Frequently asked questions:

Testing the timetable
Testing multiple forms/teachers at once
Lesson count and duration
Reordering teachers/forms/subjects/classrooms
Printing just some teachers/forms/classrooms
Assign lessons to classrooms
Customizing printouts
Working with seminars consisting of multiple lessons
Spreading lessons on different periods each day
Showing/printing day numbers instead of day names
Printing contracts of teachers
Education block
Terminology
Terminology in other languages
Cycle - using Odd/Even week groups
 

Testing the timetable

Question: Program leaves some cards unset after generating the timetable. What could be problem?

Answer:
Before you can generate timetable, your timetable needs to pass the test (menu - Timetable - Test). This test tries to generate small parts of timetable (forms, teachers, subjects, classrooms) to detect basic mistakes in inputting data or constraints. If it is not possible to generate just one form/teacher, than, of course, it will not possible to generate whole timetable.

When test fails, it will report which item (form/teacher/subject/classroom) was not possible to generate (or more items). Than you should find out what could be the reason. May be you will find out that you have entered something incorrectly. Or your constraints are too restrictive. If you think that everything is ok, but program still reports problem in test of this item, try to create timetable for that item by hand. Than run verification (menu - Timetable - Verification) on that timetable and program will report you which constraints are violated by your solution. You have to release constraints so that program will accept your solution of timetable.

If your timetable passes the test, but it is still not possible to generate it, you can try to test bigger parts of timetable (multiple forms at once, etc...). Please see also this question.

Testing multiple forms/teachers at once

Before you can generate timetable, your timetable needs to pass the test (menu - Timetable - Test). This test tries to generate small parts of timetable (forms, teachers, subjects, classrooms) to detect basic mistakes in inputting data or constraints. However sometimes problems are not linked to single form/teacher, but occur when trying to generate two or more forms/teachers. So if your timetable will pass the test, but it is still not possible to generate whole timetable, you might try to test bigger parts of timetable - e.g. whole grades, or even half of forms, etc...

You can test multiple forms/teachers/classrooms this way: First go to corresponding view (Whole/Teachers/Classrooms). Than selects rows that you wish to test. You can do it by clicking on row headers. Use Ctrl+click to add row to selection and Shift+click to add sequence of rows at once. Then right-click on some selected row header and choose Test.

Note: It is also possible to test multiple items by right-click on any card, then choose Test - More.
 

Lesson count and duration

Question: Double lessons appear to be doubled in timetable, what is wrong?

Answer:
This happens when you enter one double lesson per week in Lesson dialog with:

If you enter this, it means that there are two lessons and each of them has duration 2 periods, and this is 4 periods together.
If you wish to have just one double lesson, enter:

Similarly, if you want two double lessons, you should use:

instead of:

and so on...

Reordering teachers/forms/subjects/classrooms

Question: I am using the skeleton of this years timetable to create a new timetable for 2004 - 2005. I have added a new form e.g. 8S to those existing. Unfortunately, in the whole school view, the new form appears at the bottom of the screen, below 13R. Is there any way that it can be made to follow the other year 8 forms?

Answer:
You can use two small buttons at right bottom of teachers/forms/subjects/classrooms to reorder items in list.

Just click on item you wish to reposition in list and use up/down arrows to move it to desired position. For forms, teachers and classrooms, this will also change order of timetable rows on screen in Whole/Teachers/Classrooms views.

Another way how to reorder items in list is to click on column header. This will reorder list based on that column. This way you can sort items e.g. by Name, or Short name, or any other column. However this sort is just temporary - you can cancel it and return to original order.

When list is sorted by some column, small buttons at right bottom change to lock (key) and cancel (cross) buttons:

With lock button you can make current (temporary) sorting permanent. With cancel button you can cancel temporary sort of list items and return to original (permanent) order.

Notes:
- temporary sort will not change order of items in Whole/Teachers/Classrooms timetable views.
- if you want to sort items in descending order, click second time on the same column header.
- with Ctrl + click on column header you can sort by multiple columns.

Printing just some teachers/forms/classrooms

Question: Is there a way to just print off one teachers timetable?

Answer:
Go to menu File - Printing area. In this dialog you can select what will be printed. You can choose between printing All items (teachers/forms/classrooms) or just Selection of items. Here you can also choose from many other options what can be printed:
- summary timetables
- timetables of students
- wall posters
- contracts of teachers
- unused classrooms
- timetables of subjects
- ...

