Sisu’s basic functions

1. Click on the ‘Add unscheduled courses to the timeline’ button at the bottom of the screen. The courses on the page are grouped into study modules.
2. Start adding a course to your timeline by clicking on the arrow next to the course name.
3. Hover your mouse pointer over the area marked with slanted lines in the period to which you want to add the course.
4. Click on the ‘Place here’ button.
   • Sisu automatically saves the edits you make to your timeline.

Click on the three-dots button at the top right corner to see additional functions.

1. Hover your mouse pointer over a course.
2. Click the three-dots option that appears. This shows the different editing changes available:
   • ‘Remove from timeline’ deletes a course from the timeline.
   • ‘Edit duration’ lets you adjust the duration of the course.
   • With the ‘Move course’ function, you can move a course to another period.

Three sources of information tell you in which periods a course is available:

• The webpage of your programme: Find your programme page and click Current curriculum
• Sisu: See the course information sheet (click on the course code).
• courses.aalto.fi: Search for courses according to period.

Completed studies enter the timeline according to the date they were completed, and this may modify a previously drafted timeline. For example, a course scheduled for Periods I–II may be shown under Period II only, if that was when the course ended and the last parts of the course were completed and graded. Similarly, if a course was scheduled for Period I, but completed in Period IV, the timing of the course shifts to Period IV.

How to check the registration periods for courses in the course information sheet:

1. Open the course information sheet by clicking the course code.
2. Go to the ‘Completion methods’ tab.
3. Under the ‘Teaching’ heading, choose the teaching period.
4. Go to the ‘Registration’ tab.

1. Click on the sidebar on the left side of the ‘Timeline’ section.
2. Use the drop-down menu to select the timing template you want to use.

Sisu will display the timing template that matches the curriculum period of your study plan.

Click ‘Use template’ to automatically schedule the courses that you have added to your study plan and that you need to take in a specific teaching period.

For example, if you need to complete a study module at some point in the autumn term of 2018 and the spring term of 2019, the courses it includes will not be added to your timeline.

If you have already scheduled or completed some courses, using the timing template will not override these selections.

If you delete a course or a study module from your study plan, it will be deleted from the timing template, too. If you add a course or a study module to your study plan, these changes are not automatically reflected in the timing template. To add them to the template, reselect the same template and click ‘use template’.

To stop using the timing template, go to the timing template panel and select ‘Remove all timings’ or open the three-dots menu and select ‘Remove all’. Note: If you select ‘Remove all’, every course you have added to your timeline but not yet completed will be removed. This includes the courses you have manually added to your timeline. It is also possible to remove individual courses from your timeline. Use the three-dots menu and select ‘Remove’.

You can add recurring events to your calendar and export them to other calendars by clicking on the ‘Export into external calendar’ button.

You can synchronise your study calendar with the Office 365 web calendar to add your personal appointments and teaching events to it. How often updates are sent from your study calendar to Office 365 depends on Office 365.

The ‘Teaching not selected’ tab displays the course you have not yet added to your timeline (heading: ‘Not added to the timeline’) and whose teaching events are not in your calendar. The courses are displayed by study plan. You can switch between study plans. If a course has upcoming teaching events, you can add them to your calendar by clicking on ‘Continue to selections’. This opens the ‘Completion methods’ tab of the course information sheet. Select a completion method (if you have not selected one yet) and click ‘Select’ to add the teaching to your calendar.

The ‘Registration’ tab displays, among other things, the courses whose registration period has not yet begun and those for which you have already registered.

The ‘Finished and discontinued’ tab displays past and cancelled courses and courses you have dropped.

The ‘Study rights’ tab displays the following information for each of your study rights: basic information, progress, attendance, education path and other confirmed selections related to the study right.

• Validity period: the period of validity of your study right.
• Organisation: the organisation where you have a right to study (one of Aalto University’s schools).
• Provisions on the normative duration of studies: the provisions on whose grounds the maximum duration of your studies is limited. The provisions also determine the period of validity of your right to study.
• Decree on university degrees: the government decree on university degrees that applies to your studies.
• Degree regulations: the degree regulations of your school or Aalto University that apply to your studies.
• Granted: the day your right to study was granted to you.
• Studies started: the day you started studying (the start date of your first term as an attending student).
• Granted extensions: the extensions granted to your study right and their durations
• Progress: the degrees you have completed and the study time you have left.
• Attendance: your enrolment as an attending or non-attending student for each term If you have enrolled as non-attending due to a reason specified in the Universities Act (558/2009), the reason is visible next to the term in question.
• Other confirmed selections related to the study right: the  minors that have been confirmed as part of your study right.

The education path is a visual description of your right to study. If you are pursuing a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, your bachelor’s programme and major are on the left, while the master’s programme options available to you are on the right. If you are pursuing a single degree, your master’s or doctoral programme is displayed on the left.

