Working with FIXED days, times, and rooms ???

[Donmegawatt]

Hello,

Thank you for the software.
I have read watched the Volker Dirr video series on YouTube, scanned the manual, and beginning to doubt whether FET is suitable for my situation.

Before each semester, our language department is given a Excel sheet of 136 classes, with fixed times, lengths, buildings, and rooms.
The students enroll themselves so we don't have to worry about them.
The "head teacher's" painstaking job is the puzzle of how to distribute these 136 fixed classes among 28 teachers while trying to take in consideration:

- Minimal gaps
- Minimal building switches
- Maximum days off
- and some other "qualifications" and "personal preferences" that FET seems capable of creating constraints for.

I began by entering our:
- Teachers names
- 26 period times in increments of 30 minutes from 9:00am to 10:00pm
- Buildings + Rooms

The FET tutorial says: "An activity contains normally a subject, a student set, a teacher and a duration."
Maybe our situation is unusual because ... We know when the classes are ...
We are hoping that FET can distribute all of these classes among our teachers more efficiently than we can manually.
The videos ... and the FAQ ...  are saying "Add the teacher." ... Problem is ... that's the question I am trying to ask FET.

Can I enter course codes and their class#'s with fixed times? ... Ex. GEN600 is a course ... We offer fifty GEN600 classes ... Each class has a class# ... Each class# has a fixed time, and place.

Would our "Course"  =  FET's "Subject?"
Would our "Classes"  =  FET's "Activities? ... or "Tags?"

I get the sense that FET might be capable of resolving this problem ...  if I use it unconventionally ... If so ... I would be very grateful for some assistance, and happy to answer any questions about my situation.

I'm a bit confused on how to set this up ... and wary to proceed entering data for the next few hours ... if I'm simply using the wrong tool for the job.
If I AM in the wrong place ... are you aware of a tool that may help me? 

Thanks again,

[Liviu Lalescu]

I just had a quick look, I wanted to inform you that I will read thoroughly later and let you know.

Indeed, official FET has a list of activities (student, subject, teacher) and assigns them to time slots. There is a custom version, FET-mapr, assigning activities (having only a student and a subject) to time slots and FET rooms = real teachers. But this is difficult to work with and does not always give results.

If your teachers are only 28, we might allocate activities (subject+student) to FET time slots = real teachers. We might be able to use the official FET.

Maybe you would like to send me example timetables (input, output, graphics, etc.). If private, on my email.

[Donmegawatt]

Thanks for the quick response.

I've read it a few times ... but your knowledge of this software's capabilites and functions so severely exceed mine ... that I may not be fully grasping your recommendation.

I'm assuming ... that you are suggesting ... FET-mapr could possibly assign our teacher's fixed classes if I treated our "teachers" like "students???"

The only caveats that there may be with this work-around (if I'm even understanding it correctly) ... is I still have some teacher-like conditions:
-Certain classes were created by and can only be taught by certain teachers.
-There are time of day preferences.
-General class preferences (Some teachers just like/dislike certain courses)
-Travel distances - (our campus is large - and built on a mountain - so we are trying to minimize travel for convenience and timeliness)

I will PM you my email address in an effort not to clog up the thread.

I'm grateful for your help ... and excited at the prospect of helping my department with this.

Thank you.

[Liviu Lalescu]

I read your problem more carefully.

I think you need the custom FET-mapr version. This mapr means "multiple activities per room" and you can download this custom version from the Custom versions section of the FET homepage. You can read the mode of operation of this version in its section of the Help menu (Help -> Help for mapr custom version)

So, only teachers' constraints are of interest (gaps, building changes, days off)? These constraints have only weight 100%, but you can do a progressive approach. Also, for buildings changes a further code customization might be necessary. I did it for the user Badam (there is available the custom version).

You need to add a real teacher as a FET room, and allocate activities to FET times (fixed?) and rooms (real teachers).

You can then add real rooms as FET rooms (so there will be 2 categories of rooms). You will add activities without teachers/students, preferred room to real room, and same starting time (constraint) with the activities of the real teacher.

I think yes, your "Course" is a FET Subject and "Class" is a FET "Activity" (both in the official FET and in FET-mapr).

I have to warn you, it won't be easy at all and I cannot guarantee success.

There are some examples in the corresponding directory (see the zt3 and hhw, but I am not sure they are solvable. They are from Chinese high-schools).

To start: create two kinds of FET rooms: one for each real room, and one for each real teacher. Create the real teachers = FET teachers. Add type 1 of activities without teachers, and with students. These will have preferred FET rooms as real teachers. Then add type 2 of activities, without students, with FET teachers = real teachers, preferred FET rooms as real teachers. Then add type 3 of activities, without students, without teachers, preferred FET rooms as real rooms, specified number of students = 1. Then constraints activities same starting time between type 2 and type 3 activities (I dropped an eye on examples/examples-old-mapr-asa10-zt3/examples-zt3-large/example-100-percent.fet). Specified number of students = 1 and the capacity of the real room is 1, so that the room is not exhausted.

The previous paragraph is very difficult. I might be mistaking. Better, please check that example.

[Donmegawatt]

I will download the "FET-mapr" version and attempt to follow your instructions.

Thank you for your considerable effort in understanding my situation and offering a possible solution.

I will do my best ... and return shortly with my results.