Auto-Batch Scheduling
(Using swaps)
You can't afford to miss out. 
It is time for change today!


 

A far more efficient approach. Parent schedules are scored and multi-level swaps are considered in order to progressively work towards the best solution.
 
An example of this type of approach is www.parenteve.com
(Why provide links to competitors? We know we are the best! Do your own research. We are also slightly more research focused than commercial)

Advantages
  • Fairer.
    • Doesn't discriminate on submission time OR surname ranking.
  • Acceptable efficiency.
    • More efficient schedules for both parents and teachers than manual or sequential scheduling methods.
Disadvantages
  • Less effective algorithms.
    • Algorithms used in swaps are less efficient and generally computationally poor than more efficient algorithms. With many billions of combinations, there is only so many depths that software can investigate, leading to the law of diminishing returns – and sometimes cases of a local optima that prevents further improvement that is easily possible via other means.
  • Long processing time.
    • Processing the schedule may take hours to achieve a good result, similar to some older student elective line generation software. While processing in hours is not a big issue, it discourages experimentation on varying event parameters to achieve better results – such as slightly moving the meal break or varying start and end times etc.
    • Dynamic variation on parameters can easily save over ten staff hours in a large event unless the parameters are already optimal. EdvalPTN provides much better solutions, in less than 5 seconds.