1. Timetabling Operations Group 20 th July 2015 – H.R.B. Lecture Theatre, Robson Building

2. Agenda 1. Action Points from previous meeting 2. Location Allocation update 3. Student Allocation update 4. 1516 reports 5. Start of semester system support 6. Centralisation of Services update 7. Website update, new look and feel 8. A.O.B.

3. Action Points from previous meeting ACTION POINT NUMBER ACTION POINT DETAILSTATUS AP1Publish list of schools who use student allocationIn progress AP2 Meet with Economics and LLC to go over solution to Semester 1 / Semester 2 splits (benefits for student allocation) Done AP3Publish online times of data feedsIn progress AP4 Circulate list of 90+ locally allocated general teaching rooms that TTU will allocate into as part of MAP Done AP5Circulate WIKI link Prior to start of term – when exception reports are generated AP6Report performance issues to Scientia Upgrade to 3.12 Oct 15 AP7 Feed back performance issues to IS Apps to test performance in different locations Upgrade to 3.12 Oct 15 AP8TTU to continue to investigate how to introduce travel constraint functionality Offline testing in progress

4. Location Allocation Update Dates Planned and actual Process Data Review and allocation period Challenges Reduced space, more activities than ever before Tough decisions Holyrood will be more heavily used Statistics Headline numbers and advice

5. Location Allocation - Dates Planned and actual STAGEPLANNED DATESTATUS Official Timetabling Process Launch 4 th February 2015As planned Deadline for School submission of core teaching activities 29 th May 2015As planned Data Review and allocation period 1 st June 2015 – 5 th July 2015Period extended to 20 th July 2015 Confirmation of initial allocations to Schools by Timetabling Unit 6 th July 2015Delayed until w/c 20 th July 2015 On-going allocations and whittling of outstanding teaching allocations 6 th July onwards, building up to start of Semesters 1 and 2 w/c 20 th July onwards, building up to start of Semesters 1 and 2 Web Room Booking allocations Summer/Autumn 2015Being done as and when possible re. core teaching allocations

6. Location Allocation - Process Data Review and allocation period Following the 29 th May deadline for School submissions, the TTU has been conducting the following work in advance of this week’s announcement email: Checked and tagged all core teaching activities requiring centrally-allocated locations This year - almost 8000 activities were worked with by declaration day Last year - A little over 6500 were worked with by D-Day Tagged and batched-up activities into relevant scheduling groups This year 43 different scheduling groups have been used Last year - 31 were used Ran multiple offline scheduling exercises for Central Area, King’s Buildings and Holyrood Campuses This year up to 10 full-run offline exercises have been conducted to inform the live exercise Last year - Fewer than 5 offline exercises were required Some of this year’s offline modelling exercises have tested the flexibility of allocations for each campus

7. Location Allocation - Challenges Reduced space Location Closures Central Area Campus David Hume Tower (Ground Floor and up) = 22 locations Old College (Phase 1) = 14 locations Appleton Tower (Level 2 and up) = 7 locations King’s Buildings Campus Additional general teaching locations closed around campus due to university directives = 5 locations Holyrood Campus Charteris Land (all General Teaching spaces) = 13 locations Thomson’s Land (G9 and G10) = 2 locations

8. Location Allocation - Challenges More activities than ever before, Holyrood to the rescue More activities General growth in the quantity of activities created by Timetablers Some Schools’ activities have also increased as a result of splitting-up semesters – actually offers a better chance of finding space Holyrood Campus Holyrood Campus will be more heavily used than ever before, coping with a greater number of Central Area activities Allocations going to Holyrood have been carefully selected in the first instance to focus on 2+hour activities, thus limiting travel constraint problems

9. Location Allocation - Statistics Declaration Day headline numbers ACADEMIC YEAR TOTAL ACTIVITIES (declaration day) Allocated Activities Unallocated Activities Allocated to 1 st Preference % **1516 7417 6393 (86.19%) 1024 (13.81%) 79.75% 1415 6686 6190 (92.58%) 496 (7.42%) 86.46% 1314 6005 5693 (94.88%) 312 (5.12%) 87.32% ** 1516 numbers are rough, will change a little for declaration day but still give an indication of the shifts for this year

10. Location Allocation - Statistics Frequency of use by teaching slot

12. Student Allocation Update Bulk, “whole-class” allocations commenced 16/07/15 8,500 Students with timetables so far Student course enrolments updated daily “whole class” allocations updated daily Student timetables (via MyEd) updated instantly

14. Sub-Group Allocation by School SchoolLevel of allocation Biological ScienceFull Biomedical ScienceFull Business SchoolPGT DivinityFull ECAPartial EconomicsUG EducationPartial LLCPartial

15. Sub-Group Allocation by School Training workshops delivered as required Carole-Anne Marshall/Marianne Brown lead TTU support Schools determine timing of sub-group allocations

16. Student Allocation – Project Update Project proposal to deliver: – Student self-sign-up system – Office 365 calendar feed of timetable information – 2015 -2018 implementation timeline Did NOT receive approval for sponsor funding Proposal will be re-submitted in 2016

17. 1516 Reports

18. 1.BI Suite Report – Class List https://www-test.bobi.is.ed.ac.uk/BOE/BI 2. SSRS Student Sets Double Booked with 2 nd Activity https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/TIM/Timetabling+Unit+Reports 3. SSRS Module Size Exceeds Room Capacity Whole Class Sessions https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/TIM/Timetabling+Unit+Reports

19. 1516 Reports 4. SSRS Student Sets Double Allocated

20. Start of semester system support Lessons learned from 14/15: – Rebuild database during w/c 17 th August to minimise risk of data corruption – Quick switch to manual data updates in event of data interface failure – Keep large write-backs and refreshes outside business hours Coming soon (Oct 15): – Enterprise v3.12 – Introduces the “forced refresh”

22. Centralisation of Services update

24. CollegeTimetabling Centralisation CSE Not interested in additional “timetabling” support at this stage Agreed to recommend pilot with one School to determine possible long-term position Has agreed to resource transfer to cover “rooming” element of proposal May consider additional funding to secure modelling support as part of KB Masterplan HSS Provisionally in favour of full support service proposal Business case to be considered at Oct 15 PRG Would prefer consistent support model across colleges MVM Interested in full support service – pending further gap analysis and pilot scheme work

25. Centralisation of Services update Timescale for change:

26. Timetabling Unit Website Update New look and feel

27. Any other business?