The Validation screen will examine the information for possible errors. Looking at the screen above, it has shown us that T. Jones does not have sufficient periods available for all his periods. The screen below gives us more information as to decide how to re-allocate his groups.
In the above example, very likely the cause would be that 10a, 10b, and 10c should have been combined in a single group.
The program is able to spot a number of errors as well as more subtle ones. It will tell you where to look for the problem and colour code it according to the possible severity of the problem.
One problem which is by far the most difficult one to resolve, and is my belief, it is the cause of most unsolvable timetables is illustrated below. I have used the program to allocate rugby matches for the sake of simplicity.
Imagine I have four schools, each playing against each other. Each will play a total of three matches. Solving this is perfect.
Now imagine I have three schools each playing against each other. As can be seen, only two afternoons per school are required.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard the program tries, it will never be able to solve this timetable. Why? If G1 plays against G2, G3 has no partner, and when G1 plays against G3, G2 will have no partner, but when it's now time for G2 to play G3, the two are not available for the same afternoon. Since we allocated two afternoons, the program approved of the number of available periods for each team but yet it is unsolvable. This concept gets even more complicated based on the number of periods, educators, classes etc. that we have to work with. I am currently trying to figure out a check for this one.
Here is a list of the Validation Errors currently spotted by the program.
- No days or periods entered.
- No Educators, Classes, Rooms, or Subjects defined.
- Orphaned Groups removed.
- Not enough periods for Educators, Classes, Rooms, or Subjects.
- No Educators, Classes, or Subjects in a group.
- No Periods per Cycle for a Group.
- No Maximum Periods per Day for a Group.
- The Maximum Periods per Day for a Group is too low for the number of Periods per Cycle.
- The Minimum Periods per Day for a Group is too high for the number of Periods per Cycle.
- Not Enough days in the Cycle for the way the exclusions are set.
- Not enough Periods per day based on the Minimum Periods per Day.
- Not enough Periods per day based on the Maximum Periods per Day.