1.5.3 Viosystem Scheduling Tool

 

The Viosystem is a scheduling tool that creates an entire school timetable for any school, college, or university.  This scheduling tool works in a very peculiar fashion however.  Users will download a file which is similar to an Excel worksheet and fill out all the necessary information that is needed to create a working schedule.  Information like name of courses, classrooms, names of teachers, teacher’s preferences, and teacher’s preferred hours will need to be inputted into this file.  After all the specifications are inputted, the user will send the Excel like file back to Viosystem where they will generate a working timetable for the institution.  Viosystem will perform all of the algorithms and checks needed to make a working schedule.  One of Viosystem best features is the classrooms double booking check, which eliminates the possibility of having a class scheduled in the same room at the same time.  This tool allows user to enter many constraints and implements algorithms that will compact a teachers work schedule as much as possible.  This is great because teachers will have less time in between classes where they have to wait around on campus for their next class. 

 

The Viosystem scheduling tool is good.  If used in combination with another tool, that is able to solely collect data like all of the teacher’s preferences, classroom information, course information, and write it to an Excel like file in the same format that Viosystem uses, the Viosystem will be even better.

 

 Pros/Unique Features:

• Able to use Excel worksheet like format for data input
• Very cheap.  Prices starts from:
  • Create schedules of 30-40 classes for about $100
  • Create schedules of 40-50 classes for about $150
• Easy to use, user will only need to know how to perform basic data entry to get a working schedule

 

Cons/ Missing Features:

• Every change or revision of a working schedule will cost money
• Although it is cheap, the user is paying for a service not software so over time it could add up.  This is especially true if new staff or classes are added and a new schedule needs to be generated
• Data entry into the Excel like worksheet will be needed.  There is not an automated way for teachers or administrators to update new info and quickly generate a working schedule
• No graphical interface
• No multiple schedules
• No Student Interaction
• No Schedule Strength
• No fairness considerations

 

 

Overall, this is a good tool to use for schools and universities if they don’t mind doing some data collection or using another program for data collection.  The bottom line is this tool will eliminate a lot of headaches as well as all of the messy work for the scheduler of the institution.  For the price that this tool is offered at, it is a good deal.

 

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