The timetable generator - creation steps

The service helps to define school or exams timetables. This guide concerns defining of school timetables. You can create the exam timetables in the same way but in that case the subjects mean exams and the teachers are examinators.

1. Select a timetable plan or create a new one.

TIP! You can also clone the existing one to modify only some conditions or import external school timetable data from CSV, HTML format files or WWW sites to existing plan.

2. Define sites. For each site you can define later time of lessons, different classrooms, resources and subjects to teach in such a site. For all sites you can define inter-sites moving time.

TIP! If you do not enter any site the system assumes default one and all subjects, classrooms etc. not assigned to site will be in "Default site".

3. Enter classrooms data such as the name (or number), number of places and classroom availability. You can assign the classroom to a site defined before if not the system will assign "Default site" by itself. You can assign the access account parameters (login, password) giving you later the possibility of checking its availability online. Account data can be automatically delivered to email addresses of classroom managers.

4. Enter resources data such as amount and availability site. Similarly if you do not enter the site the system will assign "Default site" by itself.

5. Define days of the week and time of lessons. You can define the time of lessons differently for each site.

TIP! Default site is the site assigned for everything without explicitely defined site.

6. Optionally define groups of days. It helps you to set data for only some days within the group e.g. starting time for student body for Monday till Wednesday could be different as for Thursday-Friday. You can even define max number of lessons for groups of days e.g. 4 lessons of maths during first three days of the week.

7. Optionally enter students data such as name, identity number, student body /course or packet of courses/ and the access account parameters (login, password) giving in near future the possibility to check their timetables online or register for courses. Account data can be automatically generated and delivered to email addresses of students.

8. Enter student bodies /courses or packets of courses/ data such as the name (e.g. Ia, II b group 2), size (number of students), min and max number of lessons per day, the start time range, preferred classroom, gaps mode, inter-sites moving mode, availability between lessons and days. You can demand e.g. lessons take place only on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:00 to 12:00. If you have division of student bodies to smaller groups yet with few subjects in difference you can define main student body (e.g. Year I), assign all common subjects to it and assign to subsequent groups of students (student bodies e.g. Year I maths, Year I phys) special subjects. In ADVANCED part you can enter the same parameters as above but in context of groups of days defined before (e.g. Max number of lessons a day in group of days helps to balance amount of lessons in the week). The account parameters (login and password) give students in student body the possibility to access their timetable online. Account data can be automatically generated and delivered to email addresses of students. If you allocate same students to several student bodies (e.g. courses) the timetable generator will enforce their lessons to not overlap. We can choose packets to which selected course belongs and this way to avoid a class overlapping. Packets of courses are the preferred way for defining of student groups because of their flexibility. You can select the main course (year I program) and then to add specifical courses for given student body e.g. French classes to create profiled group. It is possible to do the same by using the old groups (defined by "is a group of the student body") and combined or new separated subjects but using packets it is much more easier. Packets are also much more natural for high schools or universities.

TIP! Setting the starting times lets to select shift lessons mode: morning or afternoon lessons. If you do not select this you will decide that the start time of each lesson can be random (probably different for each class). If there are several classes with similar set of subjects it is enough to enter only one with subjects and then clone the class. The cloning is copying a class with its subjects data to a new position. Then it is enough to change the name and enter the changes e.g. number of subjects or new subject itself etc. The student body can be devided automatically into a number of groups. It devides evenly students by new created groups as well. Inter-sites moving mode helps to prevent from too frequent moving between sites.

9. Enter data of teachers: first name, surname, min and max number of lessons hours a day (but if you select the option "Minimum amount or zero" the zero value will be possible, that way you can decide whether 1 and/or 2-hours working days should be impossible), gaps mode, preferred classroom, speciality (to help replacement later on), availability between lessons and days. In ADVANCED part you can enter the same parameters as above but in context of groups of days defined before. The account parameters (login and password) give teachers the possibility to access their timetable online. Account data can be automatically generated and delivered to email addresses of teachers.

10. Optionally enter groups of subjects data: the name, min and max number of lessons a day,min or zero and max number of simultanoues lessons, blocking mode of group subjects (see description of the subjects defining). In ADVANCED part you can enter the same parameters as above but in context of groups of days defined before. Setting a minimum number of simultanoues lessons could be a way for correlating some classes of subjects and setting a max number of simultanoues lessons to one could be a way to separate subjects in time.

TIP! The groups are sets of subjects depending on a user rule e.g. difficulty of subjects etc. The goal for creating a group can be to differentiate subjects in a day or to limit a count of difficult subjects in a day.

11. Enter subjects data: the name, number of lessons a week, a student body, a teacher, groups of subject it belongs to, number of periods (time slots) necessary at once, min and max number of lessons a day, a combined lesson (e.g. several groups of students (student bodies) can have a common lecture),whether combined subject needs separate classroom, a subject position i.e. last, first, last or first and even in the middle of lessons in context of courses or packets, blocking mode, site, resources it requires, precedence mode among other subjects within the week and availability between lessons and days. In ADVANCED part you can enter the same parameters as above but in context of groups of days defined before.

TIP! The blocking mode means that if the subject should appear in a few hour-block, continuous one in a day or not: Not blocked - the subject should not appear in a few hour-block, continuous block, Always blocked - the subject should always appear in a few hour-block, continuous block, Blocked if several a day - the subject should appear in a few hour-block, continuous block besides the case if it is a single lesson i.e. it is possible to have a single hour on some days.

12. Assign classrooms to subjects manually or automatically based on the size of student bodies and classrooms. Set preferred classrooms for subjects (the classrooms that the system should select at first).

