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Hi all,

I have scheduled our G11 and G12 classes using the Block Planning FET mode (A BIG THANK YOU to Liviu for all his help on this!). I'm now building our G6-G10 timetable in standard FET.

I would like to block off the G11 / G12 teachers and their rooms at the time they are teaching using 'Teacher +Room are not available' (as it will be quicker than creating dummy activities) but when I use this constraint, it doesn't show up at all in the room or teachers' timetables so I don't believe it's working for me.

Am I doing something wrong or have I misunderstood the function of this command? Or is it not working?

Many thanks! Samantha

Hello Liviu, Volker, Darren et al,

Thank you so much for the new version of FET with the different modes. I love it! I am starting to use FET BP to build our Grade 12 and Grade 11 timetables, since we run a block schedule. So far, I have all my Grade 12 activities in and it's running well.

I'm using the help instructions of: Set of activities preferred starting time / Set of activities occupies Max slots / Max simultaneous from set in selected slots and the Teacher Activity tag for scheduling my activities against students' selections.

I would like to try to make certain classes run in the same blocks since students sometimes shift between these classes once the year starts (i.e. between IB Math A&A SL and Pre-Calculus 12) or because it will help me schedule the Middle School timetable (i.e. all the Language Acquisition 12 teachers in the same block, if possible).

I've been experimenting with 'A set of activities has same starting time (different days)' as well as limiting the preferred starting time for the activities to certain blocks but it hasn't really helped me so far.

Do you have any recommendations please for the best way to do this? Thank you so much! Samantha

Hello!

When viewing the group timetables in the 'View timetables / View student timetables / day horizontal' tab, is it possible to hide the long list of subgroups that appear in each time slot so that the timetable is easier to view?

I am spending a lot of time adjusting the size of the boxes to be able to check for distribution of activities.

Many thanks for your advice! Samantha

Hello,

I am new to using FET and I am struggling to set up categories, groups etc. In our Middle School, we have just grades 6-8. In each grade, there are just 3 or 4 homeform groups. In Grade 6, students do all their subjects in their homeform group so I don't need categories here.

But in Grade 7 and 8, students do most subjects in their homeform groups but then may be in a different group for Math, French, Spanish/Mandarin and Arts. They don't have to study these at the same time (in fact, sometimes they can't because the same teacher teaches both classes).

I have tried setting up categories for these choices but then I run into an error message when I try to generate the timetable (see attached). And I have tried setting up various groups (e.g. 7Math1, 7Math2 etc) but that hasn't worked either.

I don't need those categories for Grade 6 but it seems to automatically force me to have them.

Can you please help me with this? I've read the manual and watched the videos but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Many thanks, Samantha

Hello!

I think FET can help us do our timetable: I have been watching your videos and reading the manuals and forum posts. Thank you for all this information. I am new to timetabling and I would really like your guidance on the best of your programmes to use to suit our school.

I need to create a timetable for our Middle (G6-8) and Senior Schools (G9-12). The Middle school students are in the same class for most subjects. They have 3-4 options for Arts, Languages and Math. In the past the classes have been completely randomly scheduled.

The schedule is the same for Senior School but in Senior School the timetable is normally created on a block schedule. In Grades 9 and 10, students have many similar classes but some options. In Grades 11 and 12, students have a wide variety of choice over their subjects and we normally try to schedule so that almost every student can do all their options.

Teachers teach across both Middle and Senior Schools. We have approximately 500 students and 60 teachers. Students have already selected their courses for next year and I have this information in excel (or csv).

Am I best to:
1) Do course planning using StE1To
2) Then export from StE1To and finish the timetable in FET? I believe FET alone will be difficult to use with many student options.

Or should I use a custom version of FET instead, and if so, which one?

Thank you so much in advance for your guidance. Have a great weekend! Samantha