News about the Scheduling Optimizer for SASIxp Scheduling - April 2004

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/software.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 6.00. A beta version 6.02 is also available if you would like to preview upcoming features.

Beta version 6.02b is available!

The current beta version was released on March 25, 2004.

Major features

• Revisions in the Master Schedule Lists report group provide significantly enhanced readability.
• Master Schedule Lists now provide an onscreen option to display only schedules which include duplicate meeting times. With this filter active, teacher and room schedules highlight classes which meet at the same time with the same teacher or in the same room to allow quick verification that the combined class allocations are intentional. Master schedule (course) reports with this filter active highlight class meetings which occur in more than one section.
• A printer friendly option is now provided for reports which didn't previously have this feature. All reports now allow their complete content to be displayed in an unframed page.

For more details, see what's new in this beta?

Try out the new features with our online demonstration

Tour the interactive reports demonstration on our web site:

www.tabbysoft.com/reports/demo.htm

Install the new beta

You can update to the new beta version of the Scheduling Optimizer. To get complete download and installation instructions, complete the brief form at

www.tabbysoft.com/downloads/software_beta.htm

Note. 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.

Analyze duplicate meeting time allocations in the master schedule

Starting with Scheduling Optimizer version 6.02b, the Master Schedule lists provide an onscreen option to display courses, teachers and rooms filtered to show only those which are allocated with duplicate meeting times. Duplicate time allocations  are usually intentional (e.g. a teacher teaches both Ceramics 8 and Ceramics 9 together in the same room). However, reviewing the flagged schedule entries can turn up inadvertent teacher and room double bookings.

Applying the "only schedules with dups" filter to "master schedule" and "course" options within the master schedule lists report group flags courses with sections that include overlapping meeting times. Reviewing the flagged sections may suggest opportunities to move classes to times where a course is not currently offered. This may open up additional  student schedule patterns and reduce conflicts.

Find classes with no teacher or room allocated

Teacher and room schedule options in the Master Schedule List reports display class entries with blank teacher/room allocations as a single schedule group (one schedule group per term in the "by term" options). The Master Schedule Lists sort the "blank" teacher and room schedules to the end of their respective groups. Beginning with the Optimizer 6.02b beta, the Master Schedule lists provide onscreen navigation buttons; you can go directly to the last page of the "Teacher schedules" or "Room schedules" list (which will include all schedule entries for the "blank" teacher or room) by clicking the "End" button. In earlier Optimizer versions and on the "printer friendly" pages in 6.02b and subsequent versions of the Optimizer, use the scroll bar to move to the end of the reports.

Track down students requesting courses invalid in the course file (ACRS)

The student schedules file (ASSS) may contain requests for courses for which the course file (ACRS) either contains no record or for which the record is flagged as inactive. This situation may result from deleting or inactivating courses in ACRS after student course data is entered. You can take advantage of the fact that the Scheduling Optimizer Tally reports display data for all requested courses, whether valid in ACRS or not, to locate students with this type of invalid request

1. Identify courses requested by students but which are not active in ACRS.
Start the Scheduling Optimizer Tally report group, select the "By Course Title" option and click "Start". Requested courses which are not defined or are not active in ACRS appear in the Tally reports with the title  "*Invalid*"; in the "By Course Title" option, these courses sort to the beginning of the report.

Note. For this use of the Tally reports, enter 9999 in the "Max enrollment" option field to ensure that all requested courses are included in the report.

2. Use Query to display students in each course identified in step 1.
Run the following Query for each requested invalid course identified.

[DISPLAY] ASTU ASSS PermNum FN LN IF CrsReq = "R1234"
(substitute the course ID for R1234)

Note. You can also list students requesting inactivated courses using the SASIxp Reverse Verification Listing (SSS04), accessed from the Scheduling menu in the Scheduling atom. In the "Custom" area of the Report Interface, specify a condition as in the above Query (but without the word "IF"); e.g. CrsReq="R1234", or to list students requesting any of a list of courses, use the form CrsReq IN ["C001", "C002", "C003"] . Substitute the course IDs you found in step 1 above for R1234 or for C001, etc.

Track down students requesting courses invalid in the scheduling master schedule file (ASMS)

If there are no valid sections in the master schedule for a course (i.e. the master schedule includes either no sections for the course or only sections that are inactive, have no defined meeting times or have zero class size limits), the Scheduling Optimizer ignores student  requests for that course. These invalid requests are counted as neither requested courses nor rejects.

To identify students requesting courses with no valid sections in the master schedule, run the following series of Queries in succession (you need authority to run CHANGE Queries):

[CHANGE] ACRS UserCode1 = 0

[CHANGE]
ACRS ASMS UserCode1 = {$CNT} IF BegPeriod <> " " AND MaxClassSz > 0

[DISPLAY]
ASTU ASSS ACRS PermNum LN CrsReq Title IF 3,UserCode1 = 0

The students listed by the last Query are the ones with requests for courses with no valid sections defined in the master schedule.

List students requesting a given pair of courses

Both the SASIxp Potential Conflict Matrix (SSS06) and the Scheduling Optimizer Request Conflict Pairs reports display the number of students requesting any pair of courses. In certain situations you may wish to identify the individual students this number represents. For example, if you decide that two single section courses with a small number of students in common must be scheduled at the same time, you could revise the students' course requests so as to avoid the guaranteed schedule conflict. Use the following Query to list students requesting a given course pair:

[DISPLAY] ASTU ASSS Unique PermNum LN FN IF (CrsReq="courseA" or CrsReq="courseB") AND $CNT>1

Substitute the actual course IDs for courseA and courseB in the Query. You can select KEEP instead of DISPLAY to create a System Filter that limits the Scheduling atom to only the students selected by this Query.

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_form.htm