Messages

I think I see what you mean.
The issue is that I want only one teacher at a time per slot.
Would the following make sense?
Let there be 2 activities: Supervision Morning and Supervision Lunch
and 3 teachers: A, B and C.

I set up Supervision Morning for A, Supervision Morning for B, Supervision Morning for C,
Supervision Lunch for A, Supervision Lunch for B, Supervision Lunch for C.
I then add all of these to "A set of activities don't overlap".

This will insure i hope only one teacher per slot, right?

Overall there are 2 variants:
a) Do it with FET.
Disadvantage: It might be tricky, because you might need to add some (dummy) activity, (dummy) rooms, (dummy) times and tricks. Especially gaps constraints are tricky then.
Advantage: You will get a solution automatily.

b) Do it with TiTiTo.
Disadvantage: Currently you are manually doing it. (Only a clever teacher selection. Not more. But in normal case that is enough, since such tables are normally very easy to place.)
Advantage: Easier to use/schedule then using FET.
Read manual page 3 and 8.
See http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=1539.0

I see your point and I get it. I wanted to check if once set up there is a relatively automatic and random way of doing it.



EDIT 1
I just realized that won't work as FET will try to schedule all activities. Ok manual scheduling it is then.

Hi again. Hopefully this post finds you good humor and health.

I am trying to set up a supervision schedule but I'm at a bit of a loss.

I have several teachers that each have a certain number of minutes of supervision they have to fulfill.
This is a relatively easy constraint. So is setting up preferred times and other limits.

My issue is with how I create the activities. I need to randomly distribute teachers either in the morning, lunch, after-school supervision or a combination of these.
I could make an activity for each time of the day, but then how do I add all the teachers in the activity with the constraint that only one teacher at a time does an activity?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Success. 

I finished adding all the constraints and FET generated a schedule in seconds. Its under review right now but it looks promising.

Thank you both. 

Maybe you could also use constraints max building changes per day. Maybe combined with same starting day, again.

The teachers stay in the same room, the students move around. and I can't put a limit of classroom changes on students yet since I have yet to input all the constraints given. It's a learning process for me on two counts: making a complex schedule as well as using your program (i don't think I thanked you enough for that...)

The activities might end up in different days.

I know but I now  want and need to give a bit of flexibility if possible. If two groups are on one day and the others are on another day then that is fine if it helps alleviate potential issues in other places. I am adding constraints and checking each time to make sure things work. As I do so FET spots potential issues and I try to fix them. Since there are still a lot more things to add I'm no longer eager to block these activities together at this moment. If after adding all the constraints together I have a bit of room to wiggle then I'll do so. 

And with that, if you are still up, have a good night, and if you read this in the morning have a good morning.

oh.. nice trick! (But i must admit that i don't understand why this constraint is needed by CCU.)

The reason is that for teachers working with many levels/grades, it is customary to set up the groups in such a way so as to avoid having too many level switches in the same day. So if you teach science and you have Grade 1 Group 1 then you want to have Group 2 and 3 of the same level right after, because that way you are not force to change your activity every 30 minute block. So you save time on prep. If you had different levels every period then you would have to set up an activity for grade 4 group 1 for example, then take it down when another grade came in, then put it up again if grade 4 group 2 came in after that.
So it meant to save prep time.

I thought of a trick: add a dummy teacher, add it to each of the four activities, and max gaps for this teacher = 0.

Don't forget the activities same starting day.

I didn't add this constraint and so far the generated schedule looks good. I'll see how it changes once I add some of the other constraints. I want to avoid using too many constraints.

Thank you both for continuing to help.

That makes sense. I'll give it a go and post back in a few hours... Thanks again.

It's a bit of a limitation. There are 4 groups of students that have the same level. When these students have Sci they must each have the class one after another. The same is repeated for Sport and other special classes. The order in which the groups have the class is not important that's why I used the Grouping option.

html results are always stored automatic as soon as you generate a timetable in your "fet-results" folder. It should be in your home directory.

Thank you for the prompt reply. Any idea with the 4 activity grouping?

Not directly. You could open the HTML timetables with Open Office or Libre Office or Microsoft Office. Or export from FET the timetable as CSV.

