UniTime Changelog

What's new in UniTime 4.0 Build 17

May 19, 2015

BUG FIXES:
Data Exchange: Session Restore
Avoid conversion of a binary object to utf-8 and back.
Student Scheduling Assistant: Authentication
When authentication is required but the user login dialog is not allowed: fixed the case when the Login page was not loaded at times.
Course Timetabling: Ignore Room Check
Improved handing of locations that have the ignore room check toggle set:
No overlaps are checked in such locations during commit.
No committed placements (of other problems) nor other approved events are loaded as unavailabilities for such locations (ignore room check location is always available).
UniTime Registration
Main page: fixed the ability to register the UniTime instance.

New in UniTime 4.0 Build 12 (Apr 20, 2015)

BUG FIXES:
Online Student Scheduling Server
Get course by name or by name and title: fix the case when there is a dash in the subject area abbreviation or a course number.
Improved handling of the case when a student is enrolled into the same offering multiple times, under different course names.
Course Timetabling: Database Load
Ensure that an instructor distribution preference is loaded in only once when the following two conditions are met:
a) inherited instructor preferences is enabled on an external department,
b) both the external department and the instructor's department are being loaded in.
Data Exchange: Session Restore
Fixed ability to import a new instructional type (id was not set).
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS:
Online Student Scheduling: Eligibility Check
When there is no student record matching with the external id of the authenticated user:
"You are not registered as a student in {0}." message changed to "You are not eligible to register in {0}.".
Do not display the message when in the assistant mode (enrollment is not enabled).
Solution Reports: Violated Distribution Preferences
Added a column counting the number of violations (violated pairs).
Include flexible group constraints in the list.
Suggestions: Flexible Constraints
Include flexible group constraints in the Distribution Preferences counters.
Include flexible group constraints on the Violated Constraints list.
Batch Student Sectioning: Database Loader
Minimal Perturbation Problem: Add current class assignments as selected choices.
This helps keeping students close to their original enrolment when the original enrolment is not in the domain.
Added ability to load student groups as request groups.
Request groups are loaded in only when the solver paramter Load.RequestGroups is set to true, default is false.
Solver parameter StudentWeights.SameGroup (defaults to 0.1) can be used to change the impact of the same group criterion.
Request Groups solver report has been also added.
Localization
Added ability to let users to choose the locale by defining the unitime.locale manager settings.
HQL Reports: Reference Tables
Added ability to include any reference table (room type, distribution type, etc.) as query parameter.
Scripts: Import / Export XML
Added ability to export a script in XML format.
Added ability to import XML with one ore more scripts.
Events: Standard Notes
Added Select button when selecting a standard note (both Standard Notes dialog and Approval dialog).
This fixes the issue of not being able to select a standard note on a mobile device (due to the inability to double click).
CAS Authentication
Added ability to always translate the returned external user id by setting unitime.authentication.cas.id-translate to true (defaults to false).
Added ability to lookup multiple attributes in the CAS ticket (the unitime.authentication.cas.id-translate can contain a comma separated list of attributes).
Each attribute may or may not be translated (the unitime.authentication.cas.id-translate can contain a comma separated list of true and false values, one for each attribute).
External User Id Translation
Added ability to translate user names (as returned by the authentication) to the external user ids that are used by UniTime.
Configuration (default SQLs are using the users table):