Assign lessons to classrooms

Question: My lessons are not assigned to classrooms. I have already inputted classrooms, but lessons are not assigned to them or are assigned to wrong classrooms. What can I do?

Answer:
Probably you have not specified available classrooms for lessons, or you have specified them incorrectly.

You can specify classrooms for lesson in Lesson editing dialog. (You can get into this dialog from teacher's contract, form's lessons, or by right click on card and choosing Edit lesson). Bottom part of this dialog specifies classrooms:

In this part of dialog you can specify list of classrooms that are available for this lesson. When lesson is scheduled into timetable, it will be assigned to one of those available classrooms. In above example, lesson will be assigned to one of GYM classrooms, e.g. into GYM1.

There are 3 checkboxes that you can use to specify classrooms:
Home classroom - lesson can be scheduled to Home classroom of its form. If this lesson is joined lesson of groups from multiple forms, it can be assigned to home classroom of any of those forms (see below how to specify home classrooms for forms).
Shared room - lesson can be scheduled to one of shared rooms (see below how to specify shared classrooms).
Other available classrooms - here you can specify classrooms by selecting them from list of all classrooms.

You can select also more checkboxes, e.g. both Home classroom and shared room.

How to define home classroom for form or shared rooms? You can do this in classroom editing dialog (To get to this dialog, go to classrooms, select classroom and click Edit).

In above example selected classroom is home classroom for form 5.A and also shared classroom.

Note: You can also specify classrooms for multiple lessons at once. You can find this function in menu Specification - Change. In the left part of this dialog you specify lessons for which you want to change classrooms. On the right side you specify classrooms in similar way as mentioned above. You can also choose between replacing original classroom settings for lessons, or just adding new classrooms. But be cautious: There is no Undo function for this operation, so double - check what have you entered in this dialog (and/or save backup copy of your file before using this function).

Note 2: In some situation you might need that lesson will be assigned to multiple classrooms, e.g. to both GYM1 and GYM2. For this you can use More classrooms button in Lesson editing dialog.

Customizing printouts

Question: How can I customize printouts from aSc Timetables? Is it possible to print teacher's name on form's timetable?

Answer:
There are plenty of options in aSc Timetables for customizing printouts. Most of them can be accessed from print preview:

You can use left mouse button to resize parts of timetable and you can customize what will be printed (teacher, subject, form...), how (fonts, etc...) and where with right mouse button on corresponding part of timetable.

Also in Printing area (Menu - File) you can customize what will be printed. See also this question.

Working with seminars consisting of multiple lessons

Question: Can I give a 3 single + 1 double math class distribution if I want it to be a seminar? I tried. It looks like two different seminars, students can be listed for one OR the other of them.

Answer:
To implement this you will have to use a little trick (however we are considering to implement this in more clean way in some of future versions).

First you will have to create additional subject for that seminar, so you will have two subjects for that seminar, e.g. Math1 and Math2. Then input 3 single seminar lessons as Math1 and 1 double seminar as Math2. After this you will see those lessons in two columns in Seminars dialog. Of course, you will have to select each student that attends this seminar in both columns.

Note: If you want to use automatic students rearranging engine (accessible with "Optimize" button in Seminars dialog and "Rearrange students in seminar groups" context menu when moving seminars), you will also have to tell to program that these two seminars should have the same student groups. You can do this in Menu - Specification - Card relationships - Advanced. You will have to input "Type: Students of these seminars must have the same group" and in subject section you will have to select Math1 and Math2.

(You can read more about "Rearrange students in seminar groups" function in What's new in version 2004 document on documentation page.)

Spreading lessons on different periods each day

Question: How can I distribute e.g. 5 math lessons over the week with one condition: one lesson should be in the first lesson in Saturday, another lesson in the second lesson in Tuesday, another one in the third lesson in Wednesday, another on in the fifth lesson, and so on. I don't want all of them to be in the same time.

Answer:
There is no special constraint for this in aSc timetables. Usually this problem (same lessons are on the same time each day) occurs when you try to generate some easy timetable. For more complicated timetables generator has to do more changes in timetable, so lessons seem to be spread more evenly during the week. If you experience this problem with timetable for your school where you have entered all lessons and constraints, please send us such as timetable file so we can check it and help you find some solution to this problem.
 

Showing/printing day numbers instead of day names

Question: How do I change the schedule from days of the week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc to a six day cycle week. Day 1 day2...day6?