Hmh.... I see the CSV option in export but not the HTML. My version of FET is 5.18. (default for Kubuntu 14.04). Am I missing something?


On that note, is there a way to group 4 activities (2 to 3 splits each)? I have to do this 3 times so I'm a bit stuck. I could do Group A1, A2, A3 and then order A3 and A4 but it's not a flexible solution. Any ideas?

Thanks

Ok, I spotted the issue but that makes things worse now.
The problem is the breaks: Recess, Lunch and the Short days.
Each one of the groups must have 1 hour of class which means two groups back to back makes 2 hours which is not possible unless they are scheduled before and after recess.

The issue is that FET does not see recess as a break but as an activity (since I defined it as such as I have to have it show up on the schedule as recess not an X) so using the special option of having one course be consecutive to another is not feasible.

So I can either remove recess and leave it as a series of x's which will then facilitate FET's job or try to define a convoluted constraint scheme.

Is there a way for me to have the generated schedules exported in an editable format such as xcl, doc, odt?
If I can do that then things become easy and I have fewer constraints to contend with.

On a side note, is the consecutive course option interchangeable? By that I mean, is it possible to have A then B or B then A?


Edit:
I just realized my last question is pointless since you have the Group function which does exactly what I was looking for.

I'll try as soon as I get a chance to get home. I should post back with the results in the next hour and a half.

Thanks

Hi,

Ok, back with a few questions regarding a restriction that blocks the generation of a viable time table.

My constraints are.
Weekdays run from 8:05 to 15:30 except for Mo, We and Th when the day finishes at 2:30
There are homerooms each day at 8:05-8:15 and  12:55-13:00.
Recess is at 10:00 to 10:15 and lunch is 12:00 to 12:55.

Now I introduced the above in the form of activities with multiple splits and set preferred time slots for each one.
When generating at this point I get no errors and it all takes less than a second.

Once I add the following it all stumbles.
I have 3 grades with 2 groups each with an activity that occurs twice a week. The issue is that I must have one group follow another. What I mean is that if the Grade 4 (Group 1) are taught on a certain day, then right after that course I must have Grade 4 (Group 2)
So I tried setting-up the activity as follows:
Activity grade 4 group 1 science, 2 splits with minimum one day in-between splits.
Activity grade 4 group 2 science, 2 splits......
Now I do this for all 3 grades concerned and then I set the added constraint of consecutive classes for each of them. At this point FET no longer generates a table and justs keeps running without finding a viable solution.
I not sure if my approach is wrong.
I still have constraints to add so I'm stuck on how to proceed.

All suggestions are welcomed.

Thank you.

P.S.  I'm tied up at the moment so the earliest I will be able to reply will most likely be after 2-3 hours from now.

Thank you Sir.

Please call me Liviu

Force of habit (professional and upbringing "cei sapte ani de acasa")

Of course, I understand and respect the privacy problems. You can also send the file to my email.

You represent a third party, separate from the institution that I work for so any correspondence has to be Admin approved from my perspective. I'll speak with my VP and see if they agree.

I'm really excited because if this works it solves a lot of problems that used to take a lot of time and that were usually solved by one individual that did all of this by hand (not me, a fellow colleague).

Cheers,
CCU

The issue is that I have a homeroom teacher who on their schedule must be told during which time slots the group they have goes to a special class.
Unless i look at the student schedule which has that information without any extra hassle. I think I understood what you meant. Add the activities for the specialists and then generate. Yes, you're right it is simple. I'll give it a go and post back as soon as I have something (which might be tomorrow or in a few weeks/months depending on the scheduling of all those involved)

Thank you Sir.

P.S.
For the .fet file I'm a bit resilient since I feel I would need Admin approval. I will check tomorrow.

P.P.S
Thanks, in a more general manner, for taking the time to make the program. It's brilliant.

ah yes, the blank slots are the teacher's class time when they have their homeroom.
The slots that have Sci Tech, HS/LA, Phy Educ are classes taught by specialists and during those periods the Homeroom teacher has a spare.
The reason why the Homeroom schedule keeps track of the other special classes is that certain preparations must be made before the students leave the homeroom and go to their sci or gym class. In the case of gym they have to change uniform. For science they have to bring different books/tools, etc