# Enable custom SQL user id translation
tmtbl.externalUid.translation=org.unitime.timetable.spring.security.CustomSQLExternalUidTran slation
# SQL query converting user name to external user id
unitime.custom.sql.uid2ext=select external_uid from %SCHEMA%.users where username = ?
# SQL query converting external user id to user name
unitime.custom.sql.ext2uid=select username from %SCHEMA%.users where external_uid = ?
Events: Course Title
Time Grid: Added ability to display course title in the header of an event in the time grid.
This only happens when the application property unitime.events.grid_display_title is set to true (defaults to false, current behaviour).
Only applies to class events (course related events and examination events can relate to multiple courses and can have multiple titles with ambiguous choice which one to display).
When multiple course title exists, only the first one is displayed (e.g., in the case of a cross-list, it should be the title of the controlling course).
Format: course title (instruction section)
Example: Fundamentals of Biology II (Laboratory 12038-042)
Events: ICS Export
When the grid display title is enabled (see above), course title is used as event name (summary field).
Added ability to include instructor names in the description of an event.
Tis only happens when the application property unitime.events.ics_instructors_in_description is set to true (defaults to false, current behaviour). CPSolver updated to version 1.3.52 (was 1.3.47)
Student Sectioning: Minimal Perturbation Problem
Priority and equal weighting: added ability to minimise perturbations.
Difference of an enrollment (from the initial one) is computed as a number between 0 (completely different) and 1 (the initial enrollment).
It is computed as average using the following schema (over all sections of the enrollment):
An initial section counts as 1,
same choice section counts as 0.9 (parameter StudentWeights.SameChoice),
same time section counts as 0.7 (parameter StudentWeights.SameTime),
and different time section counts as 0.
Non-initial enrollment weight is penalized with weight StudentWeights.Perturbation (defaults to 0.100) using the following formula
weights *= (1
difference * StudentWeights.Perturbation)
When MPP is enabled, solution info contains the following three new properties:
Perturbations: same section assigned (% of initial section assigned over all course requests with initial enrollment)
Perturbations: same choice assigned (% of same choice section assigned over all course requests with initial enrollment)
Perturbations: same time assigned (% of same time section assigned over all course requests with initial enrollment)
Note: same choice means same time and instructor.
Student Sectioning: Reservations
If reservations are allowed to assign students over the limit during the batch student sectioning, do not count the enrollments with such reservations towards course, configuration, and section limits.
This is to avoid issues with the order in which enrollemnts were made.
Student Sectioning: Parallel Solver
Course, Config, Section, and Reservation contexts now implement the CanInheritContext interface.
This speeds up the creation of an inherited context.
Batch Student Sectioning: Request Groups
Added ability to keep students of the same group together.
Measured as an average probability of two students (of a group) that are requesting the same course being given the same section (of the same subpart).
There is a new weight (named StudentWeights.SameGroup, defaults to 0.1) expressing how much this criterion affects the student weight (in both priority and equal weighting).
This means that if a student is being enrolled into a completely different section, weight of such an enrollment is decreased by 10%.
(the metric reflects how much are the students spread between the sections of the course)
Course Timetabling: Added MaxDays Flexible Constraint
The MaxDays constraint limits the number of days of week during which the given set of classes are taught.
It has one parameters: a maximal number of week days during which the given set of classes can be placed.
For instance, reference _MaxDays:2_ translates to a maximum number of 2 days a week.

