Timetables view

Other views: Components | Courses | Weeks

When at least one of the lectures of at least one course is allocated to weeks, you can start creating timetables. Courses must have at least one component and their categories must have been checked in Prevent conflicts for at the Options|Timetables menu selection. (These components are normally classes, teachers, rooms, and students if you use them instead of classes). If you have defined only one week or term in Options|Limits, there is no need to allocate the lectures to weeks, since they are automatically allocated to the single week.

It is also possible to create and optimise timetables automatically in selection Tools|Optimise, but in almost all cases users want to make their own decisions and sometimes all timetables are created manually. Typically users combine these both approaches. The advantages users will get in creating timetables in this view:

1. Mimosa prevents all conflicts in assignments of lectures and bookings.
2. All other timetables relating to the active timetable are automatically shown.
3. Useful information about the quality of timetables is displayed.
4. Easy navigation and changing of timetables affecting to the current timetable is enabled.
5. User can undo and redo up to 1000 last changes and go back to any previous or bookmarked step.

There are several ways to navigate the appropriate component timetable, course or week you like to start with. If you are using this view for the first time, you can do the following:

1. Click the Find button or [F3] to find the first timetable, which has unassigned lectures.
2. Click from the course list below the course you are about assign.
3. Double-click a cell in the timetable where you find a green check mark.
4. Repeat these steps until all green check marks have disappeared.
5. Now you know the basics how the process works.

If you see components, courses and weeks listed in the list boxes on top of the screen you can start creating timetables. Although you can create then automatically (in Tools|Optimise|Initial solution), we recommend that you start from here to get a picture of how this view functions. If you would like to create timetables automatically, there always will be some need to alter the current solution manually, and also to place some of the lectures into certain slots.

Timetables view is organised as follows:

If you have several weeks or terms in the school year, you first select the week you are going to modify from the Weeks listbox on the top right. After that you might like to select the timetable from the Components listbox that you would like to start with. If you do not see green checkmarks in that timetable, select another timetable from the listbox or click [F3] to let Mimosa find the next timetable for you, that has not yet been completed. You can start modify the completed timetables as well, by double-clicking the cells.

If all lectures have been inserted in timetables, you are prompted to move to next week or term if it exists.

The user is focused on the Master timetable that is located on the top left, while Mimosa automatically takes care of all background tasks needed to keep the data synchronised, informative and free from conflicts. When you change the course, the other timetables are changed according to its components. When you insert and remove lectures, the changes are displayed on other timetables immediately.

Double-clicking is a simple tool to modify timetables, and it is adviced to try it everywhere in this window to get a touch of how each of the elements of this window are connected with each other. You can double-click some of the supporting timetables to change it to the master timetable. If you right-click, you are given the options to hide the timetables of the current category or show them all. 

It is also possible to first paint a rectangular area of slots on Master timetable and then use selections to Insert or Remove lectures or Set/cancel bookings in this area:

Use the Timetables listbox or the arrows keys (down and up) to select the master timetable on the top left corner. You can then click the course to be inserted from the List of unassigned courses below. When you click a course in the master table, the application automatically activates all related tables to the right of it.

Colours and other effects are used to make timetables more legible, but you might find that the cells are stacked with information that is not currently useful for you. Please go to the selection View|Cell display options to deselect those elements that are not essential.

When printing timetables, the cell contents are replaced by the course codes, names and collections, depending on your preferences.

The cells containing bookings are printed in red (like ////), and those blocks that can be interchanged with the current block (i.e. swapped) are printed in green with plus or minus signs below [+9s],[- 9s] replacing the colour flags at the bottom of each cell.

A cell in each timetable can be in three exclusive states: it can be either empty, it can contain a course or a booking. The appearance of cells may look different on your screen, depending on the selections that has been made in View|Cell display options. Below are samples of different cell statuses and how they are displayed on Master timetable.

Notations for cells which are EMPTY:

Symbol	Explanation
	All courses of the current timetable have already been assigned. Double-click the cell to set a booking on it. If this cell constitutes a gap between non-empty cells, you can optionally emphasize it with an icon (View|Cell display options|Show gap picture).
	The active course can be assigned into this cell, but it causes two ([-2]) gaps. Double-click the cell to assign a lecture into it.
	The active course cannot be assigned into this cell, since one ([-1]) timetable prevents this operation. Double-click the cell to find timetable(s) preventing the assignment.

