What's new in aSc TimeTables 2022
Jun 24, 2022
- Cloud generator for timetables online is now available.
- It is super convenient:
- Open your timetable, specify how many computers shall work on it and then let it run. You can monitor the progress of the generation in your mobile phone
- You can enjoy spending your time with your kids or fiancé on the beach, while computers somewhere in datacenter will do your work faster.
- It is faster:
- If you work on laptop - these usually have much slower processors then regular server processors.
- It is cost effective:
- You can rent extra computers only for the time you need them. No need to purchase expensive PC that you will be fully using for just a few days per year.
- It is clever:
- On the PC is up to you to decide what parameters will be used for each generation. When the generation finishes you need to decide what next. sometimes you even need to decide when to stop generation if it doesn't look promising . The cloud generator does all these decisions for you.
- All the results:
- The cloud generator provides you with all the results it has found during the work on your timetable. You can review them at any time.
- Generator speed was improved in the PC version:
- The speed was improved by up to 40% in most timetables. Also the default settings were changed for computers to better utilize the computers with 8 or more cores.
- New cardrelationship:
- Max free days between cards per all weeks
- Improved dialog for cardrelationships:
- Improved sorting of the cardrelationships and it is possible to put some background colors to keeps them in order. You can also test them separately or in groups, to see if they are giving required results.
- Substitution online available on the mobile phone:
- You can now do the full schools substitutions from your mobile phone. If you need to react fast, you can input absent teacher, specify the substitutions and publish the result.
- The importance of constraints was made clearer:
- If a constraint has multiple subconstraints, it is now clear what is the importance of each subconstraint, also the main list of constraints now shows the importance of the subconstraint that was relaxed. In previous versions it was shown as the importance of the highest subconstraint.
- Other small improvements:
- For example:
- Quick changes now available also for the unplaced cards.
- The improvement dialog now shows the importance of the constraints.
New in aSc TimeTables 2014.11.14 (Oct 25, 2013)
- New feature Analyze by generation:
- This feature will help you to identify problems in your timetable by showing which cards the generator had the most problems to place. You can use it in case your timetable passes the test, that means the software is able to generate timetables for each individual class, teacher or room but it is not possible to generate the whole timetable.
- New feature Analyze by extended tests:
- The basic test tries to generate single objects. But although if you can generate a timetable for each teacher alone, you may still not be able to generate a timetable for two teachers together. This new feature tries to help you with finding smaller subsets of your timetable that cannot be generated. It is then easier to find what the actual problem is, because you only deal with small part of your timetable. Also this feature not only finds sets of classes/rooms, but it tries also to eliminate constraints or time-offs. So it can tell you that for example certain two teachers cannot be generated together when you consider their time-offs. You will then know there is no problem with other constraints, just 2 teachers and their timeoffs.
- New feature Draft generation with relaxation:
- The draft generation was already present in previous versions, but now it also allows you to say that certain set of constraints can be relaxed instead of just turned on/off.
- New feature - Native iPhone/iPad and Android application:
- This application will be available on the Google/iOS store in all countries soon. This is native application, so when you download timetable you no longer need internet connection to view it. If your school uses substitutions each teacher/student that has smartphone will receive automatic notification when the substitution was changed. You do not need to do anything, just publish the timetables and substitutions.
- New feature Online Substitutions:
- The Substitution module has been ported to HTML version that can run in your browser from any place. You just need one password and you can do the substitution from any PC at school or home. Or any tablet that has internet access. The software operates the same way as the standalone aSc Substitutions application, you can decide which one you want to use.
- EduPage:
- You can now build a full webpage around your published timetable. In fact nearly 10'000 schools are using EduPage as their main webpage. Not only for showing timetable & substitution, but also to post news, articles, photos. All wrapped in modern design that can be fully customized. Of course if you do not want, you can just use EduPage to publish timetables and put a link on your main school webpage.
- Faster generator:
- We have made many optimizations to the generation code. The generation is now 20%-100% depending on the timetable.
New in aSc TimeTables 2013.1.8 (Jul 18, 2012)
- Mac & Linux version
- Yes, aSc TimeTables & aSc Substitutions are now available on Mac and Linux systems. You will soon be able to download the instalation for each platform from our main download page. No emulator or windows license is needed. You can of course share your timetables between platforms.
- Improved generation speed
- The software now generates around 10% faster on the dual/quadcore systems due to improvements in the communication between cores.
- Room priorities
- It is now possible to specify for each lesson the ideal, not-so-best and use-only-in-emergency classrooms. You can exactly specify how many times per week kids can be in the best room, how many times you will tolerate usage of the emergency room:
- Optimizing the room usage for students
- There are now a few new rules that allow you to reduce the room usage to save on cleaning or rent the rooms:
- Reducing the room usage
- Card relationships for groups, subjects, teacher's classes
- you can now apply all cardrelationships to groups. So for example you can define cardrelatioships that will only affect girls from 5A.
