Breadcrumb: BCBA › Target configuration
Configure maintenance for a target
Set how often a target in maintenance is probed, how many passed probes in a row end maintenance, and what happens when that bar is met or a probe fails.
A target in maintenance is a skill the learner has mastered and generalized. Aides check from time to time that the learner still has it; each check is a probe. The probe schedule decides when a probe is due, and a target in maintenance without a schedule is never offered in a session. You also set how many passed probes in a row move the target to Mastered, and whether that move, or a failed probe, happens by itself.
Before you start
- You do this in the web app, as a BCBA or an org owner.
- What the settings show depends on your clinic's Generalization & Maintenance Collection setting. In Simple mode you also choose here whether a failed probe suggests moving the target back to Active. In Granular mode you choose what probes are judged against, and a failed probe follows the Regression policy in the target's generalization settings. For maintenance, Auto there acts like Suggest: a failed probe only ever sends you a suggestion.
- A target in permanent maintenance, or with no number of successful probes set, never gets a failed-probe suggestion.
Open the maintenance settings
- After a status change. When you move a single target to Maintenance from the Goals tab, Maintenance Settings opens by itself.
- From the goals list. A target in maintenance with no probe schedule shows Needs Configuration. Select it.
- From the target's details page. In the Maintenance section, select Configure. This works at any status, so you can set the schedule before the target gets there.
The target also reaches maintenance without a schedule when you approve a suggestion, when ABACare moves it by itself, or after a bulk change. Watch for Needs Configuration on the goals list, or No probe schedule configured. on the details page.
Set the probe schedule
- Under Probe Schedule, choose the Schedule type:
- Increasing: probes after 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months and 3 months.
- Fixed: the same gap every time. Enter the Interval (days).
- Custom: your own gaps under Custom intervals (days). Select Add interval for another row.
- Under Success Criteria, set Consecutive successful probes for Mastered, or tick Permanent maintenance if the target should stay in maintenance and never move to Mastered.
- A target with no schedule yet shows the suggested values and the note This target has no probe schedule yet. Select Save schedule to keep them. Changing any value saves it too.
Choose what probes are judged against (Granular only)
Under Probe judging, choose Judge probes by the target's Active configuration, or Maintenance-specific override to give maintenance its own measurement and mastery settings: see Override mastery for a context or maintenance. Going back to the Active configuration removes the override at once, without asking.
Choose what happens automatically
Under Auto-Transition Settings:
- Maint → Mastered: Off leaves the move to you, Suggest sends you a suggestion to review, and Auto moves the target to Mastered by itself.
- Regression, → Active (Simple only): Off, or Suggest to get a suggestion to move the target back to Active when a probe fails.
This section is hidden when Permanent maintenance is ticked.
Every change saves by itself; there is no success message. Select Close when you are done. If a change cannot be saved, it goes back to the last saved value and an error appears.
Good to know
- Every change to the schedule restarts it: the count of passed probes goes back to zero and a due probe is no longer due. Avoid changing it in the middle of maintenance.
- Emptying Consecutive successful probes for Mastered makes the target permanent maintenance, although the box stays unticked until you open the settings again.
- With Increasing, the gaps are always 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months and 3 months, even if you typed your own gaps under Custom before.
What happens next
- If the target is in maintenance, its first probe is due one interval from today. If you set the schedule earlier, the count starts when the target enters maintenance.
- The mobile app offers the target to aides when its probe is due; the web app lists it in every session once it has a schedule. See Collect a granular maintenance probe and Record a generalization or maintenance pass or fail. There is no way to ask for a probe earlier.
- Each saved probe sets the date of the next one. When a session with the target is completed, enough passes in a row move the target to Mastered or send you a suggestion, as you chose. A failed last probe can send you a suggestion to move it back; it never moves back by itself.
- The Maintenance section of the target's details page shows the schedule, the Next probe, Probe overdue when a probe is late, and the recent probes with Pass or Fail.