Notations for cells containing a COURSE:

Symbol	Explanation
	Course DRA405/SEA646 is assigned into this cell. Double-click the cell to remove the assignment from this cell. You can also optionally display a manual room (m) and/or comment (c) symbol and/or three-colour flag on the bottom of the cell using the selections in View|Cell display options.
	The active course can be swapped (interchanged) with PRI824, but it adds one gap to timetables ([-1s]). Click [F6] view the cells to swap with. Select View|Cell display options|Show swap opitions to view the swap options in all cells.
	This cell of a Room timetable has been assigned to a course (FOR744) manually. Double-click once to change the assignment to a booking, twice to clear the assignment.

Notations for cells containing a BOOKING:

Symbol	Explanation
	The active cell contains a booking (of type Meeting). Double-click to remove the booking from the cell, double-click to set it again. Click [Ctrl+O] to change the booking text.

In general, the fastest way to use and learn the basic techniques of this window is to double-click individual cells in the master table (on the top left corner) to see how the insertion and removing of lectures or bookings functions in different situations. This double-clicking technique can then be extended to all other tables and lists that you see in this window. If you often assign lessons as blocks (double, triple periods,...) instead of single cells, right-click the pop-up menu on the master table and change the parameter in selection Default block length.

Menu selections:

Instead of using the commands on the menu selection, it is often easier and faster to click on the corresponding buttons on the left hand side of the active window. Try this out with the sample data and see the results.

Edit

Undo [Ctrl+Z]

Cancels the last insert, delete or move operation or changing the booking status in the timetable cells. Up to 1000 steps can be undone. If another window is activated or the current week changed, the undo stack is cleared. See also Undo and Redo.

Redo [Ctrl+Y]

Repeats the last operation that was cancelled. See also Undo and Redo.

Set bookmark

Sets bookmark to the operation just performed. To return back to this point, select Edit|Go to bookmark.

Go to bookmark

Goes back to the operation that was previously marked by Edit|Set bookmark.

Undo All

Cancels all previous operations stored in memory (opposite to Edit|Redo All).

Redo All

Repeats all previously cancelled operations (opposite to Edit|Undo All).

History

View the history of last (max 1000) actions. Clicking an action row in the selection and accepting it with the Ok button moves you directly to this action.

Copy onto the Clipboard

This selection contains four ways to copy timetables onto the Clipboard. You can use these timetables as snapshots that you probably want to paste to some spreadsheet application, decorate them with borders or some other effects for printing or distributing to others.

In selections 1 through 4 you can copy the timetables onto the Clipboard in line format instead of tables.

1 Master timetable
2 Linked timetables
3 Timetables by category
4 Timetables by weeks
5 Timetables of all courses
6 Free slots in timetables
7 Comments by category
8 Cross tabulation

This selection creates a table from the components (rows), days and time-periods (columns). Each element in the table is either 1 or 0, according to whether the current component is used in this day and time-period. Using this table with the row and column sums is often useful when performing a deeper bottleneck analysis in the timetables.

9 Slot load

This selection creates a table of each week containing its slot load as elements. Slot load in each cell is a sum of all lectures and bookings of all cmponents. Even slot load in each cell is often an indication of an efficient utilisation of available resources and timetables. If you have used capacity tags (such as “Room 123 [#30]” ) in component names to denote their capacities or requirements, another format is provided to show these sums instead of slot load.

10 Calendar timetable

Creates a table of the utilisation of the selected component category (classes, teachers, rooms) in timeline format, using the calendar that has been synchronised with weeks. This option is enabled only if you have selected [x] Replace weeks by dates in Options|Time.

Insert lectures [Insert]

If you often simultaneously insert several lectures at once, paint a rectangle in the timetable (by keeping the left mouse button down and dragging) where you want to insert the lectures and click the Insert button. The application checks all legal assignments and inserts the lectures. If you mostly deal with single slots, double-click the cells to make the changes.

