E10 - Lines: Lines to periods

Modified on Thu, 14 Aug at 12:52 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble
Lines to periods
Timetable Flexibility
Future files
Steps to enter Lines to periods
Clearing the lines to periods table

Preamble

Historical timetabling practice considered elective line generation to be largely something done in isolation of other timetabling, such as allocating the task of 'doing the lines' to someone who has no responsibility to later timetable these lines. This causes problems which are not evident at the time of generation, but are certainly evident much later when actually assigning staff and trying to timetable. Generating good elective lines consider student preferences in addition to school resources (staff and rooms). Further, it is important to consider the part time staff requirements at the point of generating lines. While E10 does this as part of the line generation process, extra information may be known to the school which can be entered in during line generation to assist with the later timetabling of the lines.

The Lines to periods feature is effectively stipulating the timetable of classes for a dataset even before generating lines.

All other classes not included in the dataset will be timetabled as normal.

Some schools know from the outset the pattern of Lines on the timetable, ie which lines will run on each day. Or, perhaps only some lines, or certain periods of some lines, must run in particular periods on the timetable. This information can be entered into E10 to assist in the line generation process, and will particularly help with placing part time staff classes on optimal lines.

The Lines to periods feature is particularly useful where datasets containing classes with part time staff should not be placed on lines that run on their stipulated day(s) off. Stipulated days off must exist in Teachers > Teacher data F2.

This feature removes the later step of scheduling these lined classes in the Master Grid, as E10 will read the Lines to periods table and place them there automatically.

Lines to periods

Example:

School has a known timetable structure that looks like this:

It does not really matter which classes get put on which lines - this will follow normal generation parameters.

Let's say that in this scenario, there is a particular teacher who cannot work on Tuesdays, and who is the only teacher for the subject 11ART. E10 will not place 11ART on Lines 1,2,3, 4 or 6, as these lines all run on Tuesdays. Therefore, 11ART will be placed on Line 5.

Below is another example of set periods that must run in the school. Line 5 must be placed in the periods as shown, and two periods of Line 7 must run on Wednesday5.

Any teacher who has has been hardcoded as not working Mondays cannot have a class in Line 5.

Complete all or part of the Lines to periods table.

Timetable Flexibility

The Lines to periods table should not be used by schools who wish to give full timetabling flexibility to the Master Grid, and who will manually solve any part timer issues during the construction phase.

Note that even though the Lines to periods table may have been used, lines can be later moved around the timetable grid during construction, after first removing the hardcoding.

Future files

Once a Lines to periods pattern has been entered for a dataset, the data will remain in rolled over files for subsequent years until edited.

Steps to enter Lines to periods

Navigate to Lines > Elective Data F10 > Courses.
Navigate to the Action bar to check the Parameters, particularly the '#Elective Lines' and 'Periods per line'.
Note that the 'Periods per line' is the default number of periods per line, and may be adjusted later in Classes > Class data F6 if some classes do not need to run for the default number of periods.
Navigate to Lines > Elective Data F10 > Lines to periods.
Drag and drop each Line cell from the right to their desired periods. Complete all or part of the Lines to periods table.
Check Teachers > Teacher data F2. Edit the Unavailable entries for part time staff who need particular days off. The flexible type entry eg '1dayoff' is used when generating line as per default parameters, but is not the type of Unavailable entry read by the Lines to periods feature.
Lines to periods table reads specified Unavailable days off, not the flexible '1dayoff' type entries.
Generate lines (Lines > Elective data > Courses > Action bar: Generate lines)
Create classes (Lines > Line results > Action bar: Create classes)
The mapped periods for each line will be hard coded into the Classes > Class data > Periods column, and the classes automatically assigned to the master grid.
To edit this later:
- delete the hard coded period entries in Classes > Class data F6 Periods column
- either enter the new hard coded period, or allow the change in the Master grid F11.

Clearing the lines to periods table

To quickly clear the lines to periods table, click on the 'Clear lines to periods' button from the Action bar.