Conflicts

A conflict arises whenever the timetable does not satisfy some realistic requirement. For example, if the same person is scheduled to be in two different locations at the same time, this is considered a conflict because a person cannot physically be in two places simultaneously. In this chapter, we will describe the various types of conflicts monitored by the program and explain what happens when they are detected.

Note: Conflicts are not the same as Constraints. Conflicts are prohibited situations, whereas constraints are mostly optimization factors of the timetable. Conflicts are monitored in both interactive and automatic modes, while constraints are monitored and optimized only in automatic mode. Constraints are explained in detail in a dedicated chapter of this user's guide.

Types of Conflicts

The program monitors a variety of potential conflicts and warns you whenever one is detected. If a conflict occurs as a result of your most recent action, a Conflicts Warning Window will appear, showing the new conflicts and asking whether you want to cancel the operation or ignore the warnings and continue anyway. If you choose to continue, the conflicts will be logged in the Conflicts pane — which we will discuss later in this chapter.

First, let us review the different types of conflict scenarios that the program can detect and warn you about.

Double-Booked Person or Group

Naturally, people cannot usually be double-booked. This means that if two activities involving the same teacher, student or group of students are scheduled at the same time, the program considers this to be a conflict. For example, if you attempt to drag-and-drop an activity to a time when the teacher is already occupied by another activity, a warning will appear.

Double-Booked Room

A room is also not allowed to be double-booked by default (although this can be overridden for certain rooms, as explained below). If two activities are scheduled in the same room at the same time, a warning is displayed.

Room Capacity

When an activity with more students than a room can accommodate is scheduled in that room, this is considered a conflict, and a warning is displayed indicating that the room's capacity has been exceeded.

Room Distance

For any two rooms, buildings or campuses, it is possible to define a travel time — the time required to move from one location to another. Once this travel time is defined, the program tracks every pair of consecutive activities scheduled in different locations in a person's timetable, to ensure that the person has enough time to travel from one location to the next. For example, if a school has two buildings that are 10 minutes apart, scheduling two back-to-back activities of some teacher in those buildings without at least a 10-minute break between them is considered a conflict.

Unavailable Resource

As described in the Interactive Timetabling chapter, you can block out certain times in a resource's timetable due to unavailability. Such blocks can be placed in the timetable of any resource (including subjects). If you attempt to schedule an activity involving a resource that is blocked at that time, a conflict warning will be displayed.

Overenrolled Activity

Activities have a Max. Students property which defines the maximum allowed number of students that can participate in the activity. If more students are assigned to the activity than this number — either by selecting them explicitly in the activity's Students property or by assigning the activity through the student's elective subjects property — the program will report a conflict.

Overbooked Activity

Activities have a Quantity property which defines the planned number of periods for that activity to be scheduled during the week. If you attempt to schedule an activity for more periods than its total planned quantity, a warning is also displayed.

Conflicts Window

Whenever the program detects one or more new conflicts as a result of your last operation, it displays a window called the Conflicts Window, which lists all newly detected conflicts. This is the window shown in all the examples above. The Conflicts Window gives you three options:

1. The first is to cancel the last operation and return to the previous state — essentially undoing what you just did.
2. The second option is to ignore the conflicts, complete the operation, and resolve the conflicts later at your convenience (note that you can always view these conflicts in the Conflicts pane, as explained below).
3. The third option is to settle the conflicts immediately, directly in the Conflicts Window, by choosing which conflicting activities should remain scheduled and which should be deleted.

   Explanation: If you look at the Conflicts Window, you will see that conflicts involving two activities display those activities with a square check box to the left of each one. Clicking a check box tells the program that the corresponding activity should be deleted. A red "X" will appear in the check box, and the activity text will be shown struck through. If you click the "Continue" link at this point, all activities marked with a red "X" will be deleted.

Note: When working online and connected to a server, if one user is viewing the Conflicts Window, no other user can make changes until that user presses "Continue" or "Cancel". If another user attempts to perform an operation during that time, a message will be displayed asking them to wait until the first user finishes the operation.

Conflicts Pane

The Conflicts Pane summarizes all existing conflicts in the timetable. If you have ever clicked "Continue" in the Conflicts Window (without deleting the conflicting activities), the conflicts from that window will appear in the Conflicts Pane. The Conflicts Pane is located on the right-hand side of the workspace. To display it, click the "Conflicts" tab located next to the Activities tab.

Important: By default, the Conflicts Pane displays only the conflicts related to the resource currently selected in the navigation pane. For example, if you are viewing a teacher's timetable in the main timetable pane, the Conflicts Pane will display only the conflicts involving that teacher. To display conflicts for all resources, click the "All" tab at the top of the Conflicts Pane.

In the list of conflicts, each row represents a single conflict. If you double-click a row, the program will open the timetable of the resource involved in that conflict and select the relevant cell.

The last tab above the Conflicts Pane shows the day and time currently selected in the main timetable pane. When you click this tab, only the conflicts for that specific day and time are displayed, while all other conflicts are filtered out.

If you want to display only conflicts of a specific type (for example, only double bookings), you can use the filter button above the list — the one that by default is labeled "All Types".

The next chapter: Combinations.