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Hi, Liviu,

I removed all the restritions regarding the problematic students group (now, they have activities that take 30 of the 30 available times), and now the blockage is further away - but I'm trying to find a solution. In my head, the solujtion should be simple, but I'm finding it hard to make FET give timetables, and perhaps I'm into something.

I'm working in the mornings - afternoons mode. Just to confirm - a gap from the morning to the afternoon doesn't count as such in gaps per day - only when using the real gaps per day (or real gaps per week), they are conunted, right? If so, what does the option max gaps per morning + afternoon counts?

To put in perspective - if the teacher works in the first 5 blocks in the morning, doesn't work in the last block of the morning, and then restarts working in the first block of the afternoon, it doesn' count as a gap per day, right? But it would count as gap per real day? And would it count in the gap per morning + afternoon?

In theory, all of the groups should begin early all of the days - and students set 12_2A, 12_2B, 12_3 and 12_4 should have a gap in the 6th block of a ramdom day...

I set the subgroups this way:
- Some of the students have subject C.Pol; other AIB. One of the two are mandatory.
- The same way, some have subject EMRC, the other Cid. Des.. One of the two are mandatory.

So I set this 4 subgroups, so I can "force" them at the same time. Are you saying that I should have made a different structure?

One extra info - this file was based in one from the previous year, where I deleted the activities and constraints (so, made in a older FET version), in order to keep the base structure - could this be the cause?

Yes, there are A LOT of constraints... What a puzzle!

The "fake" activity is the 718th to be placed, and is the one that seems to not being able to be placed - in some of the timetables the gap may not be in the 6th block of the day, but in some it's possible (as the screenshot attached).

It I delete (or deactivate) the fake activity, it blocks in placing another of the activities of this student set 12_2A - In this case, activity ID.51 doesn't get assigned - but it should be, as the scrrenshot attached...

It takes quite a fet time to generate timetables, as it is, in fact, a complex timetable (and there is more to come, as there are a few activities that are not yet placed).

No problem, you can share the solution over here.

Hi,

Thanks for your quick reply. I've sent the file by email, as it has around 1.1 Mb.

Hi,

I'm having an (intermitent) problem that is making me nuts.

When making timetables for the next school year (mornings / afternoons mode), I'm facing problems with a single students group, that is blocking the genenation of timetables - when placing the last two activities, that must be placed beginnin or ending students day, it doesn't give any timetables (to reference, there are 30 available blocks to 29 activities, and the unocupied block must end students morning).

When I break the generation, and seeing the highest timetables, I could see that the last two activities (single hour activities) could be placed, respecting the students and the teacher restrictions previously defined.

To try and circunvent this problem, I created a fake activity, without teachers, that should be placed in the 30th block, ending one of the mornings. Well... Sometimes it works flawlessly, and sometimes FET places correctly the 29 real activities, and when placing the 30th one (the fake), isn't able to place this fake activity, and doesn't advance...

So you can understand what I'm saying, I send you this screenshot - the 29 real activities are all correctly placed, there is a gap for the fake activity, that must be placed in the 6th block of one of the days, and FET doesn't place it... And, of course, I have no restrictions on how many days the students can work on the 6th block of the day.

You cannot view this attachment.

What drives me nut is that it's (apparently) random... Today in the morning, FET was giving me timetables. However, now, With the same time restrictions, it doesn't - And I can see no reason as to why it doesn't...

Of course, if you want to see the .fet file, I'm more than ok to share it.

Thank you in advance for any inputs on what's happening...

Sure - 10_1A, 10_1B, 10_1C, 10_2, 11_2A and 12_2.
But I think I now know the answer - I also had a constraint to set activities with a tag to a certain number of rooms. This seems to override the Students with a preferred room...

Thanks for the quick reply. File now attached...

Hi,

When I thought that I had finished the timetables for this school year, I saw that FET didn't respect student's home room (for 5 of the students groups).

I'm pretty sure that this was my fault, but I can't seem to understand why that happened...

Could someone see the file to help me understand what was the fault? I can't attach it here, as it has 1.7 Mb...

And is it possible to keep the activities locked, but try to once again distribute activities rooms, to respect the student rooms?

Thanks in advance,

Hi,

If possible, that would solve the problem - as I said previously, timetables are generated with the program as is, the only question is the output, that is not easily readable. If it's possible to hide the unused hours in the afternoon (but keep the breaks along the day), it would be perfect.

You can see the actual output of two one of the classes (One of them is the most difficult as there is more info per cell, the other ones are smaller/easier to read).   

Hi,

The tables are now perfectly readable, when I try to print them (Chrome, Firefox and Edge all work well) - just adjust the scale a bit (some of the timetables are quite wide, due to the info). I keep having the problem with too many lines in the morning/afternoon, but that is another question.

Thanks once again,

Thank you for your (as usual) quick reply!

Yes, I use the latest version, that I downloaded last weekend (6.22.0) - and, in fact, I can already see the much useful real days in the tables.

When I see the output file (in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, ...) the tables are there, easy to read (with a couple of lines with no useful info). However, when I try to print them, in Chrome and Edge the first rows are missing - could be just a couple rows missing, or the whole morning classes, as the example I attach The missing rows do not appear in the previous page, they simply dissapear. This way, when trying to print tables they becomes unreadable; when I try in Firefox, the output is a bit more readable, if I reduce the  scale.

Hi,

One suggestion: Is it possible to make mornings/afternoons mode with a different number of periods in each one? In my school (and I believe in many schools in Portugal) the number of hours in the mornings is greater than the ones in the afternoons (in our institution, 6 in the morning and 2 to 4 in the afternoons, depending of the school year). Of course the program works as is, but when trying to print the timetables, they become nearly unreadables, as they end up using more than one page...

Thanks in advance,

Don't mind, I just found out what was the problem - hadn't defined break times in mornings/afternoons mode... It's now working fine.