Tend-to-Maximum Cover Method

An explanation of the ‘Tend-to-Maximum’ cover method  (used mainly by schools in Malta):

This is a simpler method for deciding who should provide the cover, which downplays all the usual calculations & parameters, and instead chooses the teacher who is still furthest away from reaching his/her “max covers/wk” for this week (or cycle).   So each teacher is scored on:

[“max covers per week figure for this teacher” minus “cover done so far this week”]
… and the highest score is chosen to cover.

To switch this method on (or ‘off’ if you currently have it ‘on’), go to ‘Customize -> Cover Options” and click on the arrows next to the “Apply 'tend-to-maximum' method:” option.

Note: to work alongside this rule, you can now also set the “Max cover expected of any teacher today" value to some new values (3,4,5 or 6) – this works better than “No limit” if you want to avoid giving too much cover on one day to someone with a high weekly limit.

Example in a School:

Question:
I want the teacher with the fewest lessons in the week, to be chosen for cover first.  Can I do this using the "Tend-to-Maximum" method ?

Answer:
Yes.  The "Tend to maximum" method scores a teacher (highest score is chosen to cover) on this formula:
[“max covers per week figure for this teacher” minus “cover done so far this week”]

... so to get what you want, you will need to set “max covers per week figure for this teacher” differently for each teacher ... so a teacher with no lessons in the week has this figure set higher than other teachers.

To help you, there is a quick way to do this - follow these steps:
- go to "Customize Overview" (on left-hand menu of opening screen) then choose "Cover Limits"
- click on "Assign Weekly Limits", enter a figure in the "Take a figure of" box to be the number of periods in your week/cycle
- then choose "the figure above MINUS the number of periods this teacher is busy/teaching" in the drop-down list below
- then click "Assign".