Division of Classes

[Teck Hock]

Thks.

I just started to learn.
Need time to digest and explore.

I must say this software has a very good potential.

Thks Sir

[Liviu Lalescu]

I wish you a fruitful study!

Oh, you can call me simply Liviu 

[Teck Hock]

Thks Liviu

Another question.

Regard to the English 1 and English 2 at different timing if I didnt add in a time constrain.

Can English 1 and Maths 2 be coincidentally at the same timing?

Thks

[Liviu Lalescu]

Groups "1A English1" and "1A Maths2" have common subgroups. So it is impossible. I attach an example to prove this.

[Teck Hock]

Wa. U are impressive.

I still have History, Geography and Literature grouping.
After adding, the number of subgroups cross 30,000.
What can I do?

Thks

[Liviu Lalescu]

1) The best would be to group the whole activities, as I wrote previously. Instead of adding 4 activities English1-English4, Teacher1-Teacher4, add 1 activity 1A and Teacher1,2,3,4. The same for all categories/divisions which are not vital.

2) I bet there are much less than 30,000 real students. So you can consider a subgroup = a real student, and either Delete everywhere (it is a button) in the subgroups dialog each unnecessary subgroup (which is void) - but this is very difficult, or create a number of subgroups = the real students, each subgroup = a real student, and add them to groups. This might be easier by importing students from CSV - if you automatically create a CSV file containing each student.

3) 30,000 is just a number made up by me. I can increase it for you to any value, but it might run very slow, and it is unnecessarily slow.

[Teck Hock]

Hi

I am from a Secondary School in Singapore.
I have managed to enter my school school timetable into FET. And it work.
I am looking for some fine-tuning to the time table.

1.
I can add multiple teachers to an activity when a class is divided into groups of same subjects.
I have a class that divide into 2 groups of different subjects. That it means I must use division?
I cant add 2 subjects into an activity.

2.
Is there a way for 2 activities not to occurred on the same day?

Thks

[Liviu Lalescu]

Hi,

OK, nice!

1. Yes, I think you should use divisions. But I am not sure of your situation.

2. Of course, just add a constraint min 1 days between activities or, if it is already existing, but with weight less than 100%, increase its weight to 100%.

[Teck Hock]

Thks Liviu

I can understand question 2.

Curious abt categories/divisions.
If I have 4 categories/divisions each with 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Then the number of subgroups is 2x3x4x5 = 120. What is the purpose of this number of subgroups?
How does number of subgroups affect the speed of the software?

Like you mention in earlier post, some subgroups may not have any students.

Why we can have division at activity level?
For example:
Activity 1 can have History and Geography at the same time. Same as adding 2 teachers with a subject called History/Geography.
Activity 2 can have Chinese, Malay and Tamil at the same time. Same as adding 3 teachers with a subject called Chinese/Malay/Tamil.
Activity 3 can have Physics and Biology at the same time.

These 3 activities can be independent of one another.
The solutions finder, just slot Activity 1, 2 and 3 independently.

Having division, I must say, results in a nicer time table with the correct teacher tag to the correct subject.

Thks

[Liviu Lalescu]

Say category 1 has 2 divisions (A, B), category 2 has 5 divisions (X, Y, Z, T, U). Then group A will contain subgroups AX, AY, AZ, AT, AU and group X will contain AX and BX. Divide and enter the subgroups dialog to see the idea.

If there are more subgroups, speed slows down directly proportional and memory demand increases, so cache of processor might be wasted and speed will be even worse. I attach two example files, if I remember correctly they are variants of German_subactivities_constraints.fet, the first with year 5 artificially increased and the second with all years artificially increased. The second is much slower. (Note: these are old FET files, the divisions/categories were not saved when dividing the year.)

If there are subgroups with zero students, you can remove them, but it is tedious. Maybe better is to import students from CSV.

Generation only considers subgroups, not groups or years.

Yes, it is nicer with divisions.

If the total subgroups is < 3,000 (3 thousand, not 30 thousand), I think the generation is OK. But above this, cache memory and speed are affected.

[Teck Hock]

I have another question here:
Our Year 4 has 7 classes.
We have a subject called Mother Tongue which all 7 classes are banded together and sub divide into 8 groups.
However we also have subjects like History and Geography that only apply to 1 class.
We also have subject like Art/Design and Technology/Nutrition and Food Science that only apply to 2 classes.
Can guide on doing such division?

Thks

[Liviu Lalescu]

I presume A..G are classes, Mother Tongue 1..8 a category, His/Geo another category for only class A, Art/Design another category for B and C, and Tech/Nutr another category for D and E.

You can add year Y and divide by 5 categories. Then remove from the last 3 categories the unnecessary subgroups (remove here, not remove anywhere, keep Enter pressed). But there are many subgroups and the division is not efficient (some subgroups are unnecessary). See attachment liviu.fet.

It is best to add years A..G, divide A by MT1..8 and His/Geo, divide B and C by MT1..8 and Art/Des, divide D and E by MT1..8 and Tech/Nutr, and divide F and G by MT1..8. Then create some more years like in my file and add existing groups, like in my file. See liviu-better-more-efficient.fet, attached (in the activities use the years).

[Teck Hock]

Thks Liviu.

I am clearer with the use of Division now.

So I follow your advice. Now I have many divisions.
When I want to edit activities, the students lists box - usually I filter by Year.
Now the lists include all Year and its subgroups (see attached) which make me difficult to just filter to Year 4-E or 4-K.

I only trial with Year 4. The lists will be even longer after I gradually include Year 1 to 3.

Possible to have the Students lists box under edit activities to let user select if they only want see select by Year or by subgroups?

Thks

[Liviu Lalescu]

Settings > Interface > Show subgroups in combo boxes or Settings > Interface > Students' combo boxes style.

[Teck Hock]

Thanks. Managed to get what I want.

In the picture circle in blue, actually there is a division into MA1 and MA2.

Is it possible to view both groups under view students?

Thks