Assistance/Training Needed

[Adele]

Good evening everyone,

I have been using FET timetabling for years. I build various timetables for our different schools. One school's timetable is particularly tricky with lots of different combinations. I've always been able to get away with doing things the quick and easy way (or perhaps the only way I know how).

I use StElTo and then manually use that information in FET in a very basic format. I also can't import the exports from StElTo into FET as there are missing files.

Do the developers of FET provide a support/training function to assist me in showing how I can perhaps set the system up in a better way? Our basic rules aren't being met and timetable is not building. I'm not sure if it is because it's really impossible, or because I am setting it up in a limiting way.

Please let me know if such a service is offered and if so, at what cost.

Thank you very much in advance.

Adele

[Liviu Lalescu]

Good evening, Adele,

Financial support is always appreciated by me, and I am willing to work.

But first, I need to tell you that I never worked with / understood Volker's StElTo. I preferred to consider assigning activities (subject, students sets) to (teachers, time slots) using the FET Block planning mode, or using other tricks.

And second, recently I had some health problems, but I hope I can function.

My target for work is 200 euros for an hour, and we can estimate the quantity of work before start. Or you could let me know your dedicated budget for this. If I cannot help you finish the work completely and 100% correctly, no payment is due.

[Adele]

Thanks Liviu, I appreciate your feedback. Sorry about the health issues, I hope you're better soon.

Unfortunately, as a small school in Africa I'm going to try some other things before I call in your help. Could you maybe just point me to an example or more details regarding the block planning mode? I don't think I've ever used that.

[Liviu Lalescu]

Thank you, Adele!

There is one example from Darren McDonald, in the Block-planning examples. There is extensive help about this mode in the FET Help menu.

We use the trick that activities have (subject, students), and the FET times are: FET days are real-life teachers, and FET hours are real-life time slots (day x hour). In this mode you cannot take care of gaps constraints and some other constraints - maybe after an initial generation you will derive the sections and then schedule them in a new Official mode fet file - this is what I think Darren does.

Maybe it (the Block planning mode) can be useful for you, or other tricks are possible. We solved over the years successfully several particular situations, like those from the FET Custom versions page and others.

I am sorry about the financial problems. I will try to help with advice.

[Adele]

Thank you Luviu,

Where do I find the block planning example by Darren McDonald?

[Liviu Lalescu]

You are welcome, Adele!

In the fet-6.28.3/examples/FET-6-block-planning directory (the file has a readme.txt and a data_and_timetable.fet solution).

[Volker Dirr]

ah... I see. Since the csv version of FET was changed slightly some time ago, not all files can be imported with small manual setups in the FET Gui while importing. Sadly you currently need to select the fields manually if you import into FET.
I will fix that in StElTo and then record a small video about that an host it on YouTube.
Not sure If I will be able to do that before Christmas, but I think still in this year.

[Volker Dirr]

Thank you for report!
I updated StElTo.
Please use the latest FET and the latest StElTo version.
Please try again.
I am not sure if I can record a video before x-mas.
Please let me know. Should be not too difficult to import now.

[Volker Dirr]

I was fast enough to record before x-mas.
You can watch it here:
https://youtu.be/93kTyDZ0COY

Happy holidays!