Section: Period Distribution

The same subject cannot be taught more than once on the same day

Specifies that a subject must not be scheduled more than once a day for a class (even if the subject is involved in a number of different coupled lessons).

Avoid errors with double periods

Untis identifies two types of double period errors: the splitting of desired double periods and the 'accidental' emergence of undesirable double periods when the same subject is scheduled for consecutive periods. Of the two errors, the optimisation tool assigns a higher priority to the preservation of desired double periods.

This weighting is connected with codes '(2) More than once a day' and '(D) Respect double periods'. You can find these settings in the master data and the 'Lessons' windows. The two codes are mutually exclusive.

Code '2' causes the weighting for 'Avoid errors with double periods' to be set to 0 ('unimportant'), while code 'D' increases the importance of the weighting. This increase in importance can result in a situation where a lesson will not be scheduled because the software cannot comply with the double period condition.

When you set the weighting for 'Avoid errors double periods' to 'extremely important' (position 5), the optimisation tool rates the importance of the double period condition very high right from the very beginning of the optimisation run and even increases the importance during the run so that at the end of the optimisation process, all lessons are treated automatically as if the lessons had been coded '(D) Respect double periods'.

Warning:

Activate code '(D) only in exceptional cases or not at all'. Excessive use leads to a deterioration of the optimisation results

2 periods/week - subjects not on consecutive days

This weighting applies to lessons with 2 block lessons (single and double periods or blocks) and is designed to ensure that they are evenly spread throughout the week. A high weighting prevents the software from scheduling the lessons on consecutive days or from scheduling one block on the last week day and the other on the first week day.

3 periods/week - subjects not on consecutive days

This weighting applies in the same way as the previous one, but for 3 block lessons.

Even distribution of periods of a subject across the day

A high weighting ensures that a subject scheduled for Monday, period 3, is scheduled for a different period on subsequent days of the week, i.e. not period 3. This weighting controls the level of importance of this rule.

Try to place the same lesson at the same time on different days

A high weighting ensures that a subject scheduled for Monday, period 3, is also scheduled for period 3 on other days of the week. This weighting controls the level of importance of this rule.

Large blocks in fringe periods on half-days

For a variety of reasons, it is often desirable to schedule block lessons at the beginning or end of a half-day. A half-day consisting of 6 periods can therefore accommodate 2 blocks of 3 periods each. Since block lessons are often slightly shorter than the sum of the single periods (for instance, because there are no breaks between periods), students will be able to leave school early or start school later than the normal start time.