Plan Your Future Courses

What You Can Do

The planner tool allows you to set up personalized plans that identify the courses you want to take each term to stay on track to graduate.

You can plan either from a roadmap, a semester-by-semester plan of study that outlines your requirements and recommends which courses to take when, or directly from the audit.

Roadmaps are currently only available for the pilot programs listed below. CU Boulder strongly recommends using a roadmap to build your plan.

Who Can Access It

Access to the planner tool is currently limited to students who were admitted to one of the following pilot programs on or after Fall 2019:

  • College of Music (all majors)
  • Electrical & Computer Engineering

  • Electrical Engineering

  • Leeds School of Business (all majors)
  • Program in Environmental Design (all majors)

How to Get There

  1. Follow this link to Buff Portal's  (you may be prompted to log in).
  2. Select "Plan" to expand that section, then select "View Degree Audit."
  3. In the degree audit system, click the "Plans" tab.

Create a New Plan

For Your Declared Program

  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, click "Create a New Plan."
  2. The "Program" field is prepopulated with your declared program information.
  3. Complete all four fields.
    • Plan Name: Enter a descriptive name for use by you and your advisor.
    • Term: Enter the term your plan should begin.
    • Year: Enter the year your plan should begin.
    • Years to Graduation: Enter number of years you want to plan for
  4. Click "Add Plan."
Create a new plan

For a Different Program

  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, click "Create a New Plan."
  2. The "Program" field is prepopulated with your declared program information. Click on that field to open a drop-down list of available programs.
  3. Select the college or school that offers your desired program, then the program you want to plan for.

You're now on the "Plan Builder" page. You should see an audit panel on the left and a plan panel on the right.

  1. On the audit side, a message should read, "There are Term by Term Roadmaps available for this program." 
  2. Click the linked program title below the message to open the roadmap.
Finance, 4 Year Roadmap, Fall 2019.

A roadmap panel should now appear on the left in place of the audit panel.

Finance Spring 2020 Plan.

To build your plan, you'll select incomplete program requirements (indicated with an X) from the roadmap and add them to your plan for the term in which you want to complete them.

You don't need to do anything with requirements displaying a check mark, because either you've fulfilled them through coursework (in-progress classes count, too) or you've added them to your plan already.

Option 1: Add Using Drag-and-Drop

  1. On the roadmap side, click the drop-down arrow next to the requirement and select the course you want to take to fulfill it. (Click on a course to view its course description.)
  2. Drag the course to the plan side and hover over the desired term.
  3. Make sure the term/year is highlighted blue, then drop the course directly onto the bolded term/year label (not the "Add Course" button).
  4. The roadmap now shows a checkmark next to that requirement.
"BCOR1015 (3 Hours) The World of Business." An arrow has been drawn on the screenshot showing the course being dragged over to the plan panel and dropped directly on the "Spring 2020" label (not the "Add Course" button).

Option 2: Add Using the "Add Course" Button

  1. On the plan side, expand the term you want to modify.
  2. Click the "Add Course" button.
  3. Start typing your course number, then select the correct suggestion.
A series of three screenshots. The first two show the Add Course pop-up window. In the first, the letters "AN" are typed in the department abbreviation field; the suggestion is "ANTH." In the second, the numbers "201" are typed in the course number field; the suggestion is "2010 (Intro to Bio Anthropology 1)." In the third screenshot, the course "ANTH2010 (3 Hours) Intro to Bio Anthropology 1" now appears under "Spring 2020" in the student's plan.

We recommend doing this frequently to ensure your planned courses are applying to the requirements.

  1. On the plan side, click the checkmark icon ("Check plan against degree audit").
  2. Wait for the page to load, then resume planning your courses. You may notice changes to your planned courses or hours if they didn't meet the audit requirements.
Check plan against degree audit

Edit an Existing Plan

On your "Manage Plans" page, your preferred plan is indicated by a solid star. One plan must always be marked as preferred so you and your advisor know which one you're currently following.

To change a preferred plan, simply click the star of a different plan.

One with a solid star (preferred) and two with unfilled stars (not preferred).

To get to the "Plan Builder" page from the "Manage Plans" page, either click on a plan name or open the "Action" drop-down and select "Edit Plan."

Add a Course

  1. On the plan side, expand the term you want to modify.
  2. Click the "Add Course" button.
  3. Start typing your course number, then select the correct suggestion.
A series of three screenshots. The first two show the Add Course pop-up window. In the first, the letters "AN" are typed in the department abbreviation field; the suggestion is "ANTH." In the second, the numbers "201" are typed in the course number field; the suggestion is "2010 (Intro to Bio Anthropology 1)." In the third screenshot, the course "ANTH2010 (3 Hours) Intro to Bio Anthropology 1" now appears under "Spring 2020" in the student's plan.

Delete a Course

  1. On the plan side, expand the term you want to modify.
  2. Next to the total hours for that term, click the edit icon.
  3. On the right, tick the box next to each course you want to delete, then click "Delete."
  4. Confirm your selection.
A screenshot of the student's plan panel with "Spring 2020" expanded. A red "Delete" button appears under the credit hour total (4 Hours). Under that, there are three courses listed, with three columns each. The course number and title are in the first column, the number of credit hours is in the second column, and deletion check boxes are in the third. In the screenshot, the boxes are checked for the second and third courses.

Add a Term

  1. On the plan side, click the plus icon.
  2. Select the term and year.
  3. Click "OK."
  4. On the new term, click the checkmark icon.

Delete a Term

This will remove the entire term and all its contents from your plan. Only do this if you're sure you won't be taking any classes that term.

  1. On the plan side, find the term you want to delete.
  2. Next to the total hours for that term, click the trash icon.
  3. In the pop-up window, click "Yes."

Both you and your advisor can see your plans, so be sure to choose clear and accurate labels.

  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, open the "Action" drop-down.
  2. Select "Rename."
  3. In the pop-up window, enter the new name, then click "Yes."
  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, open the "Action" drop-down.
  2. Select "Copy."
  3. In the pop-up window, enter a name for the copied plan, then click "Yes."

If you only have one plan, then you won't see a delete option; you'll have to create a new plan before you can delete the existing one.

  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, open the "Action" drop-down.
  2. Select "Delete."
  3. In the pop-up window, click "Yes."

Use the Planning Tools

  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, click on a plan to open it.
  2. On the plan side, click the audit icon ("View an Audit that includes all courses from the plan") to view an audit that includes your planned courses.
View audit
  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, click on a plan to open it.
  2. On the plan side, click the PDF icon ("View PDF") to view and print a PDF of your plan.
View PDF
  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, click on a plan to open it.
  2. On the plan side, click the link icon ("See Associated Roadmaps for this Plan") to view any associated roadmaps.
View associated roadmaps
  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, click on a plan to open it.
  2. On the plan side, click the course history icon ("See Completed Courses and manually add coursework without the accompanying roadmap") to view completed CU and transfer courses.
  3. When you're finished, click on the left side of the window to close it.
View course history
  1. On your "Manage Plans" page, click on a plan to open it.
  2. On the plan side, click the checkmark icon ("Check plan against degree audit") to refresh and validate plan against the degree audit.
Refresh & validate

Have Feedback?

Tell us what you think about this new tool. Your feedback will help inform and support future enhancement requests.

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