PowerScheduler Scheduling Setup

On this page:

To build the master schedule to your school's specifications, you need to define pieces of information for the system to use to schedule courses at your school. These are called scheduling setup. Depending on your school's setup, not all scheduling setup need to be defined. Define the following scheduling setup before building a master schedule:

• Scenarios
• Auto. Scheduler Setup
• Course Catalogs
• Years and Terms
• Periods
• Days
• Buildings
• Departments
• Facilities
• Houses
• Section Types
• Teams
• Program Balancing

Buildings

If your school campus contains several buildings, you can define each of them. Then, you can associate these buildings with students, teachers, and rooms. This way, the system knows to schedule courses in the appropriate building, taught by the appropriate teacher, and taken by the appropriate students.

Define a Building

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Buildings from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click New. 
4. Enter a name for the building in the Building field.
5. Click Submit. 

Edit a Building

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Buildings from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the building you want to edit. 
4. Edit the name of the building in the Building field.
5. Click Submit. 

Delete a Building

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Buildings from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the building you want to delete. 
4. Click Delete. 

Days

A day (or "cycle") is the number of repeating days that make up a schedule. The days are originally set up when you enter the number of days while creating the scenario or performing the Auto Scheduler Setup function.

To build a master schedule, PowerScheduler requires that days are defined. Prior to the start of the scheduling process, determine the numbers of days you will need in your schedule.

Note: A schedule day or cycle is NOT the same as a calendar day.

Define Days

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Days from the PowerScheduler menu.

3. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Name	Enter the name of the day.
   Abbreviation	Enter an abbreviation for the day name.

4. Click Submit. 

Departments

Courses, rooms, and teachers belong to departments. When building the master schedule, the system attempts to schedule courses in one of the rooms belonging to the appropriate department.

Use this function to set up departments. If you previously used PowerScheduler with departments, the departments also appear for this year.

Note: Be very careful to avoid typographical errors when defining departments. For example, if there is an existing SCIENCE department and you define a misspelled "SCEIENCE" department in PowerScheduler, the erroneously-named department will also exist when the schedule is committed since its name did not match the name of any existing department. It is a cumbersome task to clean up the data, as departments are associated to a number of tables, such as Teacher, Room, and Course.

Define a Department

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Departments from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click New. 
4. Enter a name for the department in the Department field.
5. Click Submit. 

Edit a Department

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Departments from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the department you want to edit. 
4. Edit the name of the department in the Department field.
5. Click Submit.

Delete a Department

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Departments from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the department you want to delete. 
4. Click Delete. 

Facilities

Some courses require special equipment or facilities. For example, a chemistry course requires special laboratory equipment, and a film course requires audio and video equipment. Also, a chemistry course is taught in a laboratory and a physical education class is taught in a gymnasium. To associate courses that need special equipment or types of rooms, the system uses facilities.

Note: You can assign multiple facilities to courses and rooms.

Define a Facility

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Facilities from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click New. 
4. Enter a name for the facility in the Facility field.
5. Click Submit. 

Edit a Facility

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Facilities from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the facility you want to edit. 
4. Edit the name of the facility in the Facility field.
5. Click Submit. 

Delete a Facility

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu.
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Facilities from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the facility you want to delete. 
4. Click Delete. 

Houses

Some schools separate students into houses. For example, a school can have a House A (Grades 9 and 10) and a House B (Grades 11 and 12). Determine which rooms, teachers, and students belong to each house. If the "Use houses" checkbox is selected on the Edit Advanced Build Scenario page (see Edit Advanced Optimizations ), the system references which house a room is assigned to before scheduling courses in that room and gives scheduling priority to the appropriate house.

Also, sections will be scheduled for houses based on the house assignment of the teachers scheduled for those sections. Students assigned to a house will be assigned to a section either without a house or with the same house, whereas students not assigned a house can be assigned to any section.

Define a House

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Houses from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click New. 
4. Enter a name for the house in the House field.
5. Click Submit. 

Edit a House

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Houses from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the house you want to edit. 
4. Edit the name of the house in the House field.
5. Click Submit.

Delete a House

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Houses from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the house you want to delete. 
4. Click Delete. 

Scheduling Periods

To build a master schedule, the system requires periods, which are generated when you create a scenario using the Auto Scheduler Setup process. Use this page to name and abbreviate those periods.

If you are working with a copy of a previous year's master schedule, the periods will be the same as they were in that schedule.

Define Periods

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Periods from the PowerScheduler menu.

3. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Name	Enter a name for this period.
   Abbreviation	Enter an abbreviation for this period name.
   Core	Select the checkboxes to specify the periods that are "core" periods in which you expect students to be scheduled. When PowerScheduler calculates the core percent scheduled figure, a calculation of successfully scheduled should consider core periods. By default, the checkbox is selected. Many schools define certain periods that are for other purposes than scheduling, such as a 0 period that may be used for daily attendance or night school periods. By identifying which periods are core periods, the system can base its decision of how successful a student's schedule is according to how many of the core periods have been scheduled.
   Sort	Select a sort order for displaying this period.

4. Click Submit. 

Section Types

Section types are special sections of a course. For example, your school might offer separate sections of courses for bilingual students. In this case, one section of the course will be identified as bilingual. The teacher who instructs this section will have a bilingual section type assignment. The students' requests will also reflect the bilingual section type.

Define a Section Type

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu.
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Section Types from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click New. 

4. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Section Type	Enter a name for the section type. Enter a maximum of 20 characters.
   Section Type Code	Enter a section type code. Enter a maximum of 2 characters.

5. Click Submit. 

Edit a Section Type

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Section Types from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the section type you want to edit. 

