settings to allow access to past courses. This can be done by enabling the “Access to past courses” permission within their role.

Alternatively, as Andrea mentioned, you can create a new custom role with this setting enabled and assign it to students as needed, so only they can access past courses.

I hope this meets your needs. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Best regards,

Victor

Paula.C.2956

Hi Victor,

Thank you! I think it will. One question. If I allow the option to access past courses, will I have the ability to specify which courses or would the student have access to all of their past courses?

Ajith.J.824

Hi @Paula.C.2956

Enabling the ‘Access past courses’ role setting will grant users with that role access to all past courses in which they are enrolled. It is not possible to select or limit which specific past courses they can access.

Best Regards,
Ajith Joseph

Paula.C.2956

Thanks, Ajith.

I didn't think so, but wanted to confirm.

Paula

Tonya.M.1324

I want to set an access end date for these students. How is everyone handling that? I don't want the course open forever for these students, and I don't want to have to be the one to go back and change their role.

Tonya

Tejas.M.9338

Hi @Tonya.M.1324 ,

I hope you are doing well. I have reviewed your query. You can set the course end date from the course offering option.

Please find the screenshot below:

This way, you can restrict the access of the students to closed courses.

Please note: this will only work when the below role setting is disabled:

Do let me know if you have any follow-up questions on this; I'll be happy to assist you further.

Best Regards,

Tejas Masavkar

Tonya.M.1324

Hi Tejas,

The course is already closed. I have created a user who can access past courses. My issue is the students whom I will change to this role; I need to give them an end date for their access to the course. They will all have till the end of the next semester to complete their work, and I don't want to have to go back to each user and change them back to Learner so they no longer have access to the course. There has to be a way to allow a student extended access to a course with a specific cutoff date without requiring manual intervention from the admin.

Tonya

Tejas.M.9338

Hi Tonya,

Thank you for sharing your use case. What I understand is that you have a role that can access the past courses, and your requirement is to grant access to the past courses up to a certain period, after which students shouldn't be able to access the courses.

For such a special use case, I would advise utilising our Intelligent Agent tool, which helps you to identify such users, and then it will take care of changing the enrollment from the [Access Past courses] role to the [Restricted Access Past courses] role.

Step-by-Step: Setting Up the Intelligent Agent

For example, you need extended access until August 1, 2026. Here's exactly how to configure it:

Pre-requisites

Custom Role: You already have a role (e.g., "Extended Access Learner") that has the "Access Past Courses" permission enabled.
Standard Learner Role: The default Learner/Student role should not have "Access Past Courses" enabled. This is the role the IA will switch users back to.

Step-by-Step Configuration

Step 1: Calculate the number of days

Today is July 2, 2026. If you enroll students in the custom role today, the cutoff is August 1, 2026 — that's 30 days from today.
The IA criterion uses "Last enrolled at least X days ago", so set X = 30 days.
If you enroll students on different dates, adjust X accordingly. The count starts from each user's enrollment date individually.

Step 2: Navigate to Intelligent Agents

Go to the course where students need extended access
Click Course, Admin → Intelligent Agents
Click New Agent

Step 3: Configure Agent Details

Agent Name: Auto-Remove Extended Access - Aug 1 2026
Description: Automatically changes extended access users back to Learner role after August 1, 2026
Agent is Enabled: Yes

Step 4: Set Criteria

Role in Classlist: Select your custom role (e.g., "Extended Access Learner") — this ensures the agent only targets users in that specific role, not all learners
Under Take Action on Activity
- Click Create under Release Conditions
- Select: Classlist → Date of enrollment in current org unit
- Set it to: "Last enrolled at least 30 days ago in the current org unit"

This is the key criterion — it fires when 30 days have passed since the user was enrolled in the custom role, which aligns with your August 1 cutoff.

Step 5: Set the Action

Under Actions, select Change the user's enrollment
Choose: Change current role to → Learner (or "Student" — whichever is your standard role without "Access Past Courses")
Do NOT select "Unenroll" — you want to preserve their enrollment and grades; just remove access

Step 6: Set Action Repetition

Select: "Take action only the first time the agent's criteria are satisfied for a user"
This prevents the agent from repeatedly trying to change the role after it's already been changed

Step 7: Set Scheduling

Schedule: Daily
Start Date: Set to August 1, 2026 (no need to run it before the cutoff)
End Date: Set to August 7, 2026 (give it a week to catch everyone, then it stops)

Step 8: Save and Enable

Click Save
Verify the agent appears in the list as Enabled

Step 9: Test with a Practice Run

Before August 1, click Practice Run on the agent
This will show you which users would be affected without actually changing anything
Verify that the list matches the students you gave extended access to

Please refer to this article for setting up an Intelligent Agent: https://community.d2l.com/brightspace/kb/articles/3496-set-up-intelligent-agents

If you still have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to us.

Best Regards,

Tejas Masavkar

Tonya.M.1324

Thank you so much, I will try this out.

Tonya McKinney