How can we place all activities?

[infoo_]

My personal appeal, for you and for all the FET users, is this: FET is completely free (libre) software. It requires very much dedication. If you consider it useful, please consider recommending your institution to make a benevolent donation or other kind of help to this project.

I was already determined to do it. If the institution rejects it, I will take care of finding a way to donate to the project. I need to see if I can sign to PayPal or someone else can.

Thank you for the hard work!

[Liviu Lalescu]

Thank you for the kind thoughts!

[Liviu Lalescu]

I let it compute. There are hopes. It reached 320/325 in one try. I am generating multiple with a 10 minutes limit each. I will leave it overnight if it won't find a timetable until sleep time.

[infoo_]

I let it compute. There are hopes. It reached 320/325 in one try. I am generating multiple with a 10 minutes limit each. I will leave it overnight if it won't find a timetable until sleep time.

Thank you. If it not possible, at least try to divide those 4 hours by a break time to give both students and teacher a little breather (if you remember, morning break times are between hours 2 and 3, and between hours 4 and 5). Actually last year and in FET those subjects are teached from hour 5 to hour 8, where there are no break times.

Edited numbers

[Liviu Lalescu]

If it not possible, at least try to divide those 4 hours by a break time to give both students and teacher a little breather (if you remember, morning break times are between hours 2 and 3, and between hours 4 and 5). Actually last year and in FET those subjects are teached from hour 5 to hour 8, where there are no break times.

OK, I know how this can be inputted (5 constraints activities occupy max time slots from selection).

I'll try the better way (2 hours gaps) - if it does not succeed I'll try also this.

[Liviu Lalescu]

I am trying in parallel both methods. Still no solution. But I hope tomorrow morning it will be. I got 324/325 in 3 generations. It should be possible, but you are pushing the limits of the program 

[Liviu Lalescu]

Yesss    Success, in 4m 50s I obtained the attached timetable, with 2 gaps between them.

Also, only 2 constraints tag max 2 hours daily broken.

I hope now everything will be OK.

I might go to sleep, but I might check again for your answer, because I am very hopeful.

I will leave it to compute further possible timetables.

Edit: I attach also the random seeds, so the generation can be replicated.

[infoo_]

Thanks Liviu!

Unfortunately, I think we are not going to get that far because they asked me for a new requirement.

It's about Teacher T (Suplente Teacher C) who teachs Formación Ética y Ciudadana on 2A and 2C. He has only these 2 activities:

66 - 2 - Teacher T (Suplente Teacher C) - Formación Ética y Ciudadana - 2A - 2A
106 - 2 - Teacher T (Suplente Teacher C) - Formación Ética y Ciudadana - 2C - 2C

We need that he teachs these 2 activities consecutively on same day (it doesn't matter which day), first 2A and then 2C (of course this is the order, since first are morning activities).

I think this causes Teacher T (Suplente Teacher C) teaching hours 7 and 8 of mornings and hours 1 and 2 of afternoons (it doesn't matter the day).

So I added:

Two activities consecutive: first act. id: 66, second act. id: 106, WP:100%

Is the constraint I chose correct?

If yes, the first thing I do was to change Minimum number of days between activities id=79 and id=80. I put a comment "Impossible?" and set to 1%.

If the answer is yes, please see attached file. It has minor improvements:

1) Deleted 2 teachers that were not teaching anything.

2) Deactivated two unnecessary "activities must not overlap" constraints. I added them a comment: "OP: Not necessary"

3) Updated Teacher T (Suplente Teacher B) available times because I forgot to unmark a slot.

I have taken liviu6_available_times_fixed. Please see attached file

However it is not enough to produce a complete timetable. What other changes should we consider?

[Liviu Lalescu]

Hello, darkwindow,

I think you did the changes correctly, from what you said. Unfortunately, I cannot help further with this file - I hope other users can help with advice.

[infoo_]

Don't worry, Liviu. You did an amazing job. I'm working on my own to make new changes

Thanks anyway!

[Liviu Lalescu]

Hello again,

I tried some more. I could not obtain a timetable without my new change, even if disabled many constraints. I think you need my new change.

My new change is to allow a late start at second hour for 4C.

I also added 2 preferred starting times, to help FET.

I also deactivated the max gaps for the teachers.

I obtained a timetable with these above 2 relaxations. I attach the file and solution.

Please tell me if it is allowed to do this to your file.

[infoo_]

My new change is to allow a late start at second hour for 4C.

I don't think that is possible. In the school it never happened that a course starts late. At some point in the past we discussed that solution, but I was not sure if it was possible, and I don't want to be right now

If the school allow this, I will notify

[Liviu Lalescu]

You might want to see the timetable for 4C and change a teacher's availability to suit for the slot where 4C begins late, and allocate that teacher there.

I think it is not possible otherwise.

[Liviu Lalescu]

May we relax the availability of a teacher / more teachers? I tried making Teacher P available all the afternoon, and I got to 320/325, might finish.

What other teachers can we relax in availability? (if any)

[infoo_]

May we relax the availability of a teacher / more teachers? I tried making Teacher P available all the afternoon, and I got to 320/325, might finish.

What other teachers can we relax in availability? (if any)

Unfortunately, we can't modify teacher's available times. We can restrict (doubt we could see it as helpful), but never extend them.

I am working on a new file. I need min days between activities to be working on all cases. There are 2 cases that it can't be respected. Perhaps we can manually split some activities (but taking care of constraints). I will post the file soon, I would be glad if someone can help me identifying those maunal divisions