Soft and hard constraints are fundamental elements behind not only creating a great timetable, but also a working one. The make up of a timetable (any timetable) consists of a variety of constraints that are either hard or a soft, but what are they? and what is the difference?
Let starts with hard constraints, these are the fundamental elements of a timetable that you and the software use to create the timetable and must be abided by. For example, the number of hours in the teaching day is likely to be a hard constraint. If you teach Monday – Friday 09-17:00, then the timetable must ensure that all timetable activities are placed within this time frame. A timetable booking placed on a Thursday at 18:00 or a Saturday at 12:00 will not be of any use, therefore the software and those who use it must abide by this constraint in order to create a working timetable i.e. a hard constraint.
Each hard constraint, is an element of the timetable that is equally weighted a [Read more…]