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Forensic
Speech Contest Scheduler |
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Home – How to Use – How to Purchase
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Create an Empty Schedule -
Schedule Contest -
Adding Rooms Step 5 – Run the scheduler
Once all the schools are registered you are ready to schedule the contest. Click on the Schedule Rounds button in the functions section of the Switchboard. This will open the Scheduler form (figure 1).
Figure 1
Once the registration forms are completed the Scheduler form will open showing the number of judges registered and the number of entries to be scheduled for each round. The required number of judges is not available until after the Empty schedule is created.
The first step here
is to create an empty schedule which sets up all the slots that
presentations will be scheduled in. Note that the default is to check
the Combine Groups checkbox under this button. If you do not want to
combine groups then uncheck this box before clicking on the Create Empty
Schedule button. Once this plan is created the form will show the
required number of judges and recommend how many clean judges it will
need to completely schedule the contest (Figure 2). If you do not have
the requested number of clean judges, go ahead and run the scheduler
anyway. You will end up with some additional unscheduled entries that
you will then need to manually schedule.
Figure 2
You should now close the Scheduler and open the Registration form. Go to the school named Neutral Judges using the Select a School Combo box and enter the number of neutral judges available for the contest and then recreate the Empty Schedule (Figure 3).
Figure 3 The form now shows the number of required and available judges and is ready to schedule the contest. Note that after the empty schedule has been created the Schedule button is enabled for use.
The contest is now ready to be scheduled. The scheduler uses randomizing to create the schedule so that every time it creates a schedule it gives a different solution. This is true even though the data does not change. It will try to schedule every entry according to the rules but in most cases there will be a few that it cannot schedule. These will be listed as unscheduled entries. There is a manual scheduling function to help schedule these final few entries. To minimize these unscheduled entries you can run the scheduler multiple times. The Reset field is designed so you can tell the application how many times you would like to run the scheduler looking for a solution with a minimum number of unscheduled entries. The ASL (Acceptable Scheduling Level) field tells the system the maximum number of acceptable unscheduled entries to allow in either round two or three (it is always 0 in round one.) Figure 4 below shows the result of clicking the Schedule button four times with the Reset set to 5 and the last ASL set to 3. Anytime the system finds a schedule with no unscheduled entries it will quit. If it can’t meet the ASL goal during the last rest it will give you the solution it has.
Figure 4
This solution provides 66 sections with no unscheduled entries. The remaining task would be to assign rooms to the sections using the Sections form. This form is displayed by clicking the Sections button in the Tables section of the Switchboard.
Note that the registration button is now disabled and marked as “Closed”. To re open registration you would need to use the Delete Current Plan button. This deletes the schedule and reopens registration. You will then need to reschedule the contest after adding or removing schools.
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