6th Annual
Focus Users’ Conference
Master
Schedule Builder
Presented by:
Shannon Hutchinson
Master Schedule
Builder Agenda
Agenda:
• Periods, Marking Periods and Room
Sharing
• Building sections
• Teacher Availability and Replacement
• Course Defaults and Follow-ups
• Using the Section List
• Running the Builder
• Creating scenarios in the Builder
Choose the periods you want the builder to use
when creating sections
Periods
You can check all periods – or leave off some
periods like Homeroom or after school periods, if
you don’t want the builder to assign classes to
those periods.
Choose the terms you schedule into. Select full
year and semesters for a traditional master
schedule, or select semesters and quarters for a
block
Marking Periods
If any of the terms aren’t selectable, then you need
to check your marking period dates in School
Setup -> Marking Periods
Check any room that can have multiple
sections in the same period. Example:
Gym or Band room
Room Sharing
This screen tells you how many sections you
would need to get all requests scheduled. Don’t
change the “Est. Enroll.” It is telling you how
many students have requests entered so far.
Building Sections
“Click to copy new sections into scheduler work
area” to pull the prior year’s master schedule into
the builder. This saves time if most teachers will
be teaching the same courses they taught last
year.
Building Sections
Choose “Filter by Subject” to limit to a
department. This screen tells you how many
sections you would need to get all requests
scheduled. The “Max Size” is a default for how
many students can be filled into a section.
Building Sections
“Curr#” tells you how many sections you’ve
created so far. It is red if you haven’t created as
many as you will need for all students to be
scheduled and yellow if you have too many
sections.
Building Sections
Click the “Sel” radio button view the existing
sections or add a new one. To add a new section
start typing the teacher’s name. When you find
your teacher, click “Create.”
Building Sections
The Certified column indicates if the teacher is
certified to teach the course with a green ✔or red X.
The Room populates if it’s been assigned in the
teacher’s record.
Building Sections
The term will default to “Full Year” or “Any Sem”
Any Sem allows the builder to choose the best
semester. Use Lock Period if the section has to
be taught in a specific period.
Building Sections
Teacher Schedule displays the sections the
teacher is currently scheduled to teach to ensure
you’re not over scheduling a teacher. Use
Available Periods to indicate the individual
section cannot be taught in a specific period.
Building Sections
Use this screen to choose planning periods.
Uncheck periods teachers are unavailable. If you
leave all the periods checked, the builder will
choose the best planning period for each teacher.
Teacher Availability
Use this screen to easily transfer sections from
one teacher to another. If you know a teacher is
retiring at the end of the year, you can still
schedule them into classes, then use this screen
to quickly transfer the classes when a new teacher
is hired.
Replacement
Course Defaults &
Follow-up
If you have semester courses that you would like
to guarantee same period and/or same teacher,
use the Course Follow-up tab to link together the
First Semester & Second Semester courses.
Course Defaults are basic section settings,
attendance, grades, meeting days, etc.
•Review the sections you created here.
•Duplicate or delete sections with the + / •Change any data on this screen.
•Use the filters to find Fine Arts courses, and set
“Allow Combining” so they will be scheduled into
the same period.
Section List
Section List
•If your school uses rotation, you’ll see “Rotation
Days.” You can setup how many days on the
rotation or which days on the rotation the section
meets.
•If you have classes that meet multiple consecutive
periods, enter the number of periods the class will
span.
•Click the Funnel icon in the column headings to
filter on any field.
Running the Builder
•Click “Run the builder” This will move the
sections you created in the builder to the real
master schedule.
•After this is done, go back to the section list to
see scheduling issues. The section list will
show you the period it scheduled the section
into. And, if it couldn’t schedule the section,
the scheduling issue will tell you why.
Running the Builder
•After you run the builder, you can click “Run the
Loader” to schedule students into the sections
you just created. This will open the loader in a
pop-up window.
Creating scenarios in
the Builder
The Builder allows users to create multiple
scenarios of the master schedule and displays the
percent scheduled for each scenario.
Start by assigning a title to your first scenario on
the Run screen
Questions?
Shannon Hutchinson
Director of Postsecondary, Focus School Software
shannon@focusschoolsoftware.com
ph: (727) 388-6030 fax: (727) 213-6999
http://www.focusschoolsoftware.com
Thank You
Please be sure to complete the comment card for this session and
enjoy the rest of the Users’ Conference!