Master Schedule in Overview

Select View master schedule to open a previously generated master schedule based on the academic year, school, and term settings at the top of the Course selection and schedules page. The schedule will appear in a new browser window.

For a detailed breakdown of the results from Generate master schedule:

1. Select More actions, then View results.

2. Review the following areas:

   • Successful sections
     A percentage and actual number of sections with all meeting times, teachers, and rooms scheduled.

   • Process statistics
     Number of sections included and the amount of time elapsed generating the master schedule.

   • Sections still missing information
     Sections that still need teachers, meeting times, and/or rooms scheduled.

   • Criteria selected
     A list of the options used to generate the master schedule.

   • Diagnostics
     Start and ending times for the Generate Master Schedule process. Schedule and platform managers are also able to select Run again, as well as generate additional data files.

Select View previous runs to see data about previous Generate Master Schedule runs.

To generate the master schedule:

1. At the top of the screen, review the menu options to make sure you are in the appropriate academic year, school level, and term, and that Academics is selected

2. Select Generate master schedule.

3. Select the school levels and terms to include, if applicable.

4. Under Scheduling snapshots, choose whether to create Scheduling snapshots of the master and student schedules. Scheduling snapshots will save scheduling data, and can be restored if changes need to be undone or additional changes need to be made.

   Note: Click here for more information on scheduling snapshots.

5. Under Information to schedule:

   • Choose to Clear out existing data and/or Schedule Faculty, Blocks, and Rooms.

   • Determine how to Schedule meetings if not all faculty and room data are available:

     1. Regardless of what else can be scheduled

     2. Only if rooms and faculty can be scheduled using the times

     3. Only if faculty can be scheduled using the times

     4. Only if a room can be scheduled using the times

6. Under Class scheduling order:
   

Each of the two class scheduling orders uses the same data to determine the order to schedule courses (course priority, department priority, and course classification). The main difference between the two class scheduling orders is how course classification is emphasized.

Note: Course classification refers to how many sections a course has. For example, a course with one section is a singleton, a course with two sections is a doubleton, and a course with three sections is a tripleton.

There are two Class scheduling order routines. Both routines follow the same procedure when scheduling singletons: All singletons (courses with one section) are scheduled first. Within the singletons, departments with higher priority are scheduled first, and based on the department, Generate Master Schedule will look at courses with higher priorities.

• Course classification is the most important data (default selection):
  Once all singletons are scheduled, Generate Master Schedule will schedule all doubletons (courses with two sections) using the same department-course priority logic. Then, all tripletons (courses with three sections) are scheduled using the same logic. Priority is placed on classes with fewer sections. Therefore, a doubleton has lower scheduling priority than a singleton, because the doubleton is dependent on schedule availability after singletons are scheduled. The system will continue scheduling courses by course classification, in ascending order, until all classes are scheduled.

• Priority is put on all the data of a course (classification, priority, and department scheduling preference):
  Once all singletons are scheduled, Generate Master Schedule will schedule a section from each doubleton following the same logic. After the first round of doubleton sections have been scheduled, the system will schedule one section from each tripleton using the same logic. Priority is balanced between classes with more than one section. The system will then loop back to doubletons and alternate between doubletons, tripletons, and so forth, in ascending order, until all classes are scheduled.

7. Under Settings to follow:

   • Keep faculty in homeroom if available on course :

     Enable this if include homerooms for teacher resources is enabled for courses you added via the Courses page (see the Schedule settings when adding or editing a course).

   • Faculty target classes per course:
     Select Follow to determine if Target # of sections should be followed. If Ignore is selected, then Generate Master Schedule will not schedule more than the Max # of sections.

   • Faculty max classes per day:
     Select Follow if GMS should adhere to scheduling no more than the Maximum classes per day as indicated on a faculty member's Core profile under the Schedule tab.

8. If your school has established scheduling rules via Scheduling setup, you will see options for each of the scheduling rules under the heading Scheduling rules to follow:

   • Follow:
     Scheduling rules will be stringently followed. If they cannot be followed, then GMS will not schedule the course.

   • Try:
     Scheduling rules will be tentatively followed. If only some of the requirements of a rule can be satisfied, then GMS will still schedule the course based on the best possible outcome. For example, if a rule involves a teacher, block, and room, but only the block and room aspects can be satisfied, then GMS will schedule the course with a different teacher while following the other rules.

   • Ignore:
     Scheduling rules will not be followed when scheduling.

9. Under Courses to include:

   • Select to include All courses or Selected courses based on one of the following criteria:

     • Department: Select a department from the dropdown menu that appears when you select this option. You can choose additional departments if needed.

     • Classification: Select a classification from the dropdown menu that appears when you select this option. You can choose additional classifications if needed.

     • Specific courses: Search for a course in the search bar that appears when you select this option. You can select multiple courses if needed.

     • List: Select Open, then select the course list and select Open again.

10. Select Generate when finished.

After generating the master schedule, you can review the number of open seats available in each section of a course. Use this information to verify whether there are enough available seats or whether additional sections need to be moved or added to meet the needs of students who requested the course.

Under Master schedule, select More actions, then View total seats. A grid appears and shows the number of students who need to be scheduled for each department and scheduling block.

We recommend taking a look at the block totals first to ensure a nice balance across all of the blocks or to make sure those blocks that need more seats have them.

After you generate the master schedule, you can view courses with potential scheduling conflicts.

Select More actions, then Conflict matrix. For each type of conflict, you can view the course name, classification, number of students affected by the conflict, and the courses that each course conflicts with. Conflicts are categorized as:

• Singletons - A single course on a student’s schedule conflicts with at least one other course the student has requested.

• Doubletons - Two courses on a student’s schedule conflict with other courses the student has requested.

• Tripletons - More than two courses on student’s schedule conflict with other courses the student has requested.

To resolve or reduce course conflicts, add or edit class sections.

Tip: When you edit the information for a class section, the changes save automatically.

Select More actions, then Set section info. This opens the Set section info page. For more information, see Set Section Information - Academics .