• All courses that can be assigned into timetables are marked with green checkmark in the main timetable. The value of the cell is counted in the [brackets].
• The bigger the number in the brackets, the better the likelihood of reducing the gaps. If the number is positive [+1...+99], the number of gaps in timetables will be reduced by that amount and if it is negative [-1...-99], they will be increased, respectively. If there are no brackets, the insertion does not change the number of gaps.
• Highlight the cells where you want to assign the lectures and click Insert mode button (or [Insert] key). All legal assignments are made and the unassigned lectures are removed from the list below this table.
• The course list below the master timetable is sorted in decreasing order according to the number of currently unassigned lectures (in “LEFT”column). When a lecture is assigned into a cell, its position on the list moves to the bottom, and when all lectures have been assigned, it finally disappears. If there are no unassigned lectures for the current timetable, this list is empty. Press [F3] find the next timetable with at least one unassigned lecture.
• You can change the number of unassigned lectures in the LEFT column with the pop-up menu (activated by right-click on the list of unassigned lectures) or by typing [+] or [-] to increase and decrease them, respectively. The application checks that the attempted change is feasible and updates the course list accordingly.
• In the same pop-up menu, you can also use the selections Add new course and Remove this course to change the course structures on the fly.
• Those cells where insertion is impossible, are marked with a red ball, with the number of tables preventing insertion in this cell are counted in the [brackets], preceded with the negative sign (-x). The bigger the (absolute value of the) number in the brackets, the more you have to clear lectures from other tables to accomplish this insertion. If you select “Cancel”, the application often provides you the possibility to replace some of the components of the current course so that insertion is technically acceptable. You have to check that the proposed replacement is also meaningful.
• It is often easier to insert a single lecture by double-clicking a green cell and also remove a lecture by double-clicking the corresponding cell. double-clicking a red cell gives often an easier way to remove those lectures or bookings, which prevent the insertion of the currently selected course.

Erase lectures [Delete]

Removing the lectures is the opposite action for inserting of lectures. Highlight a rectangle in the timetable (by keeping the left mouse button down and dragging) and click Delete button or [Delete]. All removable lectures are taken and unassigned lectures are returned to the list below the timetable.

Double-clicking the cells is the quickest and simplest way to modify individual cells in timetables and to assign and remove lectures. Try also more complicated but often more efficient operations MOVE and SWAP by pressing the function keys [F7] or [F6], respectively. When assigning or removing several lectures at once, paint the area in timetable and click [Insert] or [Delete].

Erase current course [Ctrl+Del]

This selection clears all timetabled lectures of the current course in this week and adds them back to the list of unassigned lectures below the master timetable.

Make / cancel bookings [Space]

You can make bookings or cancel them by highlighting the appropriate area in the current timetable and then either pressing the [Space] or the appropriate button. Those cells, which contain bookings, are then freed and free cells are booked.

Useful tips to change and copy bookings effectively:

1. If there is a need set bookings to several cells and/or several component timetables and weeks at once, the selections in Options|Limits should be used. For instance, this tool enables to create all day events for all timetables at once.
2. It is also possible to copy timetable bookings from one week to another in Weeks view by first clicking the grid on the week column where bookings are copied from, and then select Edit|Copy week. Next the target week where bookings are going to be copied to, is clicked and then selected Edit|Paste week Special|3 Bookings to this week.
3. Another way to copy bookings across timetables is to use the tool Show timetables. User has first select the component timetable and week where bookings are going to be copied from and paint the cells in the timetable that are going to be included. Clicking Copy button stores the selection into memory, and when Paste button is clicked when another timetable is active, the selected bookings are copied to this timetable.

Change booking type [Ctrl+O]

Select the default booking type for timetables among the three choices defined in Options|Categories or change the text of the current booking type.

Lock / unlock course [Ctrl+U]

This selection locks or unlocks the current course. If the course is locked, all changes to weekly allocated and timetabled lectures are prohibited.

Lock inserted courses

All courses that are inserted in the current master timetable are locked simultaneously. This function is useful, if you want to freeze the current solution.

Unlock inserted courses

All courses that are inserted in the current master timetable are unlocked simultaneously. This function frees the previously frozen solution.

Replace component [F5]

Replaces the active component (associated with the master timetable) of current course with another permissible (or non-conflicting) component of the same category. See also Replace component.

Check available rooms [Ctrl+A]

When a cell containing a lesson of a course is selected, its Room can be replaced (if it already exists) or a new room can be added (if it does not exist) with this selection.

It you have more than one week or term, it lists also those rooms where the replacement or addition is permitted when limited only for THIS WEEK (=the current week) or NEXT WEEKS (=the current week plus all remaining weeks).

These options are listed below the line --- Rooms below cause conflicts --- since these operations will cause conflicts in other weeks. It is sometimes common to change rooms in this way even thought it is normally against what Mimosa allows you to do. When you have already passed the first week and you are creating timetables for the second week, it is not relevant if the rooms conflict in the previous week (which is already history). If it is more important to find a solution, with no conflicts in the current week and upcoming weeks - then you select NEXT WEEK.

