Frequently Asked Questions

Question 1: How does using the Scheduling Optimizer affect scheduling results?

Answer: The number of conflicts is reduced. Results vary, but the improvements can be substantial. For example, a school of 1,000 with a near final master schedule may see the number of students scheduled go from 75% to 85%. This translates to a reduction in the number of conflicts from 250 students with earlier SASI loaders to 150 students with the Scheduling Optimizer optimization, a 40% reduction.

Question 2: Does the Scheduling Optimizer require a significant change to our scheduling procedures?

Answer: Both Schedule Pro and Mass Scheduling now provide the option to select the Optimizer as the designated loader engine. Once this one-time selection has been made, the procedures for running scheduling simulations or scheduling individual students are the same as before.

Question 3: Can the Scheduling Optimizer handle both "must" and "try" rules?

I would like to have the loader schedule all students who can be fully scheduled with "must" and "try" rules in effect, then drop the "try" rules for only those students who remain unscheduled.

Answer: The Scheduling Optimizer schedules as many students as possible with all rules in effect, then drops the "try" rules and schedules the remaining students. Once scheduled, a student may subsequently be rescheduled to release seats needed by later students, but the student's original "must" and "try" level is always maintained.

Question 4: Will the Scheduling Optimizer allow a prescheduled course request to override loader rules?

Occasionally we wish to preschedule classes for a student which result in a schedule that violates scheduler restrictions, even "must" rules.

Answer: The Scheduling Optimizer locks in all of a student's prescheduled classes before it schedules non-prescheduled requests. The prescheduled classes are assigned without regard to loader rules, section limits or even meeting time conflicts. Assignment of sections for non-prescheduled course requests still obeys all rules with respect to both each other and any prescheduled sections.

Question 5: Does the Scheduling Optimizer provide a way to give seniors priority over students in other grades when classes fill up?

As much as possible, we would like to give our seniors the courses they request.

Answer: The Scheduling Optimizer automatically orders all students from highest to lowest grade before it begins scheduling. This places students in the higher grades into available seats ahead of other students.

Question 6: Can I review the Scheduling Optimizer's results in summary form without first doing a Results Update?

Answer: You can do this by launching the simulation from the Schedule Pro "Run Scheduler Simulation" atom. The Scheduling Optimizer generates a set of reports which can be viewed in your browser. These reports include the Simulation Loading Summary, Master Schedule Lists and Grids, Free Resource Reports, Unscheduled Period Summaries, Request Conflict Pairs and Course Request Tallies.

Question 7: Does the Scheduling Optimizer take into account term overrides in determining section filling?

We frequently use term overrides in student course requests to schedule a student to only one semester of a full year course. Can the program assign students to a section up to the maximum number of seats in each semester?

Answer: The Scheduling Optimizer tracks section filling by term. Because of term overrides, the overall number of unique students assigned to a section may exceed the section capacity although the total scheduled in any given term will not. You may, for example, find a section with 35 seats that has 37 different students scheduled to it - 32 students who take the class all year, 3 students who take it only in semester 1 and 2 students who take it only in semester 2. The Scheduling Optimizer's master schedule lists show the number of students assigned to the class in each term independently, in this case 35 in semester 1 and 34 in semester 2.

Question 8: Can the Scheduling Optimizer balance core courses over terms for a student?

We find that standard Schedule Pro may fully schedule a satisfactory percentage of students, but it is necessary to reschedule a significant number of these students by hand because their core courses are overly loaded into one term.

Answer: The Scheduling Optimizer includes a term load balancing option. It can read a list of core courses and balance these evenly across terms for each student's schedule. This avoids the situation where, for example, a student's term 1 consists of English, Math, Science, and Social Studies while term 2 consists of Art, Home Ec, Music and PE.

Question 9: Does the Scheduling Optimizer offer a "before or in the same term as" course relationship?

With our 4X4 schedule we would like to be able to designate a corequisite relation between certain courses - i.e. a student must take course A before OR IN THE SAME TERM AS (but not later than) course B.

Answer: The Scheduling Optimizer provides an additional rule to specify this relationship.

Question 10: Does the Scheduling Optimizer observe Section Load Restriction (SLR) data?

Answer: Yes, the Scheduling Optimizer processes Restrict and Allocate SLRs in a manner compatible with standard Schedule Pro. In addition, it includes an extension which allows you to define a "non-exclusive Allocate" SLR.

Question 11: Is there a way to instruct the Scheduling Optimizer to drop electives instead of core courses for students who can not be fully scheduled?

We would like to be able to complete a valid schedule for a student in conflict by simply adding classes which fit into the partial schedule generated for the student.

Answer: The Scheduling Optimizer uses the sequence order of entries in each individual student course request list as the course request priority. This sequence is the order in which course requests appear in the Scheduling atom (Requests tab) or Student Course Requests atom (Schedules tab). You can manipulate the sequencing of course request lists as required to control which courses the Scheduling Optimizer will drop for students in conflict.

Question 12: Does the Scheduling Optimizer handle partial simulations?

Towards the end of our scheduling cycle, we would like to lock the majority of students in their current schedules and use further simulations only to schedule new students and students whose course request information changes.

Answer: The Schedule Pro Run Scheduler Simulation atom provides the option to run a partial simulation with a selected group of students. The Scheduling Optimizer automatically recognizes and handles this type of simulation.

Question 13: Does the Scheduling Optimizer handle teacher preferences?

We use Mass Scheduling and would like to take advantage of additional scheduling features, but we don't want to give up the ability to allow students to request a specific teacher for a course.

Answer: The Scheduling Optimizer recognizes and observes teacher preferences entered in the Scheduling atom.

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