We have a unique situation with class on M, W or T, Th... has someone done this?

[Brian Warner]

Our school has students split into either M, W or Tues, Thu schedules.  They are off the remaining 3 days of the week for self-paced studies.  Has someone setup a schedule like this before?

[Liviu Lalescu]

I never heard of this setup before, and I did not do a similar schedule before, but it is very easy:

1) Add a constraint break (this is for all students and teachers) or more constraints students set not available on Friday.

2) For each student, add two (sub)activities with duration = n_hours_per_day, min+max days between them = 2.

Instead of (2), if you really need, it is possible a customization for your exact case, so that you won't need to add additional activities and constraints.

PS: It is not recommended to show your email publicly. If you want, I can help you with this, on the forum.

[Brian Warner]

Thanks!  That is a good suggestion.  We will try this this week.

[Liviu Lalescu]

You are welcome! Please let me know if/how you succeed.

[Brian Warner]

Let me clarify:

1.  Teachers teach all 4 days.
2.  Students are the ones that attend Mon/Wed or Tues/Thurs.  We have found out that we do NOT need to accommodate for families to make sure all the families kids attend on the same days.  It might be that the child in 12th grade attends Mon/Wed and the 4th grader attends Tues/Thurs.

Based on this, it looks like we only need to setup Data > Time Constraints >  Students > All Students, right?  If we say maximum 2 days, we get that, but we are saying maximum 2 days where the days are either Mon/Wed or Tues/Thurs.  How do we do this?

Thanks,

Brian

[Liviu Lalescu]

Hello, Brian,

I attach an example file of what I meant with the trick.

It is possible to make a custom version, avoiding the need to add many EMPTY (dummy) activities and min+max days = 2 between EMPTY (dummy) activities. But if you use the trick as in my file you will always be able to use the latest official FET version.

PS: You can totally eliminate Friday from the timetable (make the number of FET days = 4). It might be slightly faster.

Liviu.

[Brian Warner]

OK.  Let us look tomorrow.

[Brian Warner]

When you say a "custom version" what does this mean within the application?  We are seeing some very different things in the Activities modal that maybe is this customization?

We see the 1/2 next to the ID that we are guessing is a Duration?  Is one of these Mon/Wed and the other Tues/Thurs?

I guess I am not understanding how this works.  If you can point this out in the manual, I can probably figure it out.

Thanks,

Brian

[Liviu Lalescu]

The file I sent you above is in the official FET version. I needed to add EMPTY (this is the subject) activities, to occupy M+W or Tu+Th. A custom version requires more work from me, is done especially for this case, and is derived from a stable FET version. It will make automatically the students work only M+W or Tu+Th, without the need of EMPTY subject activities.

1/2 means duration/total duration.

You need to also see All time constraints dialog.

Generate and see the students' timetables.

Volker might be able to show you the corresponding sections in the manual.

[Brian Warner]

We have created one year 2024-2025 with 8 groups for Grade 5-12.  We have decided to focus on Grade 7 for now.  We have created the Subjects for all Groups them and created Teachers for all Groups.  We created an EMPTY Subject per your suggestion.  We created a split Activity for each of the 7th grade classes as well as a split with no teachers for the EMPTY subject.

We created a Max days time constraint for the EMPTY Activities as well as the Break time for Friday.

When we attempt to Generate a new timetable, we get the two errors below:

http://development.servicead-in.com:8080/tmp/2024-03-26_10-53-42.jpg

and

http://development.servicead-in.com:8080/tmp/2024-03-26_10-56-17.jpg

Can you tell us how to proceed?  If I remove the EMPTY activity, we are able to run, but we need this to have students scheduled for either Mon/Wed or Tues/Thurs.

[Liviu Lalescu]

1) FET "years" are real-life "forms" or "grades". You might prefer to add a FET year = "7" or "Grade 7".

2) I cannot see your attachments/pictures? in your post.

3) I need your fet file. Send by email if private.

[Brian Warner]

Let me update the FET Years.  I updated the image locations so you should be able to see now.  As soon as I have the Years fixed, I will rerun and if the issues persist, I will send the FET file.

[Liviu Lalescu]

The years thing I recommended you is just aesthetic and for future data. The problem will surely persist. So I would recommend you to send me the current fet file, if possible.

[Brian Warner]

I have sent FET via email.  Pls confirm receipt.  We know the Years change would not fix anything, but we wanted to get it consistent before sending it to you.  We put your example side by side and are not seeing the issue.  Keep in mind that we only implemented one Year in this example.

[Liviu Lalescu]

I just answered. You have 16 real hours assigned for Grade 7, but only 2 free days, with 7 hours each. 16 > 2*7, impossible. Maybe if you show me last year's timetable, by email, it will be clear.

You might want to add overlapping groups in Grade 7? You need then to use the year division by categories.