[sims] NovaT6

[garethEds]

Good evening all,

 

As I work on next years academic timetable I have been passed the data file from the Headteacher who originally edited it in T4. Now the weirdest thing is showing up and I seem to have orphan courses.

 

If I go to Timetable>New>Classes without Rooms

 

I get the screenshot which I have attached. As you can see in the picture there is a course Si-12-C3-

 

That course isn't running. It isn't even in the Model, the Classes or the Blocks. Where would it have been stored? HT says it's a 'glitch' between systems. It's doing my OCD no good and I need to remove it.

 

Can anyone help?

 

Cheers

 

Gareth

[RootsSchImp]

Hi Gareth,

 

Do you get any options if you right click it? Does it appear in Reports| Unstaffed Classes or Unbuilt blocks? That would drive me nuts too, and if you send through 'orphaned' classes with no staff or rooms it can cause SIMS problems too. Your real problem is that your timetable's still being done in T4 which is pretty much the digital equivalent of finger painting it on the walls of your cave - I'd sort that out if I were you.

 

Good luck

 

Ed

[MkII]

Timetabling in T4 is pretty much the digital equivalent of finger painting on the walls of your cave

 

Haha! 😂

 

That's going on my wall

 

Kudos for that. T6 is not much better lol

Edited July 20, 2017 by MkII

[MkII]

 

Hmm.. needs some work [emoji4]

[RootsSchImp]

T6 is not much better lol

 

Oh Mark,

 

If you only knew the nonsense that spills out of Facility Scheduler, you'd sacrifice a goat to T6, Lord of Blocks, every summer solstice just like I do.

[garethEds]

Hi Gareth,

Do you get any options if you right click it? Does it appear in Reports| Unstaffed Classes or Unbuilt blocks? That would drive me nuts too, and if you send through 'orphaned' classes with no staff or rooms it can cause SIMS problems too. Your real problem is that your timetable's still being done in T4 which is pretty much the digital equivalent of finger painting it on the walls of your cave - I'd sort that out if I were you.

Good luck

Ed

 

I get all the options if I click on it. See attached screenshot:

 

I'll try the other stuff as you advise.

 

My version of the timetable is being done in T6. HD uses T4.

 

What other software is out there to do this? I'm not a fan of how Windows 3.1 it all looks :-)

 

Gareth

[RootsSchImp]

If you jump to model where does it take you? If it takes you to a block without the class in it, it might be worth noting the subjects, teachers and rooms of the block, deleting it and remaking it.

 

Re: better software than T4: T6, with the added bonus you're already paying for it. I've used Scheduler, Keith Johnson's Timetabler and e-Timetable and IMO Nova T6 is the best of those.

[CAM]

My biggest problem with T6 is the window frames are still broken in Windows 7 with the odd double scroll bars causing stuff to get hidden off screen. Does that get fixed in Windows 10?

 

EDIT - Found it. Reported this in 2013! http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/127841-windows-7-nova-t6-scroll-bars.html

Edited July 21, 2017 by CAM

[MkII]

Re: better software than T4: T6, with the added bonus you're already paying for it. I've used Scheduler, Keith Johnson's Timetabler and e-Timetable and IMO Nova T6 is the best of those.

 

You surprise me. I've not tried anything other that T6. I was hoping other programs would be better. For us it's nothing more than a very complicated way of getting a manually created timetable (because T6 just will not do it*) into SIMS.

 

*I thought I'd never say that a computer program was worse than a manual method of calculating probabilities

[NotSoFast]

I used Facility Scheduler for the first time this year, with the help of a very experienced consultant. This was my 7th timetable. It couldn't schedule automatically what I had done manually, so we put each year group on manually, then finally let it finish the last few bits of year 7. I honestly think humans are still better at this, with a bit of computer help to make sure you don't cock up.

[RootsSchImp]

Facility autoschedules better than T6, but like @NotSoFast I don't think that is a very important attribute of a timetabling program as most of the decisions and trade offs as to who teaches what, when it's better to make yourself.

[MkII]

Ours wouldn't auto schedule if you tried. The whole thing is built in a spreadsheet with duplicate checking. I can't understand how that is so hard to enter into T6. It should be a simple import.

 

Making changes is equally painful. You're forced to restate rules you've already defined, and manually one by one.