Introduction
Planning and organizing training can be a challenging and time-consuming task, especially when considering factors such as Instructor availability, time zones, planning many events, and adapting to unavoidable changes and demands. Enter, Administrate Scheduler, not only it provides a convenient and efficient way to plan your training, but also leverages Automatic-solving capabilities and decision support to help enhance your planning process. With the Scheduler, you can dynamically react to changes in availability and other factors, making it easier than ever to stay on track with the planning process.
Benefits
- Eliminate the need for multiple tools and spreadsheets when planning
- Forecasted to improve time and efficiency by 10x
- Faster creation of new schedules by using past schedules and events data
- Leverage the Scheduler's Automatic solver functionality to plan it for you.
- Sync your MS Teams Outlook Calendars to pull in instructors' availabilities in real-time (Coming soon during the open beta phase.)
Overview
Users can create schedules and benefit from the various options to facilitate and speed up the planning, such as bulk imports, using past schedules to plan the next, drag-and-drop and it will automatically display Instructor and Resource conflicts, bookings, and availability spots.
The Issue Navigator brings attention to the user with any issue present in their schedule and enables them to easily cycle through each.
Users who don't have very complex requirements or criteria can choose to utilize the Scheduler to automatically create and plan a schedule for them, usually within minutes. Users can still be able to adjust and change things after a schedule is proposed.
Pre-requisites
- The Location you identify when setting up a new Schedule requires a default time zone and tax rate.
- The Scheduler requires that you've already set up and generated your Course Templates Sessions. Sessions need to have a start and end time configured.
- If you use Resources and plan to schedule and book them, ensure that you've set up Resource requirements within the Course Templates
Getting Started
Locating the Scheduler in your Instance
From the Top navigation menu click on Events to find the Scheduler feature.
Scheduler Workspace
Schedules are plans for Events that you are considering creating with the required instructors and resources. The Scheduler screen will present you with a list view of all the schedules that you are currently working on or that you have already scheduled or archived. You can use the various field filters to quickly find what you're looking for or you can create a new schedule from this view.
As you continue to use the Scheduler, the list of schedules displayed is likely to grow. The filter will be handy to quickly find the Schedule you want.
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Creating a Schedule
The first step in creating schedules and planning is to define your schedule settings and boundaries.
Steps
This will create a Schedule canvas with the boundaries, constraints, and configs you've set it to. Fields
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Scheduler Canvas
This is where the planning takes place, allowing you to add events, Instructors, and resources within the boundaries you set when first creating your schedule.
A quick guide on the user interface
All Schedules back button |
Redirects you back to the Scheduler list view and search filters |
Create Events and Book button |
Click this button once you are happy with the plan and want the Scheduler to Create the Events for you. These Events will be under Draft status.
If this button is disabled, then your schedule either has issues that need to be resolved, or you have not started planning yet. |
Edit button within the toolbar that displays your Schedule name and information | Allows you to edit your Schedule Settings. |
Issues 0/2 <> |
The issue navigator displays the number of issues and unresolved issues. For this example, there are 2 unresolved issues.
You can click the navigation arrows <> to quickly cycle through them. This provides a brief description of the issue, as well as highlighting it in the user interface. |
Solve button |
Click this button to let the Scheduler automatically create a plan for you.
If this is disabled, it means you have not fulfilled the minimum requirement for added Events, Instructors, and/or Resources.
When using the Solve option, it resets any manual adjustments you've made. Proceed with caution whenever you plan to re-solve your schedule. |
Month <> within the toolbar |
Click on the navigation arrows to switch the view between months. These are locked to the start/end date boundaries you set when you created the Schedule. You can modify this setting anytime by clicking the Edit button in the toolbar. |
Month|Week|Year tabs |
Change the view of the planner canvas to month, week, and year. |
Inventory
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Displays a list of Events, Instructors, and Resources you've added or imported to your Schedule.
