Timetabler - Assigning Course Characteristics

This is the process that we use to determine which sections are for an actual group of students vs which ones are simply meant to not be in conflict. It takes a few days to complete this whole process, and is very manual.

First the Timetabler - Determining reserve order should be finished.

Second the Timetabler - Reserve download procedure should be done.

Determining which reserves are driving enrollment

In Quest

Run this query to Excel: UW_RS_SCH_RSRV_CHK_FOR_CC_SB

Enter in term and term start date

1^st year Engineering do not worry about it as they enroll their own students. If only one section you do not need to worry about it. If every section is fully reserved with same reserve, or partially reserved with same reserve do not worry about it. If there’s multiple sections and none have a reserve, do not worry about it.

You are concerned with reserves that are driving where the students go.

Highlight the ones that matter on the spreadsheet.

In Timetabler

In My Views → Course Combination → Course Combinations with Notes

Sort it by Course ID, using the courses that were highlighted from the spreadsheet where the reserves are driving where a student group should go, in the filter bar at the bottom of the my view enter in each course, if there are courses that come up in a combination (not all will) you select the courses – batch edit and change them from “to spread things out” to “For Actual group of Students” move on to the next course from your spreadsheet.

Once you are done with the spreadsheet, you can get rid of it – you will never see it again.

Next head over to where the Course Combination section is along the side menu bar.

Make sure all the Program and Levels are the same in the Course Combinations. To do this you have right click on the top course combination, select open viewer, then click on each course combination individually.

All the course combinations should similar to this

This next part will take a few days to complete.

Sort by Default Department and Name, filter out the “to spread things out” Academic block type ID and only work on the “For Actual Group of students” combinations.

Right click on the top course combination and select “open viewer”

in the window that opened select Course Combination Requests, then right on the first course and select Open Viewer again:

The window that open under the first tab you’ll want to double click on Level which opens up another window (we will call it “Program window”, we will get to that)

Then click on the Course combination window select the Course Characteristics tab (this is where ONE reserve gets added, or if there is no reserve or one does not apply chose “Space” under “Characteristic”.

Then in the Program window that opened up from before [Program: subject] find “Alternative Course Request-Course Characteristics”

Add above reserve or Space (do not repeat them – you will get an error if you do though) in the “From” column and under “To” write RESALL rank is always 100 and check Allow Partial Move.

RESALL is the characteristic on all secondary components, so we always write “Resall” on the To field to cover our bases for any potential secondary component that will exist.

Once all reserves are added for the courses in the course combination put the marker on the course combination window and move on to the next.

Ensure that there are no requested section numbers entered in the course combinations at this stage, using the course combinations with notes MyView can easily find those ones and they can be cleaned up quickly there.

Make sure all the Program and Levels are the same in the Course Combinations. Select the MyView Course request program and level (under Course Combination Request) You can sort through the program and level to ensure they are all the [Core] or [Elective] of 0.

The next step is going through the Course Combinations and sort it by the Student Count, ones with 1 you do not need to worry about and leave the “Default Academic Block Type” as is. You now must go through all the combinations with a student count higher than 1 and determine if it should stay as the student count number and be changed to “For Actual group of Students” or be changed to 1 and the “Default Academic Block Type” then should not be changed if it is staying as 1.

Once all the reserves have been brought in and you have determined that it is for an actual group of students it’s now time to attach the course characteristic to the “For Actual group of Students” block type.

Run the course request program and level, filter the show only the For Actual group of Students academic block Type ID

From this screen you can now go through the Course ID’s individually, or batch edit them where applicable.

By double clicking on the Level of 0 will open up another window (we will call it “Program window”, we will get to that)

Select the Course Characteristics tab (this is where ONE reserve gets added), or if there is no reserve or one does not apply chose “Space” under “Characteristic”.

Then in the Program window that opened up from before [Program: Core or Elective] find “Alternative Course Request-Course Characteristics”

Add the reserve or “Space” (do not repeat them – you will get an error if you do though) in the “From” column and under “To” write RESALL rank is always 100 and check Allow Partial Move.

RESALL is the characteristic on all secondary components, so we always write “Resall” on the To field to cover our bases for any potential secondary component that will exist.

Once you are done with the course ID move onto the next on, if you get a section of courses where they have no reserves, you can batch edit them all and add “Space” to them, this saves a significant amount of time.

NCC’s (No Course Combinations)

Once all assigned -> check for courses with multiple sections and put them in an academic block.

Have a second instance of Timetabler open and logged in as another user (super?) so that you can see if they are already fully forced or not.

Run My View: Course → Course without combinations without student…

Only care about the “No Course Combinations” ones sort by that. Do not bother with courses that are fully forced (typically Engineering First year) this is the reason that you have a second timetabler window open. Open course from My View and then double click on Department -> Click on Academic Blocks -> Add new under it and under “ID” it should be called: “NCC Course” put block size as 1 and the Type is “to spread things out”. Under components attach the components of the course that need the academic block.

There is nothing in the system that will not allow for a lecture and tutorial to be scheduled at the same time. We create them so they do not schedule in conflict. Therefore, we do not care about fully forced courses as they already should be conflict free. Could have two instances of Timetabler open and check one while create in other.

Disable Components:

Under Components sort by section (081) select all and batch edit – check the “Disable for Assigning” and “Disable for Academic Block Builder” – We do not do this anymore as the CEL sections should be viable options, also sometimes they are the only option.

For Off Campus -> Secondary Files -> then Course Characteristics

-> Off Check the “Disable for Assigning” and

-> “Disable for Academic Block Builder”

Not all “Off” campuses should be disabled, there are some PHARM courses that are “Off Canada” and local so they should remain active, you must go through them – ones abroad or in Italy – disable those.

Finally Take a back up for the TimeTabler database call it “Before running ABB”

System Administration -> Backup right click “Add New…” name it appropriately and click back up. That is it.

Check the settings and make sure they look like this:

The logic behind the settings can be found here.