Hi all
If possible I need some advice, regarding the following:
We have app. 200 teachers (lecturers) at the university. Because FET generates a timetable randomly it is possible that some teachers are always scheduled in the late afternoon and other teachers always early. Is there a quick way I can use so that the above cannot happen.
I can for example generate multi-timetables and choose the best one. This however can be a lengthy process if it takes 3 to 4 hours to generate one timetable.
Secondly I thought of using activity ends student day but what will happen if say more than one teacher teaches to the same group. In such a case one cannot use activity ends students' day. I think that if this is done a timetable will be impossible. In other words I want to rotate teachers between early and late. (With early I mean the first two periods a day and late the last 2 or 3 periods a day.
So I want to schedule a timetable where a teacher sometimes teaches early and sometimes late. If someone starts each day at 08h00 I think they will not be very happy if compared with other.
Thanks in advance
Frans
Very simple: use constraints teachers interval max days per week. FET will allow 2 constraints of this type for each teacher, so in your case you can use it correctly for mornings and afternoon. You should try a progressive approach, for instance reduce from max 3 early beginnings and max 3 late finishes, to 2, then if possible 1.
Please let me know if this solves your problem.
Liviu
Thanks for the quick reply. I will do that immediately but I must first study "teachers interval max days per week" as I never used it before and do not know what it does.
(My timetable is nearly completed and then I will let you know where you can have a look at it.)
Frans
Teachers interval max days per week: just choose start hour, end hour and the maximum allowed times per week this teacher has lessons in this interval. You may try on a smaller sample to check mode of operation. I attach here a small sample file so that teacher t1 has only one allowed hour, please see it. Be careful to what the end hour means.
Another solution would be to add not available constraints for each teacher. This is a worse solution, because it needs you to choose the exact periods.
Yes, give me the address when ready, so I can add it to the personal collection :-)
Liviu
Thanks again.
I will keep you posted.
Frans
an other variant is maybe to use the constraint "a set of subactivities has a set of preferd times".
so you maybe define the first subactivity to be always early. the second subactivity is set maybe always late.
so you have at least one late and one early arctivity.
maybe add also other components (depend on your dataset (number of subactivities).
advantage of this variant:
- (maybe) very much faster to add. (because you don't need to define it for every teacher. you can set it maybe at one for all activities.)
- also calculation/generating will be faster
i think the results will be very similar to your needs.
Volker thank you very much.
I will try both variants and report which one is best.
Thanks.
Frans