help please (Rostering Duties - not subjects)

[evandevon]

Hi, firstly - awesome program!
secondly - I'm having trouble understanding what I have to do to roster teachers to playground duties.

Say each day I have around...
15 teachers
3 playgrounds
2x20 min duties per lunch and recess on EACH playground
(So there are 4 duty shifts (2 for recess and 2 for lunch) per day per playground)

Constraints:
A teacher cannot do two 20min duties after one another (they must have at least a 20 min break for both recess and lunch)
BUT they could do second 20min of recess and first 20min of lunch


FET seems to alot rooms to subjects/activities and their associated teachers/students- But I need to alot teachers to playgrounds.
I tried labeling activities as "teacher 1,2,3" etc but don't really know what I'm doing (even read the help file) so I didn't get much further than that.

Anyone able to help?

[Liviu Lalescu]

There is a point which I don't understand: you have 4 working periods per playground per day, so in each day there are maximum 4*3=12 working periods, and you have 15 teachers? How can you put 15 teachers into 12 places?

If I make abstraction of the above problem, the solution seems easy at the moment: schedule activities with teachers (and subject) to rooms. No students involved (you can have an activity in FET without students). 3 rooms: P1, P2, P3. 15 teachers: T1, ..., T15, 2 subjects: lunch, recess. Add activities (without students) and constraints:

space constraints: subject preferred rooms, lunch->P1,P2,P3 and second one: recess->P1,P2,P3

time constraints: say teacher T1 has activities: A1(lunch), A2(lunch), A3(recess), A4(recess). Then, to say that between A1 and A2 must be at least one period (one hour, or 20 minutes in your case), you have the constraint min 1 gap between activities A1 and A2. Same for A3 and A4. This type of constraint is newly added, in fet-5.6.0.

Please let me know if this solves your problem and explain to me the first question I wrote.

[evandevon]

Sorry about the number stuff up - I wrote it quickly without thinking it through. I just typed some numbers that would help demonstrate the problem. I'll use your advice and post back in a few minutes. Thanks for the very quick reply!

Evs

[evandevon]

Sorry, further clarification on my original statement (am very sleepy and not thinking straight it seems). If there are e.g. 12 supervisors out at 12 playgrounds then the remaining 3 (if have 15 teachers total) will be on break (hooray!).
The current daily roster ends up with me usually having first half 20min recess duty, then a 20min break - (followed by 1:30hr in class lesson time) - Then another 20min break (1st half lunch), then second half lunch duty.

I tried to follow your instructions but I get a message saying it can't do it (with 30 teachers!). I've attached the zipped .fet file. Something I know I did different to you was use  a max 1 hour (20min really) continuous teacher duty instead of the other time restraints you suggested. (I should really download the latest update I know...).
Your help is much appreciated.

[Liviu Lalescu]

You didn't attach any file.

FET cannot choose which teachers should have an activity in a room, for instance select 12 teachers from 15 to have activity.

I think you could do the timetable by selecting the exact teachers with the exact activities (so input only 12 activities), or use constraint preferred rooms with lower than 100% (say, 90%) to let FET choose which activities out of 15 to put in those 12 rooms. You raise the weight until FET occupies all rooms.

But there is something strange with your request, why can't you solve it by hand? It is very easy.

[evandevon]

Sorry, like i said, I'm very sleepy.
Its been done by hand about 20 times already this year at my school due to constant school changes and I'm sure they'd appreciate something that takes only a minute to redo if someone decides they can't do thursdays anymore.
I'll redo the fet and learn a bit more about the program then get back to you. Thanks SO MUCH for your quick and helpful replies!!!

Evs

[Liviu Lalescu]

OK, sure, take your time.

PS: Why did you say in the first post that FET is awsome? Did it help you or other persons you know? I am interested in FET feed-back.

[evandevon]

Reasons for being awesome:
Free!
Amount of configuration options
No install required (Always good)
Has a user forum (with quick feedback too!)
Is open source

I don't know anyone else who has used it but I know it will come in handy when I end up having to organise classes in any future school I might be at.

Evs