Help with division of years, groups and subgroups.

[mcsj]

Dear experienced FET users,

I'm writing to ask for some help with setting up three different sort of options.

a) My school offers a choice of BKK and TON which must be taught at the same time because the teachers can teach 1,2 or 3 of the classes e.g. Teacher T1 could teach TON to classes 8E, 8EE and 8G and T2 to class 8GG. Students from the four different classes but within the same year can take either BKK or TON. This situation is repeated for year 9.

b) A more complex option involves classes 10 A and 10 B being able to choose TON or LIT during one timeslot and COM or ACC in another. The complication is that the third class 10 Sc offers a choice of LIT or ACC or ADM and the LIT for 10 Sc is taught by the same teacher and at the same time as the LIT for 10 A or 10 B in their TON or LIT.

c) The third option involves a class called PU which must be done by everyone in the school and can be mixed between 8 E and 12 A or 11 A and 11 B, or any two combinations of any class either of the same year group or of different year groups. I don't know if there is a way for FET to automatically schedule any of the classes together - or whether I must determine which classes are grouped and then follow the similar procedure as in (a) above.

In order to try and solve these problems I have setup the following years (8,9,10,11,12) with the following groups and subgroups:

year:     8

group:    8 E
subgroup: 8 E BKK
subgroup: 8 E TON

group:    8 EE
subgroup: 8 EE BKK
subgroup: 8 EE TON

group:    8 G
subgroup: 8 G BKK
subgroup: 8 G TON

group:    8 GG
subgroup: 8 GG BKK
subgroup: 8 GG TON

group:    8 BKK
subgroup: 8 E BKK
subgroup: 8 EE BKK
subgroup: 8 G BKK
subgroup: 8 GG BKK

group:    8 TON
subgroup: 8 E TON
subgroup: 8 EE TON
subgroup: 8 G TON
subgroup: 8 GG TON

This was duplicated for Year 9. For years 10, 11 and 12 I used the following breakdown, using year 10 as an example:

year:     10

group:    10 A
subgroup: 10 A LIT COM
subgroup: 10 A LIT ACC
subgroup: 10 A TON COM
subgroup: 10 A TON ACC

group:    10 B
subgroup: 10 B LIT COM
subgroup: 10 B LIT ACC
subgroup: 10 B TON COM
subgroup: 10 B TON ACC

group:    10 Sc
subgroup: 10 Sc ACC
subgroup: 10 Sc ADM
subgroup: 10 Sc LIT

group:    10 LIT
subgroup: 10 A LIT COM
subgroup: 10 A LIT ACC
subgroup: 10 B LIT COM
subgroup: 10 B LIT ACC
subgroup: 10 Sc LIT

subgroup:
group:    10 TON
subgroup: 10 A TON COM
subgroup: 10 A TON ACC
subgroup: 10 B TON COM
subgroup: 10 B TON ACC

group:    10 COM
subgroup: 10 A LIT COM
subgroup: 10 A TON COM
subgroup: 10 B LIT COM
subgroup: 10 B TON COM

group:    10 ACC
subgroup: 10 A LIT ACC
subgroup: 10 A TON ACC
subgroup: 10 B LIT ACC
subgroup: 10 B TON ACC
subgroup: 10 Sc LIT ACC
subgroup: 10 Sc TON ACC

group:    10 ADM
subgroup: 10 Sc ADM

My question is, is there a way of making BKK TON (in the case of Years 8 and 9) options using individual subjects BKK and TON or must I create a subject called BKK/TON ? similarly, do I create TON/LIT, COM/ACC and LIT/ACC/ADM as subject? But if that is true - do I have to make the groups COM/ACC and TON/LIT/ACC/ADM - even though TON/LIT is concurrent for classes A and B and LIT/ACC/ADM only for the Sc class. Basically - how can I create the TON/LIT and LIT/ACC/ADM so that it's taught in the same timeslot across classes A, B and Sc. And if I use the latter option is there a way of showing only TON/LIT in classes A and B and LIT/ACC/ADM in the Sc class generated timetables? And do I add the subgroups (e.g. 10 A LIT, 10 B LIT, 10 Sc LIT) or groups (10 LIT) to the activity?

I tried using the Divide option but then it created a whole lot of Sc subgroups which included for e.g. COM - and so I thought I should manually edit the groups as above. Did I do the right thing?

