Timetabling System

This is a timetabling system, which can allocate students into subject at particular times, with particular teachers, in particular rooms, while respecting teacher availabilities, and minimizes clashes for students. This can also break classes into multiple classes if there are more students than room capacity, and maximises room usage to allow subjects that need projectors to get rooms with projectors.

Thanks to Alex Cummaudo for help with this project as well.

Setup

1. Install Python v3.4.3 or greater.

2. Install dependencies using pip:

   $ pip install -r requirements.txt
   

3. Make your configurations in attendance/config.py.

4. Open attendance/__init__.py in a text editor.

5. Comment out the init_db function call on line 90.

6. Run the following commands to create and migrate the database:

   $ python manage.py db init
   $ python manage.py db migrate
   $ python manage.py db upgrade
   

7. Uncomment out line 90 as you did in step 5.

Running the webserver

To run, use:

$ python manage.py runserver

The server is up at http://127.0.0.1:5000/.

Setting up a timetable

Here is what you should to do to set up a timetable.

• Sign in as the administrator.
• Ensure your study period is set correctly under the Admin tab.
• Create a new timetable under Manage > Timetable. This should represent a year and semester and version. E.g., a name such as 2018-S1-v1 would represent the first-round timetable for 2018 Semester 1. Subsequent drafts would be set as v2 and so on.
• Set the current timetable under the Admin tab to the one created above.
• Create timeslots under Manage > Timeslots, and whether or not they are preferred times
• Create rooms and indicate those which have projectors under Manage > Rooms.
• Map tutors and subjects and the total number of classes for each subject on the Run Timetabler tab.
• Select which subjects require projectors by clicking on a subject under Manage > Subjects, then indicate using the Needs Projector dropdown.

Troubleshooting

Generally there is only one reason that there would not be able to create a timetable, which is that there are not sufficient availabilities for a particular tutor for their allocated classes.

This can be troubleshooted from the Manage > Tutors tab.

Settings

Create a config.py under attendance like the following and update the settings as desired:

appcfg = {
    "upload" : '/path/to/upload/directory',
    "dbstring" : 'sqlite:////database.db',
    "secretkey" : 'insertsecretkeyhere',
    "adminpassword" : 'admin',
    "startyear" : '2018',
    "startstudyperiod" : "Semester 1",
    "rooms" : [
        ['GHB1', True],
        ['GHB2', True],
        ['GHB3', True],
        ['GHB4', False],
        ['GHB5', False],
        ['GHB6', False],
        ['GHB7', False],
        ['Peter Waylen', False],
        ['Ronald Cowan', True],
        ['Frank Larkins', False],
        ['Mavis Jackson', True],
        ['Library Project Room', False]
    ],
    "timeslots": [
        ['Monday 19:30', True],
        ['Monday 20:30', True],
        ['Monday 21:30', False],
        ['Tuesday 19:30', True],
        ['Tuesday 20:30', True],
        ['Tuesday 21:30', False],
        ['Wednesday 19:30', True],
        ['Wednesday 20:30',True],
        ['Wednesday 21:30', False]
    ]
}