4. Use the following table to edit information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Section Type	Enter a name for the section type.
   Section Type Code	Enter a section type code.

5. Click Submit. 

Delete a Section Type

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Section Types from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the section type you want to delete. 
4. Click Delete. 

Teams

Some schools, most often middle or junior high schools, assign students and teachers to teams to provide the best support and monitoring system.

Teams are either static or dynamic. If you define static teams, you manually assign each student to a particular team. For more information, see Student Information. If you create dynamic teams, you define the team names and assign teachers to the teams, but allow the system to decide which students to assign to which teams for the best possible balance.

Note: For information about how to assign teachers to teams, see Teacher Scheduling Information.
The Teams page displays the team name and number. Use the team number to change the team for a group of students. For more information about updating a selection of students, see Update Selections.

Define a Team

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Teams from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click New. 
4. Enter a name for the team.
5. Click Submit. 

Edit a Team

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu.
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Teams from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the team you want to edit. 
4. Edit the name of the team.
5. Click Submit. 

Delete a Team

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Teams from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the team you want to delete. 
4. Click Delete. 

Schedule Years and Terms

For scheduling purposes, you need to define the upcoming school year and its associated term, which are generated when you create a scenario using the Auto Scheduler Setup process. Note: If you are working with a copy of a previous year's master schedule, the terms will remain the same as they are in that schedule.
It is important to enter the terms from largest to smallest. For example, create the school year first and then semesters 1 and 2, any trimesters, and any quarters.

Define a Schedule Year and Terms

Note: When creating a year, the corresponding registration records from the previous year are copied to the new year. If registration records already exist for the school and year, then the registration records are not copied. For more information about registration records, see Student Course Request Pages.

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Years & Terms from the PowerScheduler menu.
3. Click New.

4. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Name of School Year	Enter the name of the school year, such as 2008-2009.
   Abbreviation	Enter an abbreviation for the school year, such as 08-09.
   First Day of School	Enter the first day of school for this academic year in MM/DD/YYYY format, such as 09/02/2009.
   Last Day of School	Enter the last day of school for this academic year in MM/DD/YYYY format, such as 6/5/2010.

5. Click Submit. 
6. Click Edit Terms in the row of the appropriate schedule year.
7. On the Term Setup page, click New. 
   Note: Enter the terms sequentially. That is, if your school has terms of two semesters and four quarters, enter them in this order: Year, Semester 1, Semester 2, and then Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3, and Quarter 4.

8. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Name of Term	Enter the name of this term, such as Semester 1.
   Abbreviation	Enter an abbreviation for this term, starting with a letter, such as S1.
   First Day of Term	Enter the first day of this term in MM/DD/YYYY format.
   Last Day of Term	Enter the last day of this term in MM/DD/YYYY format.
   What portion of the school year does this term represent?	Use the pop-up menu to choose the fraction that this term represents within the school year. If your school year consists of four terms, choose 1/2. If this term represents the whole school year, choose Full year.
   Import File Term #	Enter an import file term number so that the system can align terms when it imports the master schedule. For example, if your school uses semester and quarter classes, you might state in the import file that all sections of S1 are identified by the number S10203. Enter the same number in this field to map the date.

9. Click Submit. 

Edit a Schedule Year

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Years & Terms from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click the name of the schedule year you want to edit, such as Full Year or 2008-2009 School Year.

4. Use the following table to edit information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Name of School Year	Enter the name of the school year, such as 2008-2009.
   Abbreviation	Enter an abbreviation for the school year, such as 08-09.
   First Day of School	Enter the first day of school for this academic year in MM/DD/YYYY format, such as 09/02/2008.
   Last Day of School	Enter the last day of school for this academic year in MM/DD/YYYY format, such as 6/5/2009.

5. Click Submit. 

Edit a Schedule Term

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Years & Terms from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click Edit Terms in the row of the appropriate schedule year.
4. Click the name of the term you want to edit. 

5. Use the following table to edit information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Name of Term	Enter the name of this term.
   Abbreviation	Enter an abbreviation for this term, starting with a letter, such as S1. Enter no more than six characters.
   First Day of Term	Enter the first day of this term.
   Last Day of Term	Enter the last day of this term.
   What portion of the school year does this term represent?	Use the pop-up menu to choose the fraction that this term represents within the school year. If this term represents the whole school year, choose Full year.
   Import File Term #	Enter an import file term number so that the system can align terms when it imports the master schedule. For example, if your school uses semester and quarter classes, you might state in the import file that all sections of S1 are identified by the number S10203. Enter the same number in this field to map the date.

6. Click Submit. 

Delete a Schedule Term

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Years & Terms from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click Edit Terms in the row of the appropriate schedule year. 
4. Click the name of the schedule term you want to delete. 
5. Click Delete. 

Delete a Schedule Year

Note: When deleting a year, the corresponding registration records are also deleted. For more information about registration records, see Student Course Request Pages.

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu.
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Years & Terms from the PowerScheduler menu. 
3. Click Edit Terms in the row of the appropriate schedule year.
4. Click the name of the schedule year you want to delete.
5. Click Delete. 

Program Balancing

Program Balancing allows PowerScheduler to evenly balance students in programs across sections during PowerScheduler loads and Automated Walk-In Scheduling. You will need to define which programs you want to include in balancing.

Define Program Balancing

1. On the start page, choose PowerScheduler under Applications in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling Setup, choose Program Balancing from the PowerScheduler menu. 

3. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Balance These Programs	Select the checkbox next to each program you want to include in balancing.
   Evaluate Programs as of This Date	Enter the special program enrollment date from which you want the Scheduling Engine to evaluate special programs or click the Calendar icon to select a date. Balancing is based on the enrollments from the specified date.

4. Click Submit.