Our Institute (Autonomous technical university) has more than 1000 UG students in each year (around 1300 including PG). There are around 10 departments, 300 faculty and around 2500 activities. In all departments student strength is divided into 2-3 groups (for lectures), further into 3-4 subgroups each for the purpose of labs and tutorials.
The students of second, third and fourth year are required to choose department electives/open electives along with other compulsory Subjects and Labs. That means a department elective may have some of the students from all (6-8) subgroups. While an open electives can have students from different subgroups of different departments.
1) So in order to handle this, is it better to have individual students as subgroups can be grouped as per the requirements of compulsory as well as elective subjects. If this is the only/better way then we may end up having around 5200 subgroups or approximately atleast 4000 subgroups (since 1st year students don't have electives). Of course I will be importing entire data from csv. What is the effect of having each student as subgroup on timetable generation efficiency?.
2) Suggest any better/efficient way, if any.
3) Also, is it possible to use FET for exam scheduling?. Since, many students (say 150) are taking same subject, considering the class room size limits, is it possible to schedule the same subject exam at same time in different rooms. Also other students will be giving different exam in the same room
For eg. 1st year Mechanical students (160 in number) are giving exam-1, 1st year electrical (160) are giving exam-2, similarly computer students (160) giving exam-3, civil students (160) giving exam-4. I need to schedule all these exams at the same time. Say we have 16 rooms with 40 capacity each. I can accommodate 10 students each from all four exams (exam-1 seating will be in Even rows even seats (ERES), exam-2 seating will be in Even rows odd seats (EROS), exam-3 in OROS and Exam-4 in ORES). Is this possible using FET.
1) You need of course to have each student as an individual FET subgroup if he has different activity choices. If there are two or more students with the same choice, FET will report this, but will begin generating. If you leave only one of these students, FET will be faster. But it will work anyway. You can do some tests.
I augmented the German sample artificially from ~100 subgroups to ~30,000 subgroups (so many subgroups had the same activities as other subgroups) and instead of ~3 minutes it solved in about 30 minutes. But this file has no students constraints. The speed will depend much on students' constraints as well. If there are many students constraints it might be much slower.
3) It should be possible. You have the constraint activities same starting time (day+hour).
I tried generating the timetable with around 3500 subgroups (individual students). Now the issue is, for applying constraints to different student sets, it is becoming very difficult to chose (I have a 'space' in group's name) a particular group from the drop-down menu. This is because there are many subgroups (individual students around 4000) are shown in the drop-down along with groups.
1) So, is there any way to hide the subgroups from the drop-down menu while applying time or space constraints so that I can select from groups only which are manageable in number.
If not, one way could be by giving 3 checkboxes one each for Year, Groups and subgroups. So the user 'check' what type of student sets he/she wants to see in the drop-down menu.
2) I have around a total of 100 groups, out of which I need to apply similar constraints to around, say 20 groups. I see an option for giving constraints to all the student groups. But I don't see any option to give the same constraint to a set of groups (say, 4PI, 6PI, 8IT, 4CE etc..) at one go. It becomes very tedious to give the same constraint to each group every time.
Is there any way to give a constraint to selective groups in bulk?
If not, an option can be given to 'chose multiple student sets' in the constraint dialogue.
1) Settings: either hide subgroups in combo boxes or students' combo boxes style -> categorized.
2) I think you can add a dummy students year and add the students groups in it as duplicate (overlapping years) and add the constraint for this year.
Your suggestions worked like charm. Thank you very much.
I want to add the constraint "A set of activities occupy same room if consecutive"
Say, there are 100 groups. Each group has Lectures, Practicals and Tutorials. Now, If lectures are consecutive I need to schedule them in the same room. Here again selecting 100 groups (one each at a time) is becoming tedious.
It is like
lectures of Group 4ME1 with an activity tag "L" should occupy same room if consecutive.
lectures of Group 6CE8 with an activity tag "L" should occupy same room if consecutive.
I tried having dummy years, but when I select dummy year no lectures are shown (because there was no activity for the entire year). Suggest me.
(In attached image I need all the lectures to be scheduled in same room)
I am sorry. The interface of FET is not too good, because I am not skilled.
You might want to create .fet XML code (see with a text or XML editor the contents of an input file regarding this constraint and replicate it).
FET has a very simple & user-friendly interface. A beginner like me with 2 days, by asking you a few queries and watching 5-6 youtube videos, could now prepare a timetable with more than 2100 activities and 3600 students (though teachers are not added yet). Which I am sure, not possible with any other timetable generation software. FET is such a great & powerful software :D
I am still yet to figure an option to schedule examinations, as I couldn't thoroughly understand your earlier reply.
Quote from: bujji325 on November 30, 2018, 05:38:13 PM
FET has a very simple & user-friendly interface. A beginner like me with 2 days, by asking you a few queries and watching 5-6 youtube videos, could now prepare a timetable with more than 2100 activities and 3600 students (though teachers are not added yet). Which I am sure, not possible with any other timetable generation software. FET is such a great & powerful software :D
I am still yet to figure an option to schedule examinations, as I couldn't thoroughly understand your earlier reply.
Thank you for the appreciation! :)
For examinations, I am not sure I know the exact process, but I think there were people who did this. You can add more rooms to take care for a large room in which more activities can accommodate at the same time. We can talk some more.