Modify collections

With this advanced tool you can also make changes to the structure of the collections of the courses while in the same time view their timetables. The system displays and automatically prevents all possible overlaps that may occur when the collections are modified. Since course structures and timetables depend on each other, it is often useful to see them in the same time. Adding of components to courses is generally much easier when they have not yet been scheduled. This tool enables to view the timetables simultaneously while adding components to courses or removing them from courses.

In addition, it also allows to view and edit the timetables and courses in conflict mode (by clicking the [Conficts] button on top of the screen) and revealing why some of the course and component combinations are impossible and how this problem can be solved. This selection is the opposite mode of displaying only available course component combinations.

On the upper half of the window you see the timetables of the selected course and component. Click a cell of this grid if detailed information of a particular timetable cell is needed. If all weeks are not currently visible, you can scroll them to the right and left. On the bottom left there is a list of all courses and on the bottom right a list of all components that are to be modified. Use the buttons between them to select the desired action.

Used scheduled cells by the current component are marked here with blue colour, whereas those of the current course use yellow colour, and the numbers indicate the current time period (1,2,3,...). If you have selected the Conflict mode (see below), all overlapping slots are marked with red X’s. When clicking them, they can also be removed.

First week to check conflicts from ignores all conflicts that occur prior to the selected week. In this way the user has more degrees of freedom if the previous weeks are not taken into account. This feature is enabled, when there are more than one week in the planning period. When you want to add a component to a course (or vice versa), and some of the lectures in past week(s) cause the conflict, you can often clear those slots, since they are not anymore needed, but they also prevent from changes in the current or upcoming timetables.

At the start, First week to check conflicts from points to the first week, and it checks for all conflicts. If you change its value, you may be able to create conflicting timetables.

Buttons

Navigation by components: First select the component from the list on the right that you want to add. Then select the course from the list of candidates on the left and press this button to confirm the addition.

Navigation by courses: First select the course from the list on the left where you want components to be added to. Then select the component from the list of the candidates on the right and press this button to confirm the addition.

Use this button to activate the (default) Add direction mode. You can select to find suitable components for a selected course or vice versa.

This button activates the Remove mode. If you select a course from the list on the left, the course collection is shown on the top, and if you select a component, all courses having this component in their collections are listed on the top. If you want to remove one or more items from the list, select them and click the Remove button again to confirm removal.

Displays the components of the active course in tree form (Course info).

The function of this button is identical for the left and right box (courses and components list). Click it to enable only the currently activated category to be displayed (instead of all categories). This option is often useful to limit your search to a specified set of the code list.

This button activates the Conflict mode, which is the opposite action to the Add. You can then see only the conflicting combinations of courses and components, and no additions are then permitted. All overlapping lectures are marked by X on the grid. You can then mark all or selected conflicting lectures from the timetables (marked with X). Right-click to see the menu of the permissible actions.

When the Conflict mode is activated, this button becomes active, and by clicking it you can clear all conflicting slots (of the active course and component) at once. This is the same functionality as selecting Clear conflicting slots in the pop-up menu.

Conflict mode

When you have clicked the Conflicts button, the application finds - contrary to available combinations - only impossible course and component combinations instead. Click one of the courses on the left box to see which components cannot be added to the course and why it is impossible. You can also split the courses and then change the component lists of the new courses. See more information here about Course split.

When scheduling more lectures and making bookings in timetables, less available combinations will become possible and the scheduling task becomes more complicated. This tool enables to locate the bottlenecks easily by showing the dependencies of the timetables and courses.

When you have selected one course and component from the lists on the bottom of the screen - as in normal mode - all course slots are marked with course colours and components in their colours. When they two overlap, the slot is marked with an "X" (white X on red background, if default colours are used). These slots indicate the reasons why the selected component cannot be added to the selected course. User can mark any of the course slots for clearing the slots and/or splitting the course into two parts (marked slots have an yellow "X" on navy blue background).

You can right-click on the timetable grid to see the pop-up menu below with the tools you can use to resolve conflicts. The first step is to mark those slots you want to remove or split the courses in two parts (without the need to manually change course the structure).

You can double-click to "mark" each course slot separately or mark several slots at once. "Mark remaining xx slots..." marks all course slots of the active course and "Mark xx impossible..." marks only the slots which are conflicting with the selected component. After you have marked one or more of the course slots, selecting "Clear marked xx slots..." will remove the those slots from the timetables.

Note that the five first selections in this menu are intended only for marking and unmarking slots (of the current course), and they do not itself change the timetables. In the other selections you can then either clear the selected slots or split the course into two parts.

If you now want to clear only the marked slots from the timetables, select "Clear marked xx slots..." and if you want to clear all conflicting slots of the selected course and component (without marking them), select "Clear all xx impossible..."

In the latter case, you have cleared only those slots from the course which overlap with the selected component and you will now that this combination disappears from the current view, but it becomes in the normal mode (when you press "Conflicts" button again).

The last selection splits the course into two courses according to the marked slots. After split, both courses have the same components, and the total number of lectures remains the same. In most cases, you want to first "Mark xx impossible slots..." before split operation. This operation will create a new course from those slots which do not overlap with the current component.

You can also find the list and status of all the slots of the current course from the drop-down box on top right of the screen. This is useful, if you have several weeks, which are not all visible at the same time.

Opening the list box on top right displays all slots of the selected course, conflicting slots with the selected component and also all marked slots.

When you select to Split course, first a copy of the original course is created and all marked lectures are moved from the original course to the new course, without changing the total number of lectures. After that the components of both courses can be changed (added, removed, replaced) accordingly. For example, you can change the teacher just for selected slots. This corresponds the case "3: Arbitrary split" in the picture below:

When the new courses are created from the original course, their codes are automatically changed by appending letters 'a', 'b', 'c' to the end of the code to keep them unique. If you want to preserve the original course code after split, you can attribute new courses by inserting the original code in front of the new course names using the options below:

You can now to Courses view to edit the component lists of the courses that have been split.