This edition of the Tabby Newsletter discusses:

Keep your Scheduling Optimizer setup current

The latest Scheduling Optimizer software version and documentation is always available for download at the Tabby Software web site:

www.tabbysoft.com/downloads.htm

The download includes full user documentation on installing the software. You can also find the installation instructions on our web site:
www.tabbysoft.com/support/install_desktop.htm for a first time install
www.tabbysoft.com/support/install_updates.htm to install an update

Currently available for download is the full distribution set for version 5.04. A beta version 5.05 is also available if you would like to preview upcoming features.

Beta version 5.05b (updated July 7) is available!

The current beta version was released on July 7, 2003. This replaces the earlier beta released May 28th.

More features for the Request Conflict Pairs reports

This new beta includes enhancements to the Request Conflict Pairs reports:

• a button to create a “printer friendly” view of the currently displayed report
• an onscreen "maximum enrollment" input field which allows you to limit which courses appear in the report

Master Schedule Grid enhancements and Free Resource Grids

Earlier versions of this beta added new features to the Master Schedule Grid reports: a button to create a "printer friendly" view of the currently selected report, an onscreen option to hide section fill information and a separator line between teacher/room/course groups in the "combined terms" reports and a new report group, Free Resource Grids, which lists the available teachers and rooms for each period, one column list for each day broken out by term.

Try out the new features with our online demonstration

These enhanced reporting features have been added to the interactive reports demo on the web site:

www.tabbysoft.com/reports/demo.htm

Download the new beta

www.tabbysoft.com/download_formbeta.htm

The beta software includes only the Scheduling Optimizer program file, spo.exe. To install the beta version, you must first have a full version installed, unzip the file spo.exe from the downloaded zip file and either replace the existing version or rename it and use the two versions in parallel.

Sort Master Schedule Grids by teacher team

If you schedule using teacher teams, you might like to generate a Master Schedule Grid with teachers ordered by their team assignment. This is not one of the available report options, but you can order the teachers by team using a workaround. Follow these steps:

1. Assign a letter to each teacher team.

Pick a one-letter abbreviation to represent each team. For example, use A to represent Team 1, B to represent team 2, etc. Designate an additional one-character abbreviation for unteamed teachers; choose "Z" if you would like unteamed teachers to sort after teamed ones, "0" if you would like the unteamed teachers first.

2. Put a team letter in front of each teamed teacher’s name.

Open the teacher atom for each teacher and determine the team letter that applies based on which team the teacher belongs to, if any (look at teacher groups on the Schedule Pro page of the Teacher atom). Then modify the "Short Name" field on the General tab by prefixing it with the team letter.

For example, if teachers Smith and Jones belong respectively to teams A and B and teacher Wilson is unteamed, you might change their "Short name" fields to "A:Smith", "B:Jones" and "Z:Wilson".

3. Select a "Teacher Name" option in the Master Schedule Grids.

Open the Scheduling Optimizer’s Master Schedule Grids report group, then select either the "Teacher Name by Term" or "Teacher Name" option to generate a Master Schedule Grid report sorted by teacher team.

Note: Be sure to add the team letter prefix in the "Short name", not the "Last Name" field.

Run an "Optimizer only" simulation

If you do not use the Schedule Pro Builder or you have reached a point where you want to update the master schedule only by entering changes in the Scheduling Sections atom, you can turn off the Builder step in your Schedule Pro simulation and continue running simulations. If you are using the Scheduling Optimizer for loading the students, you can also turn off the Schedule Pro Loader and Balancer steps.
Note: You need to run the Schedule Pro step, even if all its scheduling options are turned off, before running the Optimizer because the Optimizer reads input files extracted by Schedule Pro from the SASIxp database.

If you are using the Scheduling Optimizer without Schedule Pro’s Builder, you must be sure that all sections to be included in the Scheduling Optimizer simulation are uniquely identified within their course by a number in the "Sec #" field on the Schedule Pro tab in the Scheduling Sections atom. This field is automatically populated for each section when a Builder-generated master schedule is loaded to the database with Results Update, but it is initially blank when you add a section using the Scheduling Sections atom. With the Builder turned off, sections with this field blank will not be included in the master schedule provided to the Optimizer. You can (carefully) enter this field if you manually add a section or, alternatively, you can run the following CHANGE Query prior to running an "Optimizer only" simulation to populate the "Sec #" field for all sections:

[CHANGE] ACRS ASMS SectSeqNum = {$CNT}

With the Builder turned off the Schedule Pro data extract simply copies the master schedule currently stored in ASMS rather than building a new master schedule. All other input data, including Student Course Requests, Class Links, and Section Load Restrictions are extracted to simulation input files as normal.

Filter courses in Request Conflict Pairs reports by enrollment

The Request Conflict Pairs report, in the current Scheduling Optimizer beta version 5.05b, has an input field allowing you to specify the maximum enrollment for courses to be included in the reports. By adjusting the maximum enrollment, you can limit the report to courses which are likely to have only one or two sections.

You must download and install the current Scheduling Optimizer beta, version 5.05b, to use this feature. The initial value of this option is 40. Raise or lower the value currently entered in this field to include more or less courses in the report display. You can also display the complete report currently selected in a single unframed window by clicking the "Printer friendly version" button.

Warning: The printer friendly window can take a minute or two to display with maximum enrollments in the single and double-section ranges; it can take much longer – an hour or more is possible – if you enter a maximum enrollment very much higher than the default value of 40.

Balance a special group of students in shared classes

In many schools, one or more special groups of students, Special Ed students for example, may be identified for special scheduling treatment. In courses where students in the special group are assigned to some or all of the same sections as other students, it is often a goal to distribute the special group students evenly. The Scheduling Optimizer attempts to balance the total number of students in each section of a course but extra steps are required to enforce balancing of a specific group of students as well as total students. The basic steps are as follows:

• Use Section Load Restrictions (SLRs) to specify which sections of each course students in the special group may be scheduled to if they are excluded from some sections.
• Use CHANGE Queries to define a field accessible in the "Students to be scheduled" form used in partial simulations to indicate whether each student is a member of the special group or not. For example, the value ‘S’ in the House field could indicate that a student is in the special group, ‘A’ that he is not.
• Clear all current student schedules with a CHANGE Query and use "Update Counts" to make all seats in all sections available for scheduling.
• Use the Scheduling Optimizer to run a partial simulation with only the special group of students selected for scheduling. Since only students in the special group are included in the simulation, the Optimizer’s class size balancing features will tend to distribute them evenly in their classes.
• Use the Scheduling Optimizer to run a second partial simulation with students not in the special group selected. These students will schedule into the seats left available after scheduling the special group.

You can find a detailed description of this procedure on the website:

www.tabbysoft.com/procedures/balance_stgp.htm

Contact us

We like to hear how the Scheduling Optimizer is working for you and your suggestions for improving the product. You can reach us by email (info@tabbysoft.com) or by filling out our Feedback form on the Tabbysoft web site:
www.tabbysoft.com/feedback.htm

 

Steve Cohen Tabby Software www.tabbysoft.com steve@tabbysoft.com

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