Nova T6 - timetable that can be staffed retrospectively and take account of P/T staff

[sclarke7]

Hi. Would really appreciate some help. I'm hoping there is a really obvious solution that I am missing!

 

For some of our departments, eg art, I have been using facilities to timetable everything apart from classes that need key staffing. I do the following:

- set art facilities to 3 (3 teachers)

- a few classes are staffed with key staff

- all art lessons have the art facility assigned

- a skeleton timetable is given to the HoD which is very lightly staffed. The HoD then retrospectively allocates the rest of the staffing

 

Using this method has worked well up to now. Nova makes sure that it is not possible for more than three teachers on at any one time and it is for me easy to timetable.

 

Next year we have a large number of part-time staff, which will increase. My 'facilities' method doesn't work. Ideally, I need T6 to staff automatically, taking into account that there are less teachers available on one particular day; ie produce a unstaffed art timetable for a HoD to staff, that takes into account the one day off that a particular member of staff has. However I can't assign a facility to a member of staff.

 

Is there any way around this? In the perfect world where timetabling was a quick and easy job (I don't live in this world at all!) I would be able to give a HoF a blank timetable for them to staff that already takes account of any part-time needs.

Edited June 4, 2019 by sclarke7

[RootsSchImp]

Hi @sclarke7 - looking at this issue I'd say there are 2 constraints on your timetabling - (1)the days which teachers have off and (2) the HoF's preference for who teaches what. It sounds to me like you've prioritised 1 over 2. Given that's the case I would assign teachers to all lessons yourself, swapping them freely when necessary to line up a desired slot with a free teacher. Once every class is scheduled the HoF can still move lessons around but they will only be able to do so respecting the days off of the part timers.

[SpreadsheetJockey]

Not sure if this helps, but our timetable has an NCC code created called "part time" which we then assign to the relevant staff members, for the days (or parts of days) that they aren't available. This stops them appearing as free to be used on the days that they aren't in. You can also reserve facilities available per day, per subject via the facilities timetable I believe, by clicking (or right clicking) the number just under the period name.

[sclarke7]

Hi - thanks both for getting back to me so quickly. Reserving facilities per day/period I think could work for what I need. Thank you! Didn't realise that could be done. To be honest, despite using it for years there is a lot of Nova I don't use.

 

Hi Rootshlmp - that is a good point. Ideally, I want to prioritise neither. I sort of want to be able to do this is the perfect world:

 

- tell Nova that I have 2 part-time teachers, each needing a day off somewhere

- put in all of the art lessons

- have Nova automatically schedule a blank timetable that builds in the two days off