TIP! If you change the size of classrooms, number of students in a student body or join some subjects you need to reassign classrooms due to change of the size conditions for student bodies or classrooms. If you omit this step the system will automatically make assignments for those subjects which have not yet classrooms assigned. However, it will not make it for the other ones in order to keep your assignment. You can decide that a small classroom will collect more students after putting in some extra chairs. The automatic arrangement does not include prefered classrooms. The last should be set manually. During starting the calculations the option: "Take into account only the number of classrooms" speeds up the generation of the school schedule but only the number of classrooms will be taken into consideration.

13. If your school would like to take into account some students preferences about courses they want to access before starting generation of timetable then it is the best moment to do so and turn on registration of students for courses. System takes the size of student bodies to limit max number of students in a course if it is nonzero value. Registration data can be automatically generated and delivered to email adresses of students. The registration will be possible only within given time period and stopped at any time. Before you can control the process of registration as a admin e.g.removing some students from a course. Finally closing the registration will create unique packets - student groups (removing duplicates, empty packets or packets with only one course) based on their registration for courses and let you to enter next steps in this guide. Also the registration can be openned after generation of timetable.

14. Besides setting the availability of subjects in lessons and days (i.e. hours or days when subjects can appear) you can set an expected arrangement of subjects and lessons. The system will find a solution similar to a given one. You can also demand to appear the selected subjects in selected hours and days (checking it up on the diagram). It should be done carefully because ability to find solution by the system is less efficient. Especially if these conditions are in conflict with other ones, e.g. classrooms availability. However, these conflicts will be found before starting the calculations.

TIP! The expected timetable (besides the demanded positions of subjects) is the only condition to be optimized (but if you do not use optimization option - check box: "Use optimization" when starting generator). All the other conditions are restricted and they have to be fullfilled in ultimate solution (the ultimate timetable). This is why you get exactly what you demand. If you choose the option: "Look for solution near to the given conditions" (during starting the calculations) the system will correct many conflicting conditions besides: the number of lessons on a given subject a week, the availability of classes, teachers, classrooms, subjects between lessons and days and demanded positions of subjects.

15. Optionally you can define constraints priorities for removing constraints in case of inconsistency. It helps to get as close solution to your demands as you need. For example you can demand no gaps for a few teachers as priority and so on. Finally the timetable generator informs you about all necessary modifications.

16. Run the timetable generator.
Now it is possible to optimize less important constraints switching an option during starting generator (check box: "Optimization mode"). This option helps to get a complete solution (or almost complete) during time period provided for the generation process. The system is removing constraints with the lowest priorities one by one during the optimization process till the end of time or a solution found. These priorities can be set up in "Change constraints priorities" and using "Optimization for constraints above the priority" you can preserve major constraints from being removed. Till now generator used defined priorities during process of removing inconsistencies but now also during described optimization process. There are a few optimization modes but recommended one is Normal or Fast. Iterative modes are better in some cases but extremely slow.

17. Before running the generator we can decide to continue previous calculations (the option: "Use results from previous run") selecting "Continue previous run" - the generator will use the inconsistencies found in previous run, the difficult constraints found during the optimization process and starts from previous point. In this way you can improve the previous generated timetable or speed up the generation of a new similar one. If you choose "Inconsistencies only" the system will not use the information about difficult constrainst but all the rest will be processed as described above. We can also choose "Do not use" and ignore previous results in this way. Selecting "Required number of remain lessons to arrange" lets you to avoid optimization process if the number of unarranged lessons will be less or equal to the value.

18. The time limit of calculation for users is 10800 seconds i.e. 3 hours (from starting the generator). It should be enough to obtain a solution even in a complex case. If you need to limit it you can set parameter "Max time for generator" during starting up the calculations. It could be reasonable to obtain a rough solution if you know that you have entered approximate conditions.

19. Optionally after getting the solution you can run "Use as expected timetable" to send all obtained results into the expected solution (then you can find it in menu position: "Timetable - expected"). All expected hours will be at first unmarked (not demanded, not obligatory). If you want you can fix some of them by marking a lesson. If you do this the system will keep this position in the ultimate timetable and try to find other positions (not obligatory). You can also remove some hours from the diagram. It should allow to obtain a completely different solution regarding these lessons. You can decide if you want a similar solution. Doing this in iterative way you will be able find better and better solutions.

TIP! If you need to find a new timetable similar to the existing one because of reorganization you can clone the existing plan, use the option "Use as expected timetable" and change the required parts before rerunnig the calculations. If you want to get a completely new timetable you simply do not select the option "Take into account the expected timetable" during starting the calculations.

20. Optionally you can rearrange classrooms among lessons at menu "Timetable - results". After getting in edit mode by means of "Enter into manual classrooms arrangement mode" you can set an initial arrangement of classrooms i.e. the position starting from which the system will try to find the next classrooms arrangement ("Next arrangement"). To enforce the system will select given classroom for a lesson mark it as fixed. Classroom displayed in red is used by another lesson. In this place you can export generated timetable in CSV or HTML or send it by email.

21. Give an access to just generated timetable online for students, student bodies, teachers, classrooms supervisors etc. by defining a school domain e.g. my_school.school-timetable.eu and account parameters (logins and passwords for school, a teacher, a student, a student body, a classroom supervisor). You can do it at "Access config" while defining new timetable. This menu option appears together with "Timetable - results". After making a timetable accessible online you cannot modify it until turning off the access back at "Access config".

22. Turn on the studentów registration for courses if you need and have not done before. Accout data can be automatically generated and delivered to students email addresses. The registration will be possible only within given time period and stopped at any time.

23. Manage substitutions and replacements. The new teacher replacement or new timetable substitution is immediately visible online. You can select among new teacher, new subject, new classroom, removing a lesson or even choose new timetable for given period of time.