New in UniTime 4.0 Build 2 (Mar 26, 2015)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 210 (Mar 3, 2015)

Bug Fixes:
Session Roll Forward:
Distribution Preferences:
fixed rolling forward of distribution preferences when an academic session is rolled forward multiple times.
There can be multiple distribution preferences with the same value of the uniqueIdRolledForwardFrom attribute, one for each target academic session.
Examination Timetabling:
Load Availabilities:
ignore class event meetings that are cancelled.
Event Management:
Course Related Events: class selection corrected when trying to select a class that has a parent class.
Only top level classes showed up in the Class Number drop down.
iCalendar Export: fixed SEQUENCE and DTSTAMP attributes in the iCalendar feed.
This change fixes the issue of DTSTAMP being blank in certain cases (and violating the RFC 5545).
Online Student Scheduling:
Online Scheduling Reports: fixed null exception thrown when there is a student with free time request.
Course Timetabling:
Database Save: Fixed SuspectedException thrown during save of the conflict statistics under certain condition.
If run in a cluster, the remembered address of the web-server gets invalid when the web-server is restarted.
Group Constraint: Fixed an exception that can be thrown during the purge invalid placement phase because of a hard back-to-back constraint.
Rooms:
Edit Room Groups / Features (accessible from the Room Detail page): fixed the problem of removing the last departmental room feature or group.
It was not possible to remove the last departmental room feature or room group using this page because the relation between the feature / group and the location was not updated on both sides in this particular case.
The other page (Edit Room Feature / Group) did not have the problem.
Other Improvements:
Suggestions:
When a placement that conflicts with itself is selected, display the selected assignments and the conflict table, but no Assign button.
This is to give the user more information on why the selected assignment cannot be used.
CAS Authentication:
Added ability to provide user external id and full name from the CAS response attributes.
Event Management
Email Confirmation: Added ability to CC event managers in the confirmation email.
This is only enabled when the unitime.email.event.managers application property is set to true (default is false).
If set to true, all timetable managers that are associated with the event department of a room in the event and which have an event management role (that is a role with Event Lookup Contact permission) with the receive emails toggle checked are carbon copied on the event confirmation email.
Data Entry:
Classes, Instructional Offerings: Added ability to highlight preferences that are set directly on classes.
Preferences that are set directly on classes have light yellow background.
This is only enabled when the unitime.preferences.highlightClassPrefs property is set to true (default is false).
Preference owner (class, scheduling subpart, instructor, etc.) is also mentioned in the preference tooltip (this feature is always on).
Multiple Class Setup: Added ability to edit class sufixes (labeled as External Ids in the user interface).
This is only enabled when the tmtbl.class_setup.edit_external_ids property is set to true (default is false).
Examination Timetabling
PDF Reports: Added compact mode for the period chart.
No section information is printed, but the page fits up to 6 columns instead of just 4.

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 196 (Jan 26, 2015)

BUG FIXES:
SESSION ROLL FORWARD:
Distribution Preferences: fixed rolling forward of distribution preferences when an academic session is rolled forward multiple times.
There can be multiple distribution preferences with the same value of the uniqueIdRolledForwardFrom attribute, one for each target academic session.
EXAMINATION TIMETABLING:
Load Availabilities: ignore class event meetings that are cancelled.
EVENT MANAGEMENT:
Course Related Events: class selection corrected when trying to select a class that has a parent class.
Only top level classes showed up in the Class Number drop down.
iCalendar Export: fixed SEQUENCE and DTSTAMP attributes in the iCalendar feed.
This change fixes the issue of DTSTAMP being blank in certain cases (and violating the RFC 5545).
ONLINE STUDENT SCHEDULING:
Online Scheduling Reports: fixed null exception thrown when there is a student with free time request. Other Improvements
SUGGESTIONS:
When a placement that conflicts with itself is selected, display the selected assignments and the conflict table, but no Assign button.
This is to give the user more information on why the selected assignment cannot be used.
CAS AUTHENTICATION:
Added ability to provide user external id and full name from the CAS response attributes.
EVENT MANAGEMENT:
Email Confirmation: Added ability to CC event managers in the confirmation email.
This is only enabled when the unitime.email.event.managers application property is set to true (default is false).
If set to true, all timetable managers that are associated with the event department of a room in the event and which have an event management role (that is a role with Event Lookup Contact permission) with the receive emails toggle checked are carbon copied on the event confirmation email.
DATA ENTRY:
Classes, Instructional Offerings: Added ability to highlight preferences that are set directly on classes.
Preferences that are set directly on classes have light yellow background.
This is only enabled when the unitime.preferences.highlightClassPrefs property is set to true (default is false).
Preference owner (class, scheduling subpart, instructor, etc.) is also mentioned in the preference tooltip (this feature is always on).

