Set Up An Academic Session

From UniTimeWiki

The data needed for a given academic session should be populated in about the order below. The "Where" part always indicates where to make these changes manually. Alternatives to manual data entry are mentioned below.

1. Academic Session
   • Create an academic session for a given semester and given campus
   • Where: Administration → Academic Sessions
   • Note: Make sure that whatever you do next, you do it in the new academic session (you can see the session that you are in in the Current User section of the screen under the menu)
2. Departments
   • Enter all departments for which you want to timetable classes (including departments for external managers)
   • Where: Administration → Academic Sessions → Departments
3. Subject Areas
   • Enter all subject areas for which you want to timetable classes and link them with departments
   • Where: Administration → Academic Sessions → Subject Areas (you will be able to link the subject area to a department in the Add Subject Area screen and change it later in the Edit Subject Area screen)
4. Solver Groups
   • Enter a group for each set of departments whose classes should be timetabled together (in most cases, there may be one solver group per department)
   • This can be done at a later time, even after departmental data entry, before course timetabling begins
   • Where: Administration → Solver → Solver Groups
5. Timetable Managers
   • Enter information about all users who should be able to edit input data and/or create timetables
   • Where: Administration → Academic Sessions → Managers
6. Date Patterns
   • Set up all necessary date patterns for a given session
   • Where: Administration → Academic Sessions → Date Patterns
7. Time Patterns
   • Set up all necessary time patterns for a given session
   • Where: Administration → Academic Sessions → Time Patterns
8. Buildings
   • Enter all buildings that contain rooms used for instruction
   • Where: Administration → Input Data → Buildings
   • Note: The departmental timetable managers may want to add offices or conference rooms as places where students should meet, so make sure all buildings are entered, not only buildings with classrooms that are allocated centrally
9. Rooms & Room Sharing
   • Make sure all rooms used for instruction are listed and associated with the correct departments
   • Follow these instructions regarding room sharing
   • Where: Course Timetabling → Input Data → Rooms (this gets you to the same screen as Input Data → Rooms)

Alternative approaches to populating the data:

• Rolling forward from a past session
  • Where: Administration → Academic Sessions → Roll Forward Session
  • Note: To roll data forward from a past session, you need to have the new session in the "Initial Data Load" status (you can change it in the Edit Academic Session screen for the new session)
• Loading XML files with data
  • Where: Administration → Academic Sessions → Data Exchange
  • The needed format is described at http://www.unitime.org/uct_interfaces.php, in the section "XML for data imports"

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