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I will download the "FET-mapr" version and attempt to follow your instructions.

Thank you for your considerable effort in understanding my situation and offering a possible solution.

I will do my best ... and return shortly with my results.

Thanks for the quick response.

I've read it a few times ... but your knowledge of this software's capabilites and functions so severely exceed mine ... that I may not be fully grasping your recommendation.

I'm assuming ... that you are suggesting ... FET-mapr could possibly assign our teacher's fixed classes if I treated our "teachers" like "students???"

The only caveats that there may be with this work-around (if I'm even understanding it correctly) ... is I still have some teacher-like conditions:
-Certain classes were created by and can only be taught by certain teachers.
-There are time of day preferences.
-General class preferences (Some teachers just like/dislike certain courses)
-Travel distances - (our campus is large - and built on a mountain - so we are trying to minimize travel for convenience and timeliness)

I will PM you my email address in an effort not to clog up the thread.

I'm grateful for your help ... and excited at the prospect of helping my department with this.

Thank you.

[fixed]

Hello,

Thank you for the software.
I have read watched the Volker Dirr video series on YouTube, scanned the manual, and beginning to doubt whether FET is suitable for my situation.

Before each semester, our language department is given a Excel sheet of 136 classes, with fixed times, lengths, buildings, and rooms.
The students enroll themselves so we don't have to worry about them.
The "head teacher's" painstaking job is the puzzle of how to distribute these 136 fixed classes among 28 teachers while trying to take in consideration:

- Minimal gaps
- Minimal building switches
- Maximum days off
- and some other "qualifications" and "personal preferences" that FET seems capable of creating constraints for.

I began by entering our:
- Teachers names
- 26 period times in increments of 30 minutes from 9:00am to 10:00pm
- Buildings + Rooms

The FET tutorial says: "An activity contains normally a subject, a student set, a teacher and a duration."
Maybe our situation is unusual because ... We know when the classes are ...
We are hoping that FET can distribute all of these classes among our teachers more efficiently than we can manually.
The videos ... and the FAQ ...  are saying "Add the teacher." ... Problem is ... that's the question I am trying to ask FET.

Can I enter course codes and their class#'s with fixed times? ... Ex. GEN600 is a course ... We offer fifty GEN600 classes ... Each class has a class# ... Each class# has a fixed time, and place.

Would our "Course"  =  FET's "Subject?"
Would our "Classes"  =  FET's "Activities? ... or "Tags?"

I get the sense that FET might be capable of resolving this problem ...  if I use it unconventionally ... If so ... I would be very grateful for some assistance, and happy to answer any questions about my situation.

I'm a bit confused on how to set this up ... and wary to proceed entering data for the next few hours ... if I'm simply using the wrong tool for the job.
If I AM in the wrong place ... are you aware of a tool that may help me? 

Thanks again,