If you are forced to think each week separately (and assuming that the problems of the upcoming weeks will have new solutions), you may be forced to select a room under the title THIS WEEK, which finds room replacements or additions that are valid only in the current week (but not in the upcoming weeks).

Rooms marked with the highest status ALL WEEKS can always be chosen without any fear of conflicts, since the change is checked for all weeks.

All possible conflicts can be checked and removed with the command Tools|Remove conflicts, if necessary.

If you see a course code preceded with MSR, this indicates that the room for this course is a Manually Selected Room (see Tools|Select rooms manually).

(Check first that you have initially selected the right category in Options|Timetables to represent the components that are called ROOMS. This is by default the third category)

Select room manually [Ctrl+R]

If there are no rooms associated with the course, you can select the room for each slot separately, as in selection Tools|Select rooms manually. If the current course has this property and it is inserted into this slot, you can replace its current manual room selection or add a new selection, if it has not been selected yet.

Comment this cell [Ctrl+E]

You can add a comment to each cell in timetables to be printed along with timetables. The comments are stored in Mimosa file.

Erase “Comment” erases the existing comment in the selected slot, Change “Comment” or Add comment enables you to replace/add the comment text in the selected slot, Generalise comment lets you to expand the same comment to larger time-space and code set. This option is enabled only when you are adding a new comment.

Each line in this file starts with a number that represents the week, day and slot (time-period), followed by the code of the component it is attached to. These fields are separated by semicolons(;) and you can also edit this file like any other text file.

[wwwdhh];Code;Comment

Example comment lines:

[001405];Form-A;This is the 1st week’s 5th slot in Thursday... 
[012306];Form-B;This is the 12th week’s 6th slot in Wednesday...

Note that the comments in this file do not follow the changes of the locations of the lessons or bookings in timetables. If there is not enough space for comments, you can Remove comments from previous weeks when you leave this selection.

You can copy the comments onto the Clipboard by selecting Edit|Copy onto the Clipboard|7 Comments by category.

Comments are printed also in empty cells. In those cells where you have made bookings, the comment replaces the text.

Swap block [F6]

If there are at least two blocks from two courses of similar length in the same timetable, you can interchange them by clicking this selection. If there are several interchange options available, you can select it from the list. The application prevents all conflicts and allows to Undo this action. The blocks that you can change with the current block are emphasized in italics:

Swapping the current block with another block decreases the gaps, if the number is positive (+) - otherwise the number of gaps will increase (-). The possible swap options are displayed only, if you have checked the selection View|Cell display options|Show swap options [+9s],[-9s]

Only those blocks can be changed, which have the same length as the block that you have currently activated, counted from the activated cell to the end of the current block: selecting a different cell from the current block gives you different change options.

Automatic block swap [Shift+F6]

This selection automates swapping of blocks by finding all interesting (gaps minimising) swaps in the current timetable and performs them. The application then asks the permission to go through all timetables of current week and make the best swap in each timetable.

Before invoking this command you can first store the current situation in selection Edit|Set bookmark. After the lectures have been swapped, you can Undo all changes by selecting Edit|Go to bookmark, if you are not satisfied with the results.

Block to next slot [F7]

Moves the selected block of lectures to the NEXT free slot on the current timetable. The first lecture of the block must first be selected by clicking.

Block to best slot [F8]

Moves the selected block of lectures to the BEST free slot on the current timetable. The first lecture of the block must first be selected by clicking.

Block to previous slot [Shift+F7]

Moves the selected block of lectures to the PREVIOUS free slot on the current timetable. The first lecture of the block must first be selected by clicking.

Default block length

Sets the default block length (as also specified in Options|Timetables). When you set this parameter to other than 1, double-clicking will change blocks of the length that you specified here.

Copy to following weeks

Copies the selected items (courses and/or bookings) from the current timetable to all following weeks (or terms) - if they exists. This enables the user to create identical timetables instantly across weeks.

You have the following selection of different copy options:

1 Active course

Copies the lectures only of the currently active course

2 All courses

Copies the lectures of all courses of the current timetable

3 All bookings

Copies all bookings of the current timetable

4 All courses and bookings

Copies all courses and bookings of the current timetable

When you have selected the option, you can clear the already assigned lessons or bookings from the following timetables, by answering Yes to the question Clear previous items? (It is often safer to answer No, if you are not certain if the upcoming timetables already contain important information.)

If you are about to copy several items at once, activate Weeks view, and use the selections Edit|Copy week to first mark the source week and then Edit|Paste and Edit|Paste week Special to define the destination week(s) plus the items you want to copy.

