Examination Solver

Screen Description

The Examination Solver screen provides interface for running the solver to schedule midterm or final examinations.

Examination Solver

Note: There can only be at most one examination solver running at any time in the application. That is different from the course timetabling solver where several users can have their solvers running at the same time.

Solver Not Started

Solver

Operations

Loading Input Data

During the loading phase, input data and student information is loaded and the examinations which have only one required room and one required time period will get them assigned.

Solver

For the rest, see above

Current Timetable

An initial timetable is created as soon as you start loading data. Only examinations with one required time period and one required room get there assignments at this point.

Operations

Awaiting commands

Operations

Solving problem

Solver

See above

Operations

Solver stopped

Best Timetable Found So Far

During the automated timetabling (when the solver is running), the best timetable found so far is saved here. It is the timetable that is presented to the user when he/she stops the solver or when the time-out is reached.

When the user interacts and makes changes, he/she can save intermediate results as “Best Timetable Found So Far” and later come back to this timetable if the current one is not good.

Current Timetable

When solver is stopped, the Best Timetable Found So Far is the same as the Current Timetable. From that moment, any manual changes made by the user are applied to the Current Timetable.

Operations

Problems

The list of warnings appears if any problem occurred during the data load. If there is a problem during solving, there will be an error message (such as Error: FATAL).

Operations