Teachers Scheduled Class Time

[CCU]

Hi,

I'm helping an admin organize a timetable for the staff members of an Elementary school. I have come across your program recently and am in the process of learning how to do certain things.
I have set activities for students and teachers and now I'm stuck a bit.
The issue is how to organize the actual teaching time of each teacher.

The school works in the following way. Each group of students has a homeroom. This homeroom is where they spend their entire school day except when they leave for special classes like Gym/Science/Computers (other activities basically).
Now the regular teachers' schedule depends on what activities the kids have during the day.

So for example the teacher in charge of homeroom 10 (Kindergarten Group 1) has this group from 8:05 till 3:30 except when the group has Lunch or science class with another teacher.

How can I add this in so as to have the homeroom teachers schedule indicate that the group of students they have has an activity in another room?

The next step is to add the fact that certain groups switch homerooms although this can be solved manually.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Liviu Lalescu]

Why not this: Add home room activities as usual, space constraints home rooms for their teachers, and the other special rooms activities will have a preferred room?

Maybe you can describe why the above does not work, and give a small illustrated example.

[CCU]

Hi,

Thanks for the prompt reply.
The issue is that the Homeroom, activities are not organized by the admin, but by the teachers and I have very little knowledge of what each teacher will plan.
My understanding is that the specialized teachers (Gym, Computers, Science) get priority and then what's left over belongs to the regular Homeroom teacher.
So I'm in essence looking for a way to create an activity that fills in whatever gaps are made by the special classes.
Does that make sense?
I have attached a sample schedule from the previous year.

[Liviu Lalescu]

You mean in the picture you know the non-blank slots, and you need to fill in the blank cells? Then add for each non-blank slot a not available students constraint.

Or, otherwise, what signifies the empty cells in your picture?

[CCU]

ah yes, the blank slots are the teacher's class time when they have their homeroom.
The slots that have Sci Tech, HS/LA, Phy Educ are classes taught by specialists and during those periods the Homeroom teacher has a spare.
The reason why the Homeroom schedule keeps track of the other special classes is that certain preparations must be made before the students leave the homeroom and go to their sci or gym class. In the case of gym they have to change uniform. For science they have to bring different books/tools, etc

[Liviu Lalescu]

I am sorry, but I think I still do not understand correctly, because for me it seems very simple: add the activities, add some constraints activity preferred starting time for the locked activities, and generate.

Also, you might need to use the constraints activities not overlapping (but I am not sure).

Maybe you would like also to send your .fet file, so I can have a look.

You have also some building constraints, like min gaps between building changes. You could add each room to a different building and use this constraint, so that pupils have one slot between changes of buildings.

[CCU]

The issue is that I have a homeroom teacher who on their schedule must be told during which time slots the group they have goes to a special class.
Unless i look at the student schedule which has that information without any extra hassle. I think I understood what you meant. Add the activities for the specialists and then generate. Yes, you're right it is simple. I'll give it a go and post back as soon as I have something (which might be tomorrow or in a few weeks/months depending on the scheduling of all those involved)

Thank you Sir.

P.S.
For the .fet file I'm a bit resilient since I feel I would need Admin approval. I will check tomorrow.

P.P.S
Thanks, in a more general manner, for taking the time to make the program. It's brilliant.

[Liviu Lalescu]

The issue is that I have a homeroom teacher who on their schedule must be told during which time slots the group they have goes to a special class.

Those slots will be free for that teacher. Or you could add for each special activity of that students set an activity for the teacher, with the same subject, and make them start at the same time with constraints activities same starting times.

Unless i look at the student schedule which has that information without any extra hassle. I think I understood what you meant. Add the activities for the specialists and then generate. Yes, you're right it is simple. I'll give it a go and post back as soon as I have something (which might be tomorrow or in a few weeks/months depending on the scheduling of all those involved)

Thank you Sir.

P.S.
For the .fet file I'm a bit resilient since I feel I would need Admin approval. I will check tomorrow.

P.P.S
Thanks, in a more general manner, for taking the time to make the program. It's brilliant.