You can add Inventory by clicking on the Add button. |
View Legend |
Provides an explanation for the various types of indicators, images, and states within the scheduler. |
The planner or calendar view |
This is the grid allowing you to see your Events, Instructors, and Resources in given blocks of time. You are also able to interact with any allocated element within the grid to better plan your Training before creating events and booking. |
Planning Events
To start planning, we first need to let the Scheduler know how many Events we are planning to run, which Instructors we want to include, and any Resources that are required. The schedule supports both, Classroom and Blended type Events.
Adding Events
Options
Notes: For Blended Events.
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For this example, let's assume the user is planning to run two workshops: "BBQ Grill Do's and Don'ts" and "Flight Safety" and 5 Events for each workshop
Do the same for any other Courses you want to plan |
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You will find the Events that you just created listed under the Inventory, Course section.
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Next step, lets add Instructors and Resources |
Adding Instructors
The modal displays the list of all Instructors in your Instance and is not limited to those on the Course Templates you've added to your plan.
You can further filter the list by:
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Adding Resources
This step is optional if none of the courses you selected include the required resources (Rooms, Equipment, Instruments, etc.).
You can filter your Resources by name, type, and/or Location. |
Availability and Booking checking tooltips
Notice the Instructor's and resource availabilities and bookings are displayed in the canvas to assist you in planning.
Notice that instructor "Wohn Jick" is not available on Monday. |
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A blue arrow on the bottom right corner indicates a booking exists but is not necessarily conflicting. Hovering over it will show you more details. |
Now that we have Events, Instructors, and Resources set up, let's do a final check to make sure we have no issues with our scheduler.
In the Scheduler (beta), you can choose to continue working on your schedule, manage the sessions, import past Events, and adjust until it meets your desired state, or you can let the Scheduler solve it for you.
Continue with planning
Things you will need to do:
- Assign Instructors and Resources to your Sessions
- Re-arrange your Sessions and Events by either editing them or dragging and dropping them to optimize your plan
- Create and Book Your Events
Assign Instructors and Resources to your Sessions
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Re-arrange your Sessions and Events by either editing them or dragging and dropping them to optimize your plan
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Review Instructor & Resources utilization
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Have the Scheduler automatically propose a schedule
When using the Solve function, you'll be presented with two options:
- Use exact Session times (The solver will plan the sessions respecting the exact start and end time defined in the Course outline)
- Use durations of Sessions (The solver will plan the sessions respecting the duration of sessions, and plot them based on the provided earliest start and end times)
Let's use the Solve function and let the Scheduler automatically create a plan for us.
Note: You can close the browser, navigate somewhere else, and back. This won't pause or cancel any solution in progress. |
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The solver will look at the following constraints and conflict checking when attempting to find a solution for your schedule:
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Once done, the possible outputs might be:
You can tell it's successfully solved by checking on the top right navbar. |
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Once solved, you will see all your Events planned in the calendar. |
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Click on one of the Sessions to view its details or if you wish to adjust it.
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Editing a session allows you to change the start and end date, the Instructor, and or Resources.
Notes
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Besides clicking the Edit button to modify a session, you can simply drag and drop.
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Automatic-Solver Constraints & Requirements
The solver will take the following into consideration when attempting to automatically solve a schedule:
- The Schedule Settings
- Instructor & Resource Requirements
- Course Template Session Configuration
- Course Template allowed training days and duration
- Instructors and Resources Availability
- External Events. If you have the 2-way-calendar sync enabled (Coming soon during the open beta phase.)
- The solver will attempt to distribute the load to all instructors evenly
Planning Events - Based on Past Schedules
For this example, our June 2023 Event plan worked great and we want to run the same Events with the same Instructors and resources required for the upcoming month.
