Holiday and class hours

[Pierre-Yves Métaireau]

Sorry for the basic questions.
1- I cannot find out why  holidays and breaks specified in the session are not taken into account in the timetable grid. Do I have to take them into account in the date pattern? Is so, what is the point of defining holidays?
2- Correlated question. Do I have to define different date patterns for two classes that do not have the same number of hours?  Otherwise, how do I specify the number of hours for a given class?
Thanks for your help.

[Tomáš Müller]

Dear Pierre-Yves Métaireau,

1) Yes, holidays must be taken into account in the date patterns. The settings on the academic session is there only to indicate (on a date pattern and in the event management) where the holidays are.

2) No for date patterns, but yes for time patterns. Think about date patterns as weeks during which a class can take place (e.g., full term, odd/even weeks, 1st 5 weeks, Week 4). Possible days of week as well as the start and end times are defined by time patterns. Unless you want to fix a class in one possible time (using the exact time pattern), there needs to be a time pattern created for each possible number of minutes per week. Usually there is not that many possibilities and each possibility may have a different set of start times. For example, if the last block for a 2 hour class is 5 pm - 7 pm, the last block for a 4 hour class usually is 3pm - 7pm.

Best Regards,

Tomas Muller

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[Pierre-Yves Métaireau]

Thanks Thomas.
But how can I specify that my 8 hour class can be offered by block of 2 hours during the 1st 5 weeks? In other words, how can I let the solver selects the "best" 4 weeks during which this class will be held?

Best regards

[Tomáš Müller]

Dear Pierre,

I am not sure what you want to accomplish. It is possible to define alternative date patterns (e.g., every other week date pattern allowing the solver to choose either even weeks or odd weeks). If there is only one class, there can be only one combination of date pattern, time pattern, day(s) of week and start time however.

You can create a date pattern of type alternative pattern set and than attach different date patterns to it (a date pattern can be in multiple sets). So, for instance, I can create an "Every Other Week" date pattern:

And that edit Event Weeks and Odd Weeks date patterns and add them to the Every Other Week date pattern:

(see the Alternative Pattern Sets drop down).

Similarly, I can create a "1x" date pattern that contains all the single week date patterns Week 1, Week 2, ... 

Now, when such a date pattern is selected on a class or a scheduling subpart, this will mean that the class must choose one of the date patterns of the set. Here is an example for the Every Other Week date pattern:

You can even put preferences on each date pattern (e.g., even weeks could be preferred to odd weeks) -- see the Date Pattern Preferences section.

It is also possible to let UniTime timetable all meetings individually, but it means that multiple classes have to be set up for the course. Here is an example:

The ART 105 is a distance study class that meets three times a semester (Friday or Saturday), it has two meetings of 10 hours and one of 9 hours. Is is also possible to set (in the solver configuration, parameter Automatica hierarchical constraints) that classes of 1x date pattern that are nested like on the screen shot above have to be on different weeks (prohibited same weeks distribution), and preferred to be placed in the same room and in given order (preferred same room and preferred precedence distributions).

Regards,

Tomas

[Pierre-Yves Métaireau]

Dear Tomas

Thank you very much..
The information provided will help me a lot.

Again, I would not like to waste your time though I still have a couple of basic issues I'd like to share with you.

1- Any idea of the reason why I cannot display my timetable grid for a curriculum (nor for the whole department)?
It seems that the only ressource value that work are by instructor and room.

2- How can I specify the following constraint for all the courses of a given curriculum: maximum 3 days in a week shall be used (or minimize the number of days within a week)
What I want is to build a timetable for this curriculum, that would allocate only 3 days per week (always the same days of the week: M, T and W or M, T and Th, etc ...)

Thank you


Regards

Pierre-Yves

[Tomáš Müller]

Dear Pierre-Yves,

Ad 1)

The curricula are only visible when the data are loaded into the solver and your students do have curriculum information (academic areas, classifications and majors) filled in or the curricula are used to compute student conflicts (the data were loaded into the solver with the Student Course Demands set to Curricula Course Demands on the Solver page).

This is because when the data are loaded into the solver, the curricula are transformed into students and their course demands (courses they need). This information is used to minimize student conflicts (by shuffling students around the alternative sections and by avoiding student conflicts during class assignment). The reason why you can only see the curricula on the timetable grid when the data are loaded into the solver is because the computed student course demands are not persisted in the database. In other words, when there are no data loaded into the solver there is not enough information to know which of the classes of the courses that are in the selected curriculum will the students actually need.

Ad 2)

There was a new constraint recently introduced in UniTime 3.5 (3.5.218 or later) and 4.0 (4.0.12 or later) named MaxDays. This constraint limits the number of days of a week the classes on which it is set can take place. You would, however, need to manually set the course on all classes of a curriculum.

The MaxDays constraint is not registered in UniTime by default. You can register it with  this Create Max Days Constraints.xml script. To do so, you need to download the script XML file, go to Administration > Academic Sessions > Data Exchange, import the script XML file (in the Data Import section, select the file and hit Import). Once imported, you can go to Administration > Utilities > Scripts, select the newly imported script named "Distribution Types: Create Max Days Constraints" and hit Execute. Once finished, the At Most 3 Days a Week constraints will appear in UniTime (e.g., you can see them on the Administration > Solver > Distribution Types page).

Best Regards,

Tomas Muller

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[Pierre-Yves Métaireau]

Dear Tomas,

Thanks again for your help.
I can now see the timetable for the curriculum, which is most useful.

Unfortunately, I was not able to import the Create Max Days Constraints.xml script.
I did upgrade to UniTime 4.0 (I used an old build of 3.5). But I have the error message: "Failed. Unknown import type script." in data Exchange.
Could it come from the fact that I am using OSX?

Regards

[Tomáš Müller]

Dear Pierre-Yves,

OS X should not be a problem -- I am using OS X as well. You need to use UniTime 4.0.12 (or later) or UniTime 3.5.218 (or later). The error message indicates that your UniTime version is too old -- both the MaxDays constraint and the ability to import scripts have been added quite recently and at about the same time (end of March 2015).

Tomas

[Pierre-Yves Métaireau]

Dear Tomas,

My mistake. I thought I upgraded to the latest release.
It is now working fine
Thanks !

Pierre-Yves