Linking Activities and Periods + Different Period Times

[corine33]

I am new to FET and have 3 initial questions please - I could not find them anywhere in the forum.

1. Is it possible to assign specific periods to split activities, e.g. I want Activity 1 to be in Period 1 from Tuesday to Friday.

2. I assigned the Time Constraint of "An activity has a set of preferred starting times" to Activity 1 and generated the timetable. However it used other times, even though there was no problem with using the preferred start times I assigned. (The constraints were activated).

3. My school has slightly different times depending on the weekday. For example, Period 3 is 09:35 to 10:35 on Mondays and Wednesdays but is 09:45 45-10:45 on Tuesday and Thursdays. In addition, it is split into 2 sub-periods on the Friday!
Is there any way to  do this in FET? I could always use "Period 1", "Period 2" on the time table to avoid the problem but they do like seeing specific times.

Thank you very much and regards,

Corine

[Liviu Lalescu]

To 1. and 2. - if an activity is split into ids. 1, 2, 3 and 4, you can add 4 constraints activity preferred starting times to each id, or use the more general activities preferred starting times.

To 3. - the timetable must be placed in a matrix with identical rows and columns. So, unfortunately, you need to conform to this. Maybe you could export the final timetable to CSV (comma separated values) file and change the name of the hours of the days.

[corine33]

Thank you very much for the prompt answer. I'm not sure I fully understand the answer to the first question. If I want "Form Time" to be from Tuesday to Friday in Period 1, do I have to create 4 different activities, one for each day?

I added the constraint "set of preferred start times" for Tuesday to Friday Period 1, making all other periods not allowed, but it ended up placing the subject in other times like Wednesday Period 5. In which case, how are we meant to use the "set of preferred start times", is it not used by the algorithm?

Thank you very much once again.

[Liviu Lalescu]

Please see the attached file. X means not allowed.

Or send me your file, so I can have a look at it.

[corine33]

Thank you for that Liviu, I attach my file. It is very simple at the moment!

I put a "preferred starting times" constraint on activity with id 7 (teacher: Beth Dinsmore, subject: Form Time, Year 2 P2D). The preferred times were Tuesday to Friday Period 1 and I put a X in all other times for the activity.

But when I generate the timetable it allocates Wednesday Period 8 and Monday Period 6 for Form Time instead of Wednesday and Friday Period 1.

Please let me know if I setup something in the wrong way. This is quite important because:
1. Some teachers have very limited periods and the timetable needs to take into account the periods for which they are not available.
2. A few subjects (very few), like Form Time, have to be at a certain time.

Thank you very much in advance.

Corine.,

[Liviu Lalescu]

Either add similar preferred time constraints to ids 8, 9, and 10, as for 7, or add one constraint activities preferred time slots for subject "Form Time" and teacher "Beth Dinsmore".