- Simplified Import from Excel/Clipboard
- It shall be now much easier to import basic data as well as lessons into the software. If you are importing lessons/seminars, you no longer need to have the timetable with subjects/teachers, the software can import all the data in one step.
- Importing from Clipboard (MS Excel)
- also the import of students and selections was simplified:
- Import sections from clipboard(Excel)
- Max teachers on one period
- You can now define the maximum number of teachers on certain periods to make sure you have enough free teachers free on each period.
- We need two free teachers on each period to make sure we have enough teachers for substitutions
- Subjects/courses distribution during the year
- You can specify that student has to complete Course A before he can have course B.
- Student has to finish Biology before he can attend Biology practice
- Also for the multiweek timetables it is now possible to specify that subject has to be on consecutive 4 weeks.
- Subject has to be in consecutive weeks/terms
- Importance of cardrelationships
- It is now possible possible to specify the importance also for regular cardrelationships.
- Importance of constraints
- For some constraints you can set the importance directly when you specifying this constraint. So even if you run the generation with relaxation allowed you can specify that this constraint shall not be relaxed.
- Student group changes
- If you allow it, the generator can swith the student to different section between terms.
- Other small improvements
- Note for each cardrelationship
- Copy cardrelationship
- What's new in aSc Substitutions 2013
- Generate the substitutions for one day
- You can do the substitutions manually one by one as before or you can let the software to do it for you for the whole day. It follows the substitution criteria you have defined previously.
- Generate the substitutions for one day
- Change collision
- While doing the substitution, you can now directly go to the collision substitution and change it.
- Substitution collisions
- Holidays
- You can now mark certain days as holidays. The lessons are automatically cancelled.
- Holidays
- Adding the timetable
- You can now specify the end time when adding timetable.
- Change the timetable for specific time only
- Points
- Points are now calculated by week,month and year and the teacher's base contract can be included.
- Using points to balance substitution/contract load
- More situations timetable panel
- The software now shows by different color some more situations to help you decide the best teacher for the substitution.
- What is shown in the top right corner?
- Alternative layout
- the alternative layout of the substitution report was changed so that it sorts the lines by the teacher. This makes finding the changes for each teacher easier.
- What is "Alternative layout"
New in aSc TimeTables 2012.8.3 (Dec 15, 2011)
- Faster classrooms assignment:
- It was possible also before, but now there is direct way to specify that some rooms are used by certain subjects or teachers:
- How can I specify teachers’ home classrooms?
- How can I specify default (usual) classrooms for certain subject?
- Afternoon lessons:
- It is possible to specify that some lessons can be in the afternoon, means they can be outside of the regular teaching block. This allows the software to put them in the positions that will create gaps for students, you can of course limit how long gaps do you tolerate.
- How can I define lessons that can be outside teaching block(in the afternoon)?
- TimeTable testing:
- Testing the timetable now supports also testing of individual students. So the test can now pinpoint if there are some fundamental problems with picks of certain student. The testing was also made faster in some cases.
- The generator for the student based timetables was improved:
- The student based generator works like before, but after it finishes it also automatically tries to improve the result after the generation.
- We have also fixed problems that made the generation sometimes slower on some dualcore notebooks.
- Lesson capacities:
- Lesson capacities and student counts can now be displayed on the cards, the software also shows visual warning in case you manually cross the capacity.
- How can I display capacities and students counts on the cards?
- What does the stripes on the cards mean?
- Displaying courses:
- The default timetable view now can be changed by specifying your school type. For timetables based on student’s picks it can display all courses in one row, or courses in more rows one for each grade.
- What happens when I change school type?
- New card relationships:
- It is possible to specify for example that teacher shall not have more than 3 consecutive lessons, but he/she may have 2 doubles (4 in total) or that group of students must have certain teacher in elective subjects.
New in aSc TimeTables 2008.15.4 (Jun 6, 2009)
- User interface.
- The new version is now nicer, but more importantly it shall be easier to use. We tried to minimize the number of clicks so that you can input and create your timetable faster.
- Generator
- Over the past year we have generated literally millions of schedules and measured the impact of many algorithm improvements on schedules from different countries. As a result the generator is now 53% faster.
- Dual core and Quad core generator.
- Since dual core PC's are more and more available we have checked and fine tuned the generator so that it fully utilizes your computer.
- Printouts
- It is now possible to print the lesson grid.
- Imports and exports
- The software now features simplified XML import/export. This allows you or the company that supplied you with school management system to easily transfer data to aSc TimeTables. Or to transfer the created timetable back to the school management system. See:
- Import from XML
- Export to XML
- Other notable additions:
- Possibility to change line widths in printouts. How can I set the width of the lines?
- Improved import of students/seminars
- Classroom capacities and group sizes. Classroom capacities
- New advanced card relationships
- Lesson grid now supports more subjects (on more pages)
- Related timetables now show also classrooms
- And as usual many more small improvements.