Student Scheduler FAQ

Frequently asked questions about the Student Scheduler tool: Next Year Scheduling > Mass Schedule > Student Scheduler

Q: The scheduler was run with the "Force Gender Balancing" option, but why are some of my sections not being gender balanced? 

A:  The Force Gender Balancing option works by alternating genders when it attempts to schedule students. In other words, when looking for the next student to determine the best possible schedule for, it alternates by male, female, male, female, etc. The gender balancing option does NOT look at the actual gender totals per class after it has placed the students in sections. To see a list of gender totals per section after running the Student Scheduler, click the PDF icon to the left of the scheduler run. Then, select select "Master (working) Class List" and click "Run Report". 

Q: How do I run the scheduler while saving the schedules of students who were already placed into class-sections for next year?

A:  When running the student scheduler, use the option Use Scheduled Courses as Requests to have the system 'force' the students' existing next year schedule into their schedule for next year. This will allow the scheduler to take any remaining course requests for the student (not already scheduled), and 'schedule around' those existing classes. When the scheduler run is 'locked', the students will receive the same courses they were pre-scheduled into, but with the additional courses that were also scheduled.

Q: Why does it seem like all sections are being scheduled, except for certain periods of the day?

A:  Take note of the period you are having trouble scheduling. Look up all sections that take place during this period under Next Year Scheduling > Sections. If you have many 'singletons' (courses that only have 1 section built) and 'doubleton' courses that also take place during that period, this could impact the scheduler's ability to place students in other courses. This is because singletons and doubletons always take priority over other courses, when the scheduler attempts to schedule students. 

Q: Why are some courses highlighted in Orange when clicking on the Scheduler run’s code?

After clicking on the 'run code' of the Scheduler run, courses will be highlighted in Orange if the total under "Requests" is higher than the total "Seats" for the course. The request total must be at least 2x higher than the seat total (total seats from all sections) in order to show this warning. The warning is used to identify where you can possibly free-up your resources, for example rooms and teachers so they can be used to schedule other courses. 

Q: What percentages should I be expecting to see? At what percentage should we 'lock in' our schedules?

A: If there are any remaining 'Partial' schedules (not all of the student's requests have been scheduled), these students will need to be hand-scheduled into their remaining courses that weren't assigned. The percentage you should aim for depends on how many students you feel comfortable having to schedule manually. For example, the scheduler says that 75% of your students have been fully scheduled, and you have locked-in your scheduler run. If your school has 1,000 students, then you will still have to clean up schedules for 250 students. Based on our experience working with other High Schools, they will typically wait until they reach 85% to lock-in their schedules. This is when looking at the "Full" schedule totals of a scheduler run, under the "Scheduled" column.