Teacher max subject switches per day?

[pnlshd]

Hello,

Here is the problem, most teachers here will have classes for three subjects to teach in the semester. A typical setup could be 3 of Sub A and 4 of Sub B and 2 of Sub C distributed randomly on the 4-5 days that the teacher will work.

Each subject session of course needs preparation. The problem happens when an unlucky teacher has classes for the three subjects in the first work day of the week.

this put some load to finish preparation for the three of them before the work week begins.

if there was a way to limit subject switches per day to one switch for example this could solve the problem.

this is needed most in the first day but generally a good distribution of subjects on the week is desirable

meaning that Sub C doesn't appear until day 3 for example.

max days between activities 0 for all subject activities for each teacher is a little overkill too.

but it could be used for just one Sub that has the fewest count and hope it balances the distribution of the others.

also max hours 2 in just the first day could alleviate the problem but I don't know how to do especially that days for each teacher are not fixed.

Thank you in advance for your advice and great work

[Liviu Lalescu]

Hello, pnlshd,

Thank you for the appreciation!

Max 2 hours in first day: use a constraint activities occupy max time slots from selection.

Also, in the recent versions there are teacher(s)/students (set) max activity tags from a set per day (allowing max 1 or 2).

[pnlshd]

Hello Liviu,

Thank you for your advice

Max 2 hours in the first day if I use that constraint I will have to do it on the first three days of the week because teachers usually work 4 days so the first day could be 1, 2 or 3 out of 6 week days, so I think this will be very constrained because I need it only in the first possible one.

Max tags from a set I am not sure how to use it to achieve that, Ohhh I just got an idea, did you mean that I can (automate) adding all activities of an arbitrary first subject for all teachers to tag Sub A and do the same for an arbitrary second subject for all teachers to tag Sub B and add the rest to Sub C and then apply the constraint max two tags from this set per day so that each teacher will have at most two subjects in any given day right? I think I could try that.

To further improve on that, I can add activities max hourly span two for the activities of each subject for each teacher to ensure not only max two subjects but a single switch between them too.

Do you think this could work too or have other comments?

[Liviu Lalescu]

Hello, pnlshd,

Indeed, I was thinking of this kind of usage (3 additional activity tags). But I am not sure max hourly span will work as required, because it is for all inputted activities, over all week.

[pnlshd]

Aha I see, I will try it gradually and see if it works. Thank you again for your insight and prompt response

[Liviu Lalescu]

You are welcome!