Topics

Could someone explain what is an "active" activity? And how is the "inactive" activity option used?

I am unable to understand how to use the locked timetable. Is it possible to lock a teacher's timetable? In what ways can locking help the solving process?

Hello
In the activity planning interface, some teachers have 0(+9) or 0(-1) mentioned. I understand that a 0 means that all target hours have been allotted. But what does the number in bracket mean? Not all teachers have this. Screenshot is attached.

Is it possible that the software places less number of activities after some constraints are relaxed/removed/deactivated?
I would expect that relaxing or ignoring constraints should allow more flexibility and hence easier placement of activities. Does the opposite indicate a bug in my data?

I used FET for the first time this semester for my department timetable consisting of 20 teachers, 6 classes and a thousand rules
It was a fun learning experience and I almost got addicted to experimenting with the constraints and running iterations! I really appreciate the quick responses on the forum. FET truly has been a life saver!! Thanks and kudos! Really, Volker and Liviu, you are doing a great service to the teaching profession with your product, that too without an expectation of monetary gain. You are an inspiration

Hello

I need my timetable to look like the one in the attached document. Is it possible to change the format anywhere?

I understand this might be restrictive, but a teacher doesn't want to begin in 3rd or 4th, since there is traffic. Can I use max time slots occupied from selection to impose this?

How long should I wait before stopping a simulation? If the timetable hasn't solved in say 5 minutes or so, is there any hope for it or should I stop and relax the constraints?

Each teacher at my college needs to have at least one lecture daily. Can this be done? I know there is a max hours daily with activity tag, but I want the opposite of this.

What's the use of max span for a teacher when we have max gaps per day/week already?

Hello

I would like to make some manual entries for both teachers and students before running FET. These are common activities coming from the 'master timetable'. Can the 'student not available' constraint include details of what the students are doing at the blocked time?

I have to place around 260 activities for 6 classes and 16 teachers. How long should it take to solve?

I might have a unique problem here. Ours is a college with about 12 departments. Let's say x rooms are available in the college. Each department is allotted 3 rooms to begin with, but, x is not equal to 36 (I hope that makes sense). To be precise, x> 36. Basically, some rooms are kept in 'reserve' and allotted if the need arises on a first come first served basis, that is, when a department falls short of the rooms. Can I incorporate this situation? I hope I am being clear. I don't have 4 rooms to begin with: the fourth room can be allotted only for some slots when I have run out of the rooms. Moreover, there is no guarantee I will be allotted the fourth room (depends on the number/size of rooms available in reserve).
Can FET generate a timetable where some activities haven't been allotted rooms? Can I change the weight on some constraint to allow this?

At my college, every teacher is required to have at least one 3-4 PM slot in the week. Is there a way to include this constraint? Basically I want something like an opposite of the "maximum" internal hours for teachers.