Or is there a constraint to say that when one activity is being conducted, another should also be run simultaneously?

I've spent so much time trying to figure out my (a) and (b) I haven't had a chance to attempt (c) (with PU and using mixed classes in mixed years) - but if you have a suggestion on that, I'd be most grateful.

Thank you in advance, and if I have forgotten any other piece of information that you might need please let me know and I'll try and tell you.

matthew.

[Liviu Lalescu]

a) My school offers a choice of BKK and TON which must be taught at the same time because the teachers can teach 1,2 or 3 of the classes e.g. Teacher T1 could teach TON to classes 8E, 8EE and 8G and T2 to class 8GG. Students from the four different classes but within the same year can take either BKK or TON. This situation is repeated for year 9.

I think you did a good job here. 2 categories, 1-divisions: E, EE, G, GG and 2-divisions BKK, TON.

b) A more complex option involves classes 10 A and 10 B being able to choose TON or LIT during one timeslot and COM or ACC in another. The complication is that the third class 10 Sc offers a choice of LIT or ACC or ADM and the LIT for 10 Sc is taught by the same teacher and at the same time as the LIT for 10 A or 10 B in their TON or LIT.

Also I think you did a good job. But instead of:

subgroup: 10 Sc LIT ACC
subgroup: 10 Sc TON ACC

should be subgroup 10 Sc ACC?

It seems a bit weird to me, because A and B have to choose TON-LIT and COM-ACC, but Sc have to choose LIT-ACC-ADM. You should have 3 categories in dividing year 10, but what categories to choose? 1-division is A, B, C, but 2-division is which? TON-LIT or LIT-ACC-ADM? 3-division is which? COM-ACC or LIT-ACC-ADM?

I cannot understand this situation.

c) The third option involves a class called PU which must be done by everyone in the school and can be mixed between 8 E and 12 A or 11 A and 11 B, or any two combinations of any class either of the same year group or of different year groups. I don't know if there is a way for FET to automatically schedule any of the classes together - or whether I must determine which classes are grouped and then follow the similar procedure as in (a) above.

I think you should choose yourself the combinations.

There is the possibility to let FET choose, but it can put in each slot any combination, so you could end up with 1 class in a time slot or 4 classes in other time slot. For this, add separate activities, for each class (for each first division group). You could constrain that there are no more than 2 activities of PU in a single time slot, by adding 2 rooms and constrain PU into these 2 rooms (a trick). But you may have at a time slot a single PU activity, instead of the 2 required.

To choose yourself, just add activities like: Students:8E, 12 A, Subject: PU, then the rest of activities.

My question is, is there a way of making BKK TON (in the case of Years 8 and 9) options using individual subjects BKK and TON or must I create a subject called BKK/TON ? similarly, do I create TON/LIT, COM/ACC and LIT/ACC/ADM as subject? But if that is true - do I have to make the groups COM/ACC and TON/LIT/ACC/ADM - even though TON/LIT is concurrent for classes A and B and LIT/ACC/ADM only for the Sc class. Basically - how can I create the TON/LIT and LIT/ACC/ADM so that it's taught in the same timeslot across classes A, B and Sc. And if I use the latter option is there a way of showing only TON/LIT in classes A and B and LIT/ACC/ADM in the Sc class generated timetables? And do I add the subgroups (e.g. 10 A LIT, 10 B LIT, 10 Sc LIT) or groups (10 LIT) to the activity?

I think you should add individual subjects.

You have constraint activities same starting time you can use.

You can add groups (option preferred by me) or subgroups - as you wish. If you add groups, it looks nicer in the timetable and is easier to add. Try.

I tried using the Divide option but then it created a whole lot of Sc subgroups which included for e.g. COM - and so I thought I should manually edit the groups as above. Did I do the right thing?

You can use the automatic division and just ignore the empty subgroups, I think they don't slow down the algorithm (or slow it very little). You can delete empty subgroups if you want. I never did a comparison of speed of these 2 cases (with empty groups and without empty groups), maybe you could report a comparison.

But I don't understand the division of year 10, because it mixes the categories. How can you divide automatically year 10 in FET?

Or is there a constraint to say that when one activity is being conducted, another should also be run simultaneously?

Yes, there is, as I wrote above.