Toolbar functions

You can control optimisation with the following toolbar functions:

Add course to the cluster

This function allows you to add a course to a cluster. To do this, select the course and the desired cluster and click on the 'Add course to the cluster' button. You can alternatively add a course to a cluster with a simple double-click.

Note: Locking a course

You have to lock this course if this course-cluster-assignment is to be observed during a subsequent optimisation run.

Remove course from the cluster

If you wish to remove a course from a cluster, select the course and the desired cluster and click on the 'Remove course from the cluster' button. You can alternatively remove a course from a cluster with a simple double-click.

Fix course in cluster

If you wish a particular course to be scheduled in a certain cluster in all cases, add this course to the desired then lock it by using the 'Fix course in cluster' button. A locked course is marked with a *.

Exclude course from cluster

If you wish to avoid a course being scheduled in a certain cluster, select course and cluster and click on the 'Exclude course from cluster' button. Optimisation will not now place this course in the cluster marked with the block.

The block is represented in the cell with a forward slash '/'.

Favourable clusters green

This function highlights all those clusters to which each course could be added in green. Restrictions such as cluster conditions are taken into consideration during the check.

Alternatively, you can also check the box 'Mark favourable clusters green'. This will highlight the favourable clusters for the selected course when you click in the corresponding row.

Optimisation / Extended Opt.

You can choose between one of the two variants for optimisation. In principle both variants are based on the same algorithm. The first one is faster because some combinations are considered to be equal and are therefore not re-examined.

In contrast to fast optimisation, extended optimisation also takes into account that

•Two parallel courses can be scheduled in the same cluster

•Parallel courses are considered equal if teachers are already assigned to them.

Skip combinations

Optimisation will automatically skip combinations if a solution has not been found after a specific time. This function enables you to skip functions manually in order to speed up optimisation.

Cancel optimisation

Clicking this button terminates the optimisation run. Solutions found so far are saved.