How-To Guides
Faculty and staff can find how-to guides on Starfish by browsing the topics below or by searching the Public Knowledge Base. If you are just getting started, see our start-up guides for advisers, instructors, or students.
Browse All How-To Guides
- User Policies
- Starfish Access
- Quick Guides
- Basic Functions
- Viewing and Documenting Student Information
- Meeting With Students
- Reaching Out to Students
- Graduate Education
- Nese College of Nursing
- Student View
User Policies
Starfish Access
- Get access to Starfish (for new users)
- Assign roles to users with Starfish Role Management (SRM) (for managers)
Quick Guides
- Quick Start Guide for Advisers (for advisers and other student-service roles)
- Quick Start Guide for Instructors
- Quick Start Guide for Students
- Starfish Demos for Faculty and Staff
- Starfish FAQs
- Troubleshooting Guide for Faculty and Staff Users
- Start-Up Guide for Starfish (download only – ppt)
- Get Started With Starfish (step-by-step guide for faculty advisers) (download only – doc)
Basic Functions
- Basics of working with Starfish
- Log in to Starfish
- Update contact and profile information
- Connect Starfish to an external calendar
- Get help with Starfish
- EAB Starfish Help Center (Note: This resource hub shows a generic version of Starfish and may not always reflect how Starfish looks or is used at Penn State.)
Viewing and Documenting Student Information
- Ethical guidelines for accessing and creating Starfish records
- Reading the student folder
- Use filters to find groups of students
- Add notes to the student folder (download only – pdf)
- Add, document, edit, and cancel appointments
- Record attendance at events
Meeting With Students
- Add, document, edit, and cancel appointments
- Set scheduling deadline and meeting location preferences for appointments
- Add a Zoom room as a meeting location in Starfish
- Update meeting locations on Starfish
- Connect Starfish to an external calendar
- Appointment blocks for student self-scheduling
- Troubleshooting Guide for Faculty and Staff Users
- Troubleshooting Guide for Student Users
- Starfish appointments (download only – pdf)
- Service profiles (EAB guide) (displayed to students in their Success Network or Other Services)
- Use direct links to a Starfish service on a webpage or in an email
- Request a new Starfish service
- Update an existing Starfish service
- Kiosk and waiting room management (EAB guide)
- Complete users’ guide for Starfish meetings (ppt – download only)
Reaching Out to Students
- Manage course-based flags (e.g., progress survey flags)
- Resolve a to-do
- Messages sent to students through Starfish
- Progress survey follow-up (recording of webinar presentation)
Graduate Education
- Starfish for graduate advising (download only – pdf)
- Start-up guide for Starfish (download only – ppt)
- Use filters to find groups of students
- Starfish relationship filtering (download only – pdf)
- Starfish milestone status filtering (download only – pdf)
- Add, document, edit, and cancel appointments
- Troubleshooting Guide for Faculty and Staff Users
Nese College of Nursing
- Academic Success Coach Instructions for the Academic Success Coaching Program
- Course Coordinator Instructions for the Academic Success Coaching Program