Answer:
You can do this in Print style dialog. You can access it through Menu - File - Printing area - Style. In this dialog, you have to check "Show day number instead of day name".

Printing contracts of teachers

Question: It would be great if I could print a table which lists, for each teacher, what lessons they are teaching. Is it possible to print a copy of the contract for each teacher?

Answer:
You can print contracts of teachers from aSc Timetables. Go to Menu - File - Printing area, and select "Print contracts of teachers". You may also wish to use Clear button to unselect all other options, so only contracts will be printed. Then use standard print function from program - it will print contracts of teachers. Or you can preview it with "Print preview" function.

Education block

Question: Can you explain to me what is "Education block" and how to use it?

Answer:
Education block is term used to describe when some form has to have education. For example it may mean, that every student of some form MUST have education between periods 1-5, and CAN have education between periods 0-7. Generator computes education block automatically based on total number of periods defined in form's lessons and settings in form's details. For most schools this automatic education block works well, but in some cases this automatic fails and education block needs to be set by hand.

Note: Many types of schools have "full" timetable - meaning that students come to school e.g. at period 1 and leave at period 8 and they have to stay in school during that time and have some education. This is case when overall number of lessons (measured in periods) is equal to number of free periods defined in form's time-off. If this it is so on your school, you don't have to care about education block at all.

Possible cases when automatic education block fails:

• divided lessons with length 3 and more, which don't have complementary lesson
• divided lessons with length 2 together with some complicated combination of other lessons without complement
• divided lessons with length 2 and more in combination with breaks around end of education.
• when you define lunch break as forbidden period using time-off

• Form (form name) contains a window
• (card) is out of teaching block

When you click on one of these problems, program will show you more details about it, including area of automatic education block ("Form must have lessons in this interval" and "Form can have lessons in this area). If you are not satisfied with automatic teaching block, you can click on Settings button in Details. This will open advanced Form details dialog where you can specify teaching block settings. You have 3 options here:

• automatic - this will compute teaching block automatically. Automatic teaching block is computed so that education starts on period 1 and ends between periods N and N+2, where N is number computed from total number of lessons in form.
• discontinuous - this will completely disable education block and also checking of windows in timetable of form
• manual - here you can specify manual settings

Manual settings of education block are defined by four numbers: A, B, C, D.

Numbers A and D define when form can have education. You can define similar thing also with Time-off for that form. You can leave those values "Arbitrary" - in that case only Time-off is important.

Numbers B and C define area, where all students in form must have education. So there must be lesson on every position in this area for every student. If there is some lessons missing, program will report it as window even in cases when it is not really window.

You can leave any of these numbers as "Arbitrary". In case you set all of them "Arbitrary", program will only check windows in form timetable, but will not care about time when students have education. So they can have education one day in the morning and another day in afternoon.

Terminology

Question: What do you mean by "form" in the program?

Answer:
Please see table below for detailed explanation of certain terms in the program.

Terminology in other languages

Please see also explanation of English terminology here.

Cycle - using Odd/Even week groups

Question: I'm trying to schedule a class which has a different schedule every other week (it meets alternating 2 times per week, then 1 time per week). The "cycle" function dialogue box suggests to use the Group Divisions of "even week" and "odd week" for cycles like this. My question is how does this work without showing the teacher for more lessons than he is really teaching?

Answer:
You should input those lessons using normal cycle feature, that is you should input all those lessons for entire form and in cycle you should specify week for which are those lessons held (specify two week cycle and use checkboxes below to select week for each lesson).

Odd/Even week groups can be used in case where there are two groups with two subjects and they alternate each week with each other. E.g. in this sample file in form 1 students have these lessons:

In form 2 there are these lessons entered with Odd/Even week groups. When you input lessons this way, you can avoid using cycles and also timetable looks more simple, but you will have to remember which group has which lesson each week.

However if you use this trick in situation similar to that in form 3, where students have these lessons:

it will cause problem that program will show that teacher for Technology is occupied also in week 2, when he should be free. If this will cause problem in your timetable, you should input those lessons using cycle.

Last note: Why to avoid using cycles in timetable?
When you use cycles in timetable, then program (and also you) have to manage two (or more) timetables (one for each week). This reduces speed of generator. Also there are additional problems with printouts - you will either need to print two timetables, or you can print just one, but some cells in that timetable will be more divided to accommodate all information. In case when there are very few divided lessons in timetable and you can handle them with Odd/Even groups, this is unnecessary.