Create a schedule with the date bounds to July 2023 |
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Under the Inventory section, click on Add then Import |
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From the Import modal, filter the month you want to import the schedule from. In our example, it's June 2023, so select the start date to be the 1st of June 2023 and the End date to be the 30th of June 2023. Click Next Step |
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You'll be presented with a list of Courses, Instructors, and Resources that were used by the Events that happened in that selected Period. So reference to the image on the right. In June 2023, we've run 3 events of Flight Barrel Rolls, and 5 Events of Flight Safety Course. We had 3 Instructors who delivered those Events, and 3 Resources were used.
Notes:
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You can choose to run the exact same, and by that, you can just click on Import, or, you can choose to change things up and select or de-select some of the items there before you start the import. |
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Once imported. You'll see that all the Events, Instructors, and Resources are mapped out in the Scheduler Canvas, in an initialized state. This means you need to assign the Instructors and resources to the Sessions, plan them out in the Scheduler, or choose to have it solved automatically by hitting the Solve button. |
Conflict Checking
Throughout your planning, the Scheduler will display any issue you stumble upon or conflict you happen to create due to an Instructor swap or Session being moved manually to another date.
You can use the Issue Navigator to help locate the issues and learn more about how to resolve them.
Creating and Booking Events
Once you are happy with your plan, click on the Create and Book Events button to show a confirmation modal of what will be created.
Click once more on Create Events and Book to create your Events.
A Blended Event is created when:
You can now continue to manage your Events from the Event's screen as usual. |
Common warnings and how to resolve
Warning | Suggested Solution | Screenshot |
Cannot solve Schedule without Sessions for Course Template '<CourseName>' |
Go to the Course in question and ensure you've generated the Sessions for that Course. Click on the Course Title will take you to the Course Template, click on the Schedule tab, then click on Generate Sessions button. |
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Cannot solve Schedule without Session Start and End times for Course Template '<CourseName>'. |
Go to the Course in question and ensure you've set up start and end dates Sessions then hit Submit, then Generate Sessions. |
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Required Resources are missing |
You need to add the Required Resources to your Scheduler. |
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Course Template '<CourseName>' has changed its Resource Requirements, thus invalidating the current solution. |
This might occur if you change the Resource requirements of a Course Template after including it in your Schedule and planning the Events.
Make sure the Resources are included in the Sessions they are required in by either editing the Sessions and adding the Resource or utilizing the Automatic-Solve to automatically reschedule it for you. |
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Current Limitations
- Supports Classroom and Blended Based Courses and Events
- Supports only having a single Instructor on Events
- Supports scheduling for a Single Location at a time
Frequently Asked Questions
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Why is the Scheduler taking too long to solve even though I only have a few Courses Planned?
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The Scheduler is forced to spend at least 5 min to find an optimal solution, so while it may have found a solution in the first 10 seconds, it will continue to spend the rest of the time finding a better solution before it presents it back to the user. We know this may not be a desired state and we are internally working to improve this process.
- More complex schedules can take up to hours for the AI Solver to come up with a solution.
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What constitutes a “full day unavailability”?
- An Instructor is considered not available for a full day if their unavailability begins before the scheduled time and ends after
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How does the Scheduler determine which days of the week it should create schedules for?
- The non-working days that are displayed in the Courses row within the Scheduler canvas are determined based on the Course Template defined days.
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The non-working days that are displayed in the Instructor and Resources rows within the Scheduler canvas are determined based on the days specified within the Company settings.
- When using the automatic solver functionality, the solver considers the schedule outlined in the Course Template when creating the sessions.
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When dragging an Event/Session across multiple months, it eventually stops showing conflict highlights within the cells
- While dragging Events/Sessions, the Scheduler conflict highlighting will be displayed for a span of 2 months. This is a current limitation within the Scheduler Beta.
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Is the Scheduler free during the open beta period?
- Yes, the Scheduler will be completely free to use during the open beta access period, which will last for 6 months from release. We’re excited to offer this opportunity to our users as we gather valuable feedback and make improvements to ensure the best possible experience. After the open beta phase, you will have the opportunity to decide if you would like to continue using this feature. To re-activate it, kindly get in touch with our Support Team.
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