Your education path may present you with several potential options that are usually either degree programmes or majors. These options are indicated by blue arrows. Some options may be marked with a lock icon. This means that if you want to be admitted to the option in question, you need to apply for a study right from your school. If your application is approved, your school will confirm that this option is part of your study right.

If no lock symbol is visible, you can confirm your selection yourself. A confirmed selection is marked in the education path view with a blue tick symbol. If you have no confirmed selection yet, your study plan may display the message ‘no study right’ next to your major.

The ‘Registrations’ tab contains a list of the courses (individual implementations of each course) for which you have registered.

The studies you have completed are listed in the following order: First, the study modules (including degree programmes) you have completed and the courses included in them. Second, the courses and parts thereof you have completed. Third, partially completed courses.

The default view is ‘Passed credits’. Select ‘Failed and expired credits’ to see them instead. You can rearrange the courses in each section by clicking on the column header, such as ‘Date’.

You can submit various applications on Sisu, after which they will be approved or rejected. Inclusion, custom cours credit and credit transfer applications sent by you can be returned to be complemented if needed.

All applications and requests you have submitted and the decisions to approve or reject them are available under the ‘Applications and requests’ tab.

Note: You can only apply for approval for parts of your study plan if your study plan is based on your valid study right.

After your application has been approved or rejected, you will receive a message on Sisu. Click the speech bubble icon at the top of the page to read your messages. Sisu does not send out email notifications for new messages. We recommend that you regularly check your messages on Sisu instead.

The groups to which you belong are listed under the ‘Groups’ tab in the ‘My profile’ section. The groups are for example used as selection criteria for course registration (target groups) and for study guidance (study guidance groups).

The ‘Payments’ tab contains a list of the student union membership fees you have paid. Guild and other association membership fees are also displayed if you paid them during enrolment for the academic term.

If you are liable to pay tuition fees and you have been granted a scholarship (a waiver of the tuition fee), the scholarship is mentioned in the section ‘Granted scholarships’.

Your personal data is grouped into four sections called personal information, contact information, disclosure of information and restriction of personal data.

• Your personal identity code is hidden. Click ‘Show’ to see it. 

To edit your contact information and authorisation to disclose your personal information, click on the ‘Edit’ button.

• If you have not yet granted or refused authorisation, the purposes for which personal data may be disclosed are highlighted.
• You cannot edit any other personal information. If your information needs to be edited, contact Learning Services. Note: Do not send any certificates or personal details in an unencrypted email.  The secure email address to Starting Point is [email protected] and the email must be sent from an Aalto email for it to work correctly. Read more about sending encrypted emails from the page Deltagon for Aalto community. If it is not possible for you to use Aalto email to send encrypted email, read the instructions on the page Deltagon (for non-aaltoers).
• You cannot edit your primary email address. (For all Aalto students, the primary address is the Aalto.fi address. For active students, it is automatically imported from Aalto’s user administration.)
• Aalto email works four months after your graduation. Please add secondary email to your personal information in Sisu, e.g. for possible certificate mailing and alumni communications.
• Your primary address has to be in Finland. If you live abroad, only your secondary address will be filled in.

Aalto University collects individual gender data of students and uses it to survey large groups, such as major subjects and programmes. This data is collected i.a. for the following reasons:

• To enable statistical review of gender equality in education.
• To track effects of development actions planning/direction.
• Data systems of the national officials require collection of the data.

The Sisu categories you can mark for gender at Aalto are ‘male’, ‘female’ and ‘Not known’. In Sisu’s student's ‘Personal Information’/‘Gender’ field, Aalto uses the option ‘Not known’ in the following cases: 

• The student’s gender is unknown.
• The student has an official proof of identity where gender is indicated as ‘other’.
• The student defines themself as other gender (no official document needed).

 If you want to update your gender information in Sisu to the ‘Not known’ category, please contact Learning Services. Note: Do not send any certificates or personal details in an unencrypted email.  The secure email address to Starting Point is [email protected] and the email must be sent from an Aalto email for it to work correctly. Read more about sending encrypted emails from the page Deltagon for Aalto community. If it is not possible for you to use Aalto email to send encrypted email, read the instructions on the page Deltagon (for non-aaltoers).

If you have questions or want to discuss how the gender information is marked in Sisu, please contact Starting Point.

If a non-disclosure for personal safety reasons has been recorded for you in the Finnish Population Information System, inform Learning Services of this. You should also notify Learning Services if the non-disclosure is removed from the Population Information System.

• If non-disclosure for personal safety reasons applies to you, the protected information will not be entered into Sisu. Do not enter them there yourself, either.
• The email in the field 'email' in your contact information has to stay in Sisu because Sisu and other systems cannot function without it.

