How many Batches should I use?

Suggestions on how to set-up your Activity Batches

      How many Batches should I create ? 
Up to 20 activity batches can be loaded into any given schedule.
But most people use only 6 to 9 Batches.  

It is not generally a good idea to use lots of small Batches.
The reason for this is that if you have a Batch of only a few lessons then you are not giving TimeTabler the opportunity to work on your data and suggest a good priority order to you; TimeTabler can only prioritise the activities in the Batch(es) that is/are currently loaded.

So, for example: most people will place all their Year 7 lessons in one Batch. (The only exception to this is any 'fixed points' in Year 7 ... and perhaps any 'special cases' that you know about your school - for eg: if you always have difficulty scheduling Technology across the school, then you may decide to set-up a 'Technology Batch' and get that scheduled first/early - but note that you could also do this using the 'Filter' in Scheduling, to filter to only show outstanding Technology lessons).

      What happens during Scheduling ?
During the scheduling stage, the usual and best practice is to load a Batch and completely assign all the lessons in it, ...before loading the next Batch and assigning all the lessons in that one, etc.

Most people have one 'Fixed Points' Batch, and then either one Batch or two Batches for each Year-group. For example, some schools go for:
-- one Batch for my Fixed Points.
-- one Batch for all of Year 11.
-- one Batch for all of Year 10.
-- two Batches for Year 9: one for the big blocks (which I know in advance that I want to assign first) and then the other Batch for the rest of Year 9, etc.
-- one Batch for all of Year 8.
-- one Batch for all of Year 7.
See also sections D2, D5 in the current Manual.

In this way, you can guide or steer TimeTabler by the sequence in which you load the Batches progressively into the schedule (as explained in Section F9 in the Manual).

Just occasionally, you may need to have Batches that cross Years.  For example if you teach in a school where the science accommodation is very tight, you may want to have a Batch of all the science lessons in upper school and then a separate Batch of all the non-science lessons in upper school.  In that way you can sequence the batches to give science the priority.

if in doubt, please ask us for guidance on the Support Centre.

      What ifs..?
Remember that another very useul aspect of Batches, is to perform "What ifs...?" to explore how you might schedule changes in your curriculum.   'What ifs..?' allow you to try-out all sorts of possible scenarios, and can be very powerful - for more details, see this article, see the Manual, and/or ask us on the Support Centre.

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Further reading:
- Click here for a discussion of the best Sequence to load your Batches.
- See also steps 20-22 in the QuickStart Guide in Section A of the Manual.