Managing Data Analysis Alerts

Real-time data analysis allows you to detect problems in the base scheduling data, so you can anticipate and resolve them before generating the schedule.

Index

• Critical Errors
• Problems
• Remarks
• Temporarily Disable Data Analysis

Real-time data analysis is a tool that automatically detects potential issues in scheduling data before generation.

Any changes made to the scheduling data will always be checked by the program to ensure everything is correct.

To access the alerts panel, go to Schedule Data > Data Analysis.

On the scheduling data analysis screen, you will see different types of alerts:

• Critical Errors: Alerts that prevent schedule generation if not resolved, usually due to inconsistencies or impossible preference combinations.
• Problems: Alerts that allow schedule generation but should be addressed to ensure an optimal schedule, often related to teacher or group overloads, small configuration errors, or excessive time constraints.
• Remarks: Alerts that should be reviewed but often have little impact on the final schedule, typically small configuration details and informational notices.

In the following sections, we’ll review the most common alerts and how to resolve them correctly.

Critical Errors

These alerts are usually caused by configuration inconsistencies that make schedule generation impossible.

The most common critical errors are:

Restrictions on Courses, Lessons, and Teachers That Cannot Be Met

When a course, lesson, or teacher has a set of restrictions that cannot be fulfilled, a critical error will occur.

For example, if we configure a course to only take place on Fridays from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. by adding this limitation in Permitted Days and Time Frame.

A and this course is taught by Professor Laura Bennett, who is only available on Fridays from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. as per his time frame.

It will be impossible for this course to take place. This will generate a critical error, which we must review. The error will appear like this:

By expanding the alert, the program will indicate the details of the error, helping us understand and solve it. In this case, by hovering over the course, we’ll see the available times in white and unavailable times in red. By hovering over the teacher, we’ll see the same for him. This will help us understand that the times don’t match, making it impossible to schedule this lesson.

There are various ways to solve the problem, but typically, we need to remove the restriction from one of the conflicting elements. In this case, either remove the restriction from the course or from the teacher.

Once the restriction is removed and the issue is resolved, the alert will disappear. 

Problems in Schedule Structure and Lesson Duration

Another issue that can cause a critical error is the relationship between the schedule structure and lesson duration. This error occurs when the duration of a lesson doesn’t fit within the structure of one or more group schedules, configured through time blocks.

For example, if we configure time blocks where all sessions for a group are 60 or 30 minutes long, and then configure a course with 45-minute lessons, it will be impossible to fit these lessons into the 60- or 30-minute blocks.

This error can be resolved by modifying the block structure (to allow for lesson durations that match what is entered in Scheduling Data) or by adjusting the lesson duration to fit the block schedule.

Problems

Problems are alerts that help us anticipate potential issues that may arise when generating the schedule. They are often related to:

Overload of a Group or Teacher

When a group or teacher has more lessons than they can handle, this error often occurs.

For example, imagine a group of students that has 20 hours of class available per week, according to their schedule defined in the blocks (e.g., each day from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.), but in the Scheduling Data, we’ve entered 30 hours of weekly courses (the total of all lessons scheduled for this group).

The problem is clear: this group will not be able to complete 30 hours of classes in just 20 hours.

If we expand the alert, the program will help us understand where the overload occurs and will show the collision probability as a percentage.

Sometimes, the overload may occur in just a few time slots, and this is what this alert helps us understand.

For example, if during the whole week there are only five 30-minute slots available, but we’ve configured six 30-minute sessions, the alert will show a percentage higher than 100% only for the 30-minute slots, indicating that the error will occur during these specific time slots or lessons.

A very common example would be teacher overload. This happens when a teacher has more lessons than they can teach due to their time constraints. For example, if a teacher is available for 10 hours but has to teach 15 hours, they are overloaded.

The alert would be similar to the one described above for the group, but at the teacher level.

To resolve this, we need to either reduce the teacher’s lessons or extend their teaching hours.

Planned Duration and Lessons

Another common alert is related to planned duration. This problem arises when the fields Planned Duration and Lessons do not match.

For example, if in the Planned Duration field we indicate that we want 130 minutes per week for a course, but the course has two 60-minute lessons (120 minutes per week), the program will notify us that the planned duration cannot be met.

To fix this, either we modify the lesson duration or adjust the value in Planned Duration to match the lessons.

Remarks

These types of alerts refer to small configurations that should be reviewed, although they are usually not critical for successfully generating the schedule.

Some examples include:

Configuration of periods or holidays outside the schedule

If we configure a period or holiday outside the schedule’s date range, the program will alert us.

We simply need to adjust the dates to resolve the alert.

Courses without lessons, teacher, group, or room

If we create a course in Scheduling Data without any lessons, we will receive an alert indicating that there is a course with no lessons.

We can ignore the alert, understanding that this course will not be included in the schedule if it is generated.

If the course is also missing an assigned teacher, group, or room, the program will notify us. To fix the alert, we must link one of these elements to the course.

Temporarily Disable Data Analysis

Data analysis consumes web browser resources, and in some cases, when the schedule contains a lot of data, it may slow down performance.

One recommended option to speed things up while still editing and making changes to Scheduling Data is to turn off data analysis.

This can be done by going to Profile > Manage Your Account, and disabling the Background Data Analysis option.

Once disabled, this icon will appear in Scheduling Data.

To reactivate it, simply repeat the process but enable the option again.