Change of name 

If you change your name, you must always notify Learning Services of the change either in person or by e-mail.  You must present a passport, an official ID, life certificate or other reliable proof of the change (e.g. a decision by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency concerning the change of name).   

If you wish to notify the university of a change of name by email, please send a secure email to Learning Services. Note: Do not send any certificates or personal details in an unencrypted email.  The secure email address to Starting Point is [email protected] and the email must be sent from an Aalto email for it to work correctly. Read more about sending encrypted emails from the page Deltagon for Aalto community. If it is not possible for you to use Aalto email to send encrypted email, read the instructions on the page Deltagon (for non-aaltoers).

You can also inform us of the name change by visiting the Starting Point service desk. Please remember to bring one of the above-mentioned certificates with you as proof of the name change.  

Please note that your preferred or chosen name must be one of the first names included in your official (legal) name. If you want to be called by a name that is not one of your official first names, you must first change your official name through the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. A certificate of your change of name is submitted to Learning Services, after which your name details can be changed to correspond to your new official name, including your preferred first name. 

In the student information system Sisu, your preferred name can only be one of the names included your official name in the Population Information System. Official names are required in Sisu because the information in Sisu is used, for instance, when printing out degree certificates and conveying information to various authorities for use in their databases or other purposes.  

Change of personal identity code or updating a missing personal identity code in Sisu 

You can let us know about a change in your personal identity code or the need to update your personal identity code that is missing from Sisu by sending a secure email to Learning Services. Note: Do not send any certificates or personal details in an unencrypted email. The secure email address to Starting Point is [email protected] and the email must be sent from an Aalto email for it to work correctly. Read more about sending encrypted emails from the page Deltagon for Aalto community. If it is not possible for you to use Aalto email to send encrypted email, read the instructions on the page Deltagon (for non-aaltoers).

You must present a passport, an official ID, life certificate or other reliable proof of the change (e.g. a decision by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency concerning a change of personal details).  

You can also inform us of the change by visiting the Starting Point service desk. Please remember to bring one of the above-mentioned certificates with you as proof of the change of personal details. 

Sisu lists all of your completed studies below the information on your right to study. Your completed study modules along with the courses included in them are listed first, then your other completed courses, and finally any partially completed courses. Studies appear in the order they were completed, from the most recent to the oldest.

Below the list of completions are the average grade for all of your studies, the total credits you have earned with your completed and partially completed courses, and the number of credits that have been credit transferred.

The transcript shows: the grading scales used for your assessments; explanations of their scope in credits; studies completed elsewhere (asterisked); and the languages of learning (i.e. languages of study attainments).

Sisu transcripts are electronically validated.

Search for courses based on the organisation that provides them:

• schools
• departments
• joint services

Search by typing in a search term or opening the organisation menu.

Use the view that appears to find courses from each organisation and the units under them.

• Click on the arrow next to an organisation’s name to see the units under it.
• Use the checkboxes to select organisations. Use the toggles on the right to determine whether you want your search for courses from entire organisation (including all units) or from some of the lower-level units only.

Use this function to find courses based on the academic years when a version of a course is valid. 

Search for courses based on their level. The available levels:

• advanced studies
• basic studies
• doctoral studies
• intermediate studies
• other studies

Find courses based on the language in which you can complete them.

Find courses based on their method of completion. The available completion methods:

• Only includes independent work
• Only includes an exam

Find courses that are taught in a specific period.

• This search option only finds courses with ongoing or future course implementations. Courses taught in past periods are not shown.

The ‘information sheet’ tab contains basic information about the course.

The criteria you have to meet to register for the course are listed in the course information sheet. If any selection criteria for registration apply, they are listed in the ‘Information sheet’ tab, under the heading ‘Description’, subheading ‘Additional information’. This is the primary source for information on selection criteria.

The ‘Completion methods’ tab contains course and examination dates.

Some selection criteria may be listed in the ‘Completion methods’ tab, under the heading ‘Teaching’. Select the teaching for which you plan to register and check its selection criteria in the ‘Registration’ tab, under the heading ‘Organizing selection criteria’. Some criteria may be listed under this heading. However, this section may not show all criteria that restrict the admission of students to this course. This is why you should always preferably check the selection criteria ‘Information sheet’ tab.

The registration information of a course implementation (found under the ‘Completion methods’ tab of the course information sheet) may indicate that the number of seats for the course is 2112. Please ignore this number, as this is just a dummy code that Sisu automatically generates when timetables are being planned. This is not the actual maximum number of seats in the course.

The ‘Substitutions’ tab lists substituting courses that you may take instead of this course.

• This information is only available if the administrative staff has entered it there.
• If no substituting courses are available, you need to apply for the course substitution through the free edit mode. 
• Read more here.