Changes in timetables

[mchait]

I have been using FET for one semester in our School of Engineering, scheduling only professional subjects, and leaving out basic sciencies, Math, Physics and Chemistry. I took their timetable (manually made) and used it as time constraints over the classrooms. Mi timetable had only 94 activities and worked fine. Due to my success, now I am in charge for a bigger timetable, that includes basic sciencies and engineering, that should totalize about 300 activities. Hopefully it will converge fast, but as there are many part time professors, there is no doubt that changes will be required. I have read that changes should be avoided, but I have not found a way to do it. So I have taken my own way on which I would thank any advice.
After obtaining a valid timetable, lock it in time and space. A locked timetible may take changes like the teacher, given that the resource is available at the same time.

When that does not happen, or if there is a change in a classroom, it is not possible ti regenerate the timetable. To do this, it would be nice to unlock a specific activity, so it would "float" to a new position. I have worked this deleting the activity to change and redefining it with the new constraints, or teacher. Thar new activity is not locked ant it is placed in the timetable, leaving the rest of the locked activities untouched.

As I said, I would like a comment of my change strategy.

Thank you

[Volker Dirr]

Maybe i missunderstood, but:
a) you can lock/unlock with fet->timetable->advanced lock/unlock
b) if there is no need to keep the position of the activities, then please unlock all activities, because you will get best results only then

[gjveltink]

"Advanced Lock/Unlock" will always process a set of activities not a single activity.
This is a problem if you want to reschedule just a single activity.

I seem to remember, that there used to be a simple GUI for this in FET,
but I am not able to find it any longer.

So please anyone, what is the preferred war to unlock a 'single' activity within the GUI?
As a last resort I will probably edit the .fet-XML-file this time,
but it would be nice to have a different option.

[gjveltink]

OK, now I can answer my own question and maybe still help the OP.

If (and only if) you have generated a time table, you can get an overview for Teacher/Students/Rooms from the "Timetable" menu.
Here you have a nice interface to quickly unlock/lock activities.

My problem was, that I had to reschedule a teacher to another day of the week after I produced the initial time table.
After changing the teacher's availability I couldn't re-generate the time table any longer,
because the activity was locked on the wrong day. Because I just opened last week's .fet file I didn't have a valid time table either.
So, this is a perfect way to lock yourself out! ;-)

Cheers!

[Liviu Lalescu]

So please anyone, what is the preferred war to unlock a 'single' activity within the GUI?
As a last resort I will probably edit the .fet-XML-file this time,
but it would be nice to have a different option.

See constraints activity preferred starting time dialog.