Office Hours Overview
Pawtograder’s office hours feature allows students to request live help from course staff. Student requests go into a queue, and multiple staff members can be working concurrently through that queue, assigning themselves to help students as they become available.
Students are encouraged to make public requests for help, so that other students can also benefit from the discussion.
Office Hours Queues
Instructors can create multiple office hours queues to provide different types of help. For example, if a class is coordinated across multiple campuses, there may be in-person help queues per-campus, and a cross-network virtual help queue.
Help Request Templates
Instructors can create help request templates, which are pre-filled help requests that students can use to request help. This is useful to help prompt students to ensure that they have completed any expected troubleshooting steps before seeking help.
Templates include:
- A template name (e.g., “General help request”)
- A description explaining what information students should provide
- Pre-filled placeholder text guiding students to include relevant details
Pinned Discussion Topics
When students create a new help request and your course has pinned discussion posts, the system automatically displays a “Before you request help…” section with pinned discussion topics from the course discussion board. This feature:
- Encourages students to check existing answers before joining the queue
- Surfaces instructor-highlighted posts that address common questions
- Shows related posts with an expandable “Show All Related Posts” option
- Reduces wait times by helping students find answers independently
Pin important FAQ threads and common troubleshooting posts on your discussion board to automatically surface them to students before they request help.
Providing Help
When a staff member is working on the queue, they should click Start Working to indicate that they are available to help. This is a helpful indicator for students, and also allows instructors to see that staff are logged on and ready to help.
Select a help request from the queue, and click Take Assignment to indicate that you are actively working on it.
Text and Video Chat
Staff can communicate with students through:
- Text Chat: Built-in messaging for quick questions and code sharing
- Video Chat: Click Start Video Chat to open a video call with screen-sharing capabilities
After the staff member has started the video chat, students can click the Join Video Chat button to join. The video chat window opens in a popup.
When a student has an active help request, it follows them around the site. They’ll see:
- Their current queue position or status
- Notifications when staff assigns to help them
- Video call invitations with a prominent “Join Video Call” button
This ensures students never miss updates, even while browsing the discussion board or other course pages.
Students can access office hours from anywhere in the course through a persistent Get Help button that appears site-wide. This button:
- Opens a help drawer showing office hours status and available queues
- Displays which queues are currently active (“Happening now”)
- Shows the weekly queue schedule with live status highlights
- Provides quick access to create new help requests
- Shows demo queues for testing (if configured)
The help drawer includes:
- Office Hours Status Card: Overview of current office hours availability
- Per-Queue Cards: Individual cards for each help queue showing status and schedule
- Weekly Schedule: Visual calendar showing when each queue is staffed
Notifications
Students receive comprehensive notifications about their help requests:
- Browser Notifications: Desktop notifications when staff responds or starts a video call
- Title Bar Updates: Browser tab title shows unread message counts
- Sound Alerts: Optional audio notifications for new messages
- Favicon Badge: Visual indicator in browser tab for unread messages
Students can test notifications and manage preferences from the help request interface.
Resolving Requests
Students can resolve their own help requests from either the floating banner or the main chat view. When resolving, they select a resolution status:
- Resolved - Got help: Student received assistance
- Resolved - Figured it out: Student solved the problem independently
- Resolved - No longer needed: Request is no longer relevant
Staff members can also mark requests as resolved.
Feedback and Analytics
After a help request is completed, the student can provide feedback on the help provided. This feedback is visible to instructors only and can be used to:
- Monitor quality of assistance provided
- Identify areas for improvement
- Recognize excellent staff members
