Intake scheduling

Intake scheduling permits to use the same schedule or allocation of lectures all over again. In some institutions similar kind of courses are repeated several times during the school year or over several years (Mimosa allows to define up to 255 weeks/terms in one file). In some cases this tool may save a lot of time, if many courses repeat the same pattern over again. There are at least two approaches to solve this in Mimosa, and both are presented here.

Combine intake schedules from separate files:

The simplest way to perform this task is Mimosa is to create separate files for each intakes and then combine them together with File|File Add selection. Mimosa provides a built in tool in this selection, which is described below. This approach gives the end-user better control of the final result and the coding of components and courses.

1. Create a Mimosa file corresponding to the needed data of the first intake, including the allocation of lectures to weeks and assignments of lectures into timetables.
2. In order to repeat the same pattern for the upcoming weeks, recode the group or class codes and courses which will change along by intakes, for instance by using some suitable prefix (for instance Class A --> 1-Class A, CourseX --> 1-CourseX).
3. Save this file on disk with a name Intake1.mfw.
4. Shift the lectures right in Weeks view with the Edit|Insert week command, to fit with the allocation of the second intake.
5. Recode the codes as before (for instance Class A --> 2-Class A, CourseX --> 2-CourseX) and save this file on disk with the name Intake2.mfw.
6. Repeat these steps for all intakes.
7. Save all intake files in text files (Intake1.mxt, Intake2.mxt, Intake3.mxt) with File|File Export, so that they can be combined into one file. 
8. Open one of the intake files (say Intake1.mfw) into Mimosa with File|Open... 
9. Add all text files one by one with File|File Add command.
10. Save the combined result in a new file (say Intakes.mfw).

After all files have been combined the result might look like this (Components view):

Note that each group (LineA, LineB, LineC) requires a different code, since the groups are dependent on the intake.

In the Weeks view the patterns for each intake are easy to see. Note that using intake prefix in codes (rather than postfix) organises the codes in a more readable order. If the intakes are overlapping (which is not the case in this example), user may be forced to remove conflicts after adding the other intake files - or use the selection Tools|Remove conflicts.

In order to recode the components and courses across intakes with a minimum effort, use the Clipboard-based selection Tools|Code conversion and spreadsheet application.

Use the built-in tool in selection Tools|Intake scheduling:

When you have reallocated the courses, you can then change some of the components (such as classes or groups) for each modified course. You can save time and optionally take copies of the selected courses and reschedule them instead of original courses. If you are not happy with the result, these copied courses can automatically be removed afterwards.

You can first select the courses you want to reschedule and then select Move to right or Move to left to reallocate the lectures in next or previous weeks.

The starting week is the currently active week, but it can be changed.

If some of the lectures of the courses have been timetabled, there might occur conflicts in the timetables of their components and they should be removed by Tools|Remove conflicts  after creating the intakes.

If you have taken copies of the courses, you can also remove them afterwards.