Please call me Liviu

Of course, I understand and respect the privacy problems. You can also send the file to my email.

Thank you for the appreciation!

[CCU]

Thank you Sir.

Please call me Liviu

Force of habit (professional and upbringing "cei sapte ani de acasa")

Of course, I understand and respect the privacy problems. You can also send the file to my email.

You represent a third party, separate from the institution that I work for so any correspondence has to be Admin approved from my perspective. I'll speak with my VP and see if they agree.

I'm really excited because if this works it solves a lot of problems that used to take a lot of time and that were usually solved by one individual that did all of this by hand (not me, a fellow colleague).

Cheers,
CCU

[Liviu Lalescu]

Thank you Sir.

Please call me Liviu

Force of habit (professional and upbringing "cei sapte ani de acasa")

Of course, I understand and respect the privacy problems. You can also send the file to my email.

You represent a third party, separate from the institution that I work for so any correspondence has to be Admin approved from my perspective. I'll speak with my VP and see if they agree.

I'm really excited because if this works it solves a lot of problems that used to take a lot of time and that were usually solved by one individual that did all of this by hand (not me, a fellow colleague).

Cheers,
CCU

Sure. Let's hope it works.

[CCU]

Hi,

Ok, back with a few questions regarding a restriction that blocks the generation of a viable time table.

My constraints are.
Weekdays run from 8:05 to 15:30 except for Mo, We and Th when the day finishes at 2:30
There are homerooms each day at 8:05-8:15 and  12:55-13:00.
Recess is at 10:00 to 10:15 and lunch is 12:00 to 12:55.

Now I introduced the above in the form of activities with multiple splits and set preferred time slots for each one.
When generating at this point I get no errors and it all takes less than a second.

Once I add the following it all stumbles.
I have 3 grades with 2 groups each with an activity that occurs twice a week. The issue is that I must have one group follow another. What I mean is that if the Grade 4 (Group 1) are taught on a certain day, then right after that course I must have Grade 4 (Group 2)
So I tried setting-up the activity as follows:
Activity grade 4 group 1 science, 2 splits with minimum one day in-between splits.
Activity grade 4 group 2 science, 2 splits......
Now I do this for all 3 grades concerned and then I set the added constraint of consecutive classes for each of them. At this point FET no longer generates a table and justs keeps running without finding a viable solution.
I not sure if my approach is wrong.
I still have constraints to add so I'm stuck on how to proceed.

All suggestions are welcomed.

Thank you.

P.S.  I'm tied up at the moment so the earliest I will be able to reply will most likely be after 2-3 hours from now.

[Liviu Lalescu]

You did correctly.

I would try to deactivate the consecutive constraints and see if it still generates, then deactivate the min days between activities constraints and see if it still generates (one try at a time).

The best would be to send me your file (if possible).

[CCU]

I'll try as soon as I get a chance to get home. I should post back with the results in the next hour and a half.

Thanks

[CCU]

Ok, I spotted the issue but that makes things worse now.
The problem is the breaks: Recess, Lunch and the Short days.
Each one of the groups must have 1 hour of class which means two groups back to back makes 2 hours which is not possible unless they are scheduled before and after recess.

The issue is that FET does not see recess as a break but as an activity (since I defined it as such as I have to have it show up on the schedule as recess not an X) so using the special option of having one course be consecutive to another is not feasible.

So I can either remove recess and leave it as a series of x's which will then facilitate FET's job or try to define a convoluted constraint scheme.

Is there a way for me to have the generated schedules exported in an editable format such as xcl, doc, odt?
If I can do that then things become easy and I have fewer constraints to contend with.

On a side note, is the consecutive course option interchangeable? By that I mean, is it possible to have A then B or B then A?


Edit:
I just realized my last question is pointless since you have the Group function which does exactly what I was looking for.

[Liviu Lalescu]

Is there a way for me to have the generated schedules exported in an editable format such as xcl, doc, odt?
If I can do that then things become easy and I have fewer constraints to contend with.

Not directly. You could open the HTML timetables with Open Office or Libre Office or Microsoft Office. Or export from FET the timetable as CSV.