What if?

When at least one of the lectures of the current course is not yet timetabled, this selection displays a list of options of how you can change the components of other courses to add new free slots and it also enables you to make the replacement immediately.

This tool is useful when timetabling is demanding (there seems to be more unassigned lectures left than there are free slots in the timetable). If you have some degrees of freedom in change the course collection (such as rooms or teachers), this tool displays these additional options to you and marks the appropriate slots in the active timetable.

Click some of the unassigned courses on the list below the timetable. When the What if? button or menu selection becomes enabled, click it to display a menu showing what you can do:

"What if" options (4):
Replacing the shown course component
can add (2...4) free slots to assign lectures
of course "CAS-12D" in the timetable

*1 : ING-12 (513 -> ?) 0+4 = 4 free slots
*2 : EFI-12 (12D -> ?) 0+2 = 2 free slots
*3 : OPC2-12 (12D -> ?) 0+2 = 2 free slots
*4 : MAT-12 (513 -> ?) 0+2 = 2 free slots

The numbers *1, *2, *3 and *4 are also shown in the timetable (*1 appears 4 times, others two times). When you select *2, for instance, you will gain 2 free slots in the timetable, if you replace component 12D of course EFI-12 by some other component of the same category.

View

This selection is designed to change the appearance of the window and also to find the appropriate table on the top left corner.

Select font

This selection enables to change the font both in master and linked timetables.

For the Master Timetable

Selects the font used in the Master Timetable on the top left.

For the linked timetables

Selects the font used in the linked timetables on the right, which are with the current course

Cell display options

This selection includes all commands that you can use to change the appearance of the cells in the master timetable. Selecting too many options can make master timetable look too cluttered, but too few options may show less useful information.

Show course colours

Select this option if you want to show courses with different colours and small three-colour flags (instead of black and white).

Show course flags

When selected, this option shows small three-colour flags on the bottom of each cell (if there is enough space for it). Like colours, the flags help to distinguish courses from each other. 

Show indicators [+x]

Indicators are the numbers in brackets ([+2],[-3]) that give the user additional background information about the desirability of the permissible cells and the degree of difficulty of forbidden cells. If this option is not selected, the numbers are not shown.

Show manual rooms (m)

If this option is selected and you have manually assigned a room for the current cell, it is indicated by the letter m in the bottom left corner of the cell. See more about manual room selection in Tools|Select rooms manually.

Show commented cells (c)

If this option is selected and you have added a comment to the current cell, it is indicated by the letter c in the bottom right corner of the cell. You can add a comment to a cell with the command Edit|Comment this cell or using the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl+E].

Show gap picture

When selected, a picture of a walking man is displayed in cells which constitute a gap (or a hole) between lectures and/or bookings.

Show swap options [+9 s],[-9 s]

If this selection is checked, the application displays the swap options for the current block, that is, other courses with the same block lengths that can be swapped with the current block without conflicts. Use [F6] to confirm swapping of blocks.

Show cell hints [Ctrl+Alt+H]

Shows a tooltip on top of master timetable related to the cell content and actions.

Show all options

Selects all cell display options.

Show default options

Selects default display options (factory settings) .

Clear all options

Clears all default display options. 

Show codes

Shows course codes in timetables.

Show names

Shows names in timetables.

Show both

Shows codes and names in timetables.

Course info [Ctrl+H]

Displays the list of the components (collection) of the active course. If you also want to replace some of the components, remove or add a component, select the appropriate component and then click Modify? button. (In some instances, Modify? is not allowed, if the conflict checking cannot be performed.)

If modifying is allowed you can edit the course components as you do in Courses window.

Show free resources

Displays the list of free components of similar category with the current timetable component. Those components are listed which have empty cells in all slots of the currently selected area.

Find timetable ... [Ctrl+F]

By entering the code or name (or a substring) locates the first timetable that matches the search criteria and makes it the active one. The search method is not case-sensitive.

First table

Sets the first table as the active table.

Previous table [Ctrl+P]

Sets the previous table as the active table.

Next table [Ctrl+N]

Sets the next table as the active table.

Last table

Sets the last table as the active table.

Search unassigned lectures [F3]

Locates the next table having unassigned lectures and sets it as the active table. If no unassigned lectures are found, there are no unassigned lectures left in the current week and the original table is returned as the active table. If there are several weeks available, the application prompts to continue searching unassigned lectures from other weeks.