Hello. I am a rank CC newbie. Couldn't find this topic discussed in the archive.

My school is considering moving from a M-F (5 day) school week schedule to a A, B, C, D, E, F (6 day) schedule. The mapping fo A, B etc days to calendar dates will take place well before the start of the school year and will not change. Due to holidays etc, "A" days (etc) are not always 8 days apart. We are seeking a calendar solution that can handle the convenient creation of repeating events based on the 6-day week. For example, to reserve a room every "A" day at 10:30 (until a termination date). Or for faculty to manage their calendar by inputing their schedule via repeating events. is this kind of thing possible with CC? If so, I would appreaciate a brief description of how this works.

By the way... some of the school will remain on a traditional 5-day week, so we need the ability to work in both system simultaneously.

Thank you.

I'm not familiar with school weeks enough to know how an "A" day is different from "Monday". You can certainly use our repeating events engine to reserve a room every Monday at 10:30 until a termination date, or every other Monday, etc. but it sounds like your mapping of A, B days to weekdays is more complicated than that.

Perhaps you can let us know a bit more about how A, B days are mapped to weekdays and we can take it from there.

Best,

John

Thank you for the reply, John. Unfortunately, there is no direct mapping between "A days and "Mondays". I will try to explain. The first school day is "A" day. Let's assume that happens on Monday. That means the following mapping takes place:
A = Monday
B = Tuesday
C = Wednesday
D = Thursday
E = Friday
F = Monday
A = Tuesday
B = Wednesday
etc.

But if there is a holiday, we don't skip a day in our 6-day rotation. For example, if the 2nd Monday in the above example were a holiday, it would go as follows:
A = Monday
B = Tuesday
C = Wednesday
D = Thursday
E = Friday
Monday is a holiday
F = Tuesday
A = Wednesday
B = Thursday
etc.

So the challenge for traditional calendar systems is create a repeating event that occurs on every "A" (or "B" or "C" etc) day at a given time. In our school, we need to assign classes to rooms for example. Room 123 is assigned English class on every "D" day at 10:30 am - 10:50 am. Without the ability to create a repeating event that specifies it this way, we must create a different event for every "D" day. And this is done literally 100's of times, so is a big hassle. So I am looking for a solution to this problem.

In using your demo, if appears also that when you create repeating events, thos events are no longer connected. So if I move a repeating event from 10:30 to 11:00, for example, I'd be forced to edit every instance of the event. Is that true?

Thanks again for your reply.

-Tom

I'll have to think on this A-B thing, but when it comes to repetitions:

In using your demo, if appears also that when you create repeating events, thos events are no longer connected. So if I move a repeating event from 10:30 to 11:00, for example, I'd be forced to edit every instance of the event. Is that true?

They are separate appointments (so that they can have individual outcomes, etc.) but they are still connected. You can see that they're connected because if you click on any member of the repeating group, you'll be able to click "show repetitions" and see all the other members of the original group.

They don't edit as a group, however, so if you want to move all the repetitions of a given item from 10:30 to 11 you'd need to use FileMaker's Replace Field Contents command to apply the change to the found set of appointments. You could, of course, make some scripts to handle this for you.

So, what kind of repetitions do you need within this A-B structure? I can see single day repeats like every A day, or every A, B, and E day, etc. as well as every other day repeats like every other A day, or every other A, B, and E day. But do you need other things like "first A day of the month"?

They are separate appointments (so that they can have individual outcomes, etc.) but they are still connected.

Aha. using the Filemaker replace contents will be sufficient. I had a fundamental misunderstanding of the way CC works. Thank you

So, what kind of repetitions do you need within this A-B structure? I can see single day repeats like every A day, or every A, B, and E day, etc. as well as every other day repeats like every other A day, or every other A, B, and E day. But do you need other things like "first A day of the month"?

Frankly, I'd be able to do most everything I need to do with a repeat every "A" (or B, C, D, E, F) day for a certain number of repeats, or a termination date. If we could create a repeat like every A, B, E day, that would be a bonus, since I could do one repeating event for a multi-day class, rather than one for each day of the class. Same for the every other A, B, and E day thing. I can construct it with multiple repeating events if necessary. First A of the month is probably least useful to us.

I have not done an extensive search, but so far I am not aware of any calendar program that can do this sort of thing. So if it is possible with CC, and in a good UI package, it could have a useful application in schools. The N-day schedule appears to be growing in popularity, since it solves many of our problems. But computer-based calendars appear ill-equiped to serve in that environment.
-Tom[/quote]

OK Tom. I'll think about how best to do this, but in the mean time, can you let a layman know what kind of problems this N-day schedule solves for you? (Feel free to point me to an article or something else if it's too much to go into.)

Thanks.

OK Tom. I'll think about how best to do this, but in the mean time, can you let a layman know what kind of problems this N-day schedule solves for you?

Thank you for your interest, John. Kind of a long discussion, but I will describe a few features of a 6-day schedule that we find attractive.

For one, any class that takes place on Mondays gets hit hard with lost days to holidays. Same story for classes that meet on religeous and other holidays. Classes that take place at certain times of the day get hit hard with losses due to athletic events, field trips etc. If you cycle days A - F through all of the days that kids are actually at school, then you build in the predictability that you will actually have classes regularly, barring things like snow days etc. For example, art class usually takes place two periods per week. If one of your classes meets on a Monday, that class usually loses 5 or 6 sessions in the school year compared to a class that meets on other days of the week. That is a lot of time to a course that meets only 2 times per week.

Also, a school like ours is overly stuffed with academics, and it has led to an unhealthy pace for teachers and students, no time for extra-curriculars, clubs, band practice, special interest groups, teacher planning, etc. To try to make time for these things within a classic 5-day calendar is a very difficult thing to sell to faculty whose curriculum has evolved over many generations of students. Try to tell teachers that they have to give up one of their 4 or 5 periods per week of a given course, and you will hear lots of protests as to what courses are more/less expendable. So one approach is to put the same number of class meetings in a 6-day week. So everyone loses a small percentage equally, while building in predictability that will make teaching more effective. You can guarantee that you will get an "A" day once for every 6 consecutive school days. Thos 6 consecutive "A" days might occur over 8 calendar days (because we don't have school on weekends), or more (if holidays intervene).

In our plan (we haven't implemented it yet) going to a 6-day week also allows us to build in an "X" block at the end of every day. This time block is not used for any course. It is set aside for all those things that now are crammed in at recess, before school, after school, or just don't happen. Things like special projects, special assistance for those who need it, athletic events, advisory meetings, student council, flexible study period, etc etc.

There are more benefits, and certainly some problems it causes too (like problems for part-time teachers who would not be able to arrange to work the same days each week.) It is also more complicated to get your arms around... a bit of a mind bender for most of us. The 6-day cycle proposal is still being evaluated and debated. And our discussion here is part of my "due diligence" to see if there are software tools to help us manage. Thank you for your good thinking on the matter.

-Tom