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 187 (Dec 29, 2014)

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE:
CLUSTERING:
Improved ability for UniTime to run in a cluster.
Remote solver servers connect to each other and the web server(s) using JGroups.
Hibernate L2 cache is now replicated across the cluster.
However, L2 cache is disabled when Hibernate is used outside of Tomcat (e.g., on a remote solver server).
Clustering can be disabled by setting application properties unitime.hibernate.cluster (Hibernate L2 cache) and unitime.solver.cluster (remove solver servers) to false.
Online student scheduling server can now run on multiple machines at once, with the data asynchronously replicated (using infinispan) and one machine being the master (responsible for all the updates).
To enable replication, set unitime.enrollment.server.replicated to true.
CONSTRAINT SOLVER:
Using the latest version of CPSolver 1.3
This update contains a new assignment model and multi-core capabilities.
Mobile
A few initial steps have been made towards a frendlier version of UniTime pages on mobile (tables or phone) devices.
Mobile page layout is using less tables, and there is a new menu. Student Scheduling
OVER-EXPECTED CRITERION:
Added ability to provide a custom criterion that decides whether a class is over-expected or not.
Default implementation now falls back to section balancing when there are no expectations.
I.e., students can be only allowed into sections that are (or will become) dis-balanced by more than 10% if there are no other sections meeting their schedule.
STUDENT SCHEDULING REPORTS:
Added an interface that is implemented by all the reports.
Added time / availability conflicts report: unlike the existing course conflict report, conflicts are counted between individual classes.
Distance conflict report: changed to compute conflicts between individual classes.
Unbalanced sections report: list sections that are dis-balanced by more than 10%.
Time-overlaps report: list time conflicts between classes (that do allow for time overlaps).
Added a page through which various student sectioning solver reports can be displayed:
Works for both batch (page Student Sectioning Solver Reports, menu Students > Solver Reports) and online (page Online Student Scheduling Reports, menu Students > Online Scheduling Reports).
All the existing current reports are available (time conflicts, availability conflicts, unbalanced classes, distance conflicts, time overlaps).
STUDENT SCHEDULING DASHBOARD:
Display Not-Enrolled student requests instead of just the wait-listed ones.
Distinguish wait-listed unassigned request with the w) hint.
This is done in the same way as there is the r) hint for enrollments using reservations or for reserved space.
Filter text field was replaced by the new filter box component (which is used on the events page, e.g., as Event Filter or Room Filter).
Student Scheduling Assistant
Added ability to wait-list an unassigned course request in the List of Classes table.
Added ability to automatically add course request and alternate course request lines as they are needed.
Time Conflicts: display the allowed time conflicts note (Overlaps with x) in red color.
There is also a warning icon next to each class that has a time conflict.
CUSTOM STUDENT ENROLLMENT INTERFACE:
Added an ability to provide a custom class that synchronizes the enrollments with an external system.
The interface can be used to check student's eligibility (an additional step in the CheckEligibility action).
The external system can request students to enter a PIN number.
Discrepancies between the two systems can be detected (e.g., a student may be denied the ability to enroll through UniTime if the two systems are not in sync).
The interface can be used to enroll students into classes (an additional step in the EnrollStudent action).
The external system may reject enrollment of some classes.
If this happens, student is not enrolled into the rejected classes in UniTime as well (appropriate error messages are displayed instead).
Automated qait-listing is disabled when such a custom interface is used.
This change also includes an example implementation using the new Banner XE (RESTful) interface. Course Timetabling
INSTRUCTOR PREFERENCES:
Added ability to automatically inherit instructor preferences to externally managed classes.
There is a new toggle (inherit instructor preferences) on a department which controls whether instructor preferences are to be inherited or not.
Applicable room and building preferences, global room features and groups can now be inherited onto an externally managed class as well.
If the externally managed department does not allow required time and/or room preferences, the instructor preferences are weakened accordingly.
Hierarchical Preference Inheritance
If there are two or more scheduling subparts in a parent-child relation with the same instructional type (e.g., Lec
Lec a
Lec b stacked underneath), inherit preferences and the date pattern from the parent subpart whenever possible.
This behavior can be enabled by setting application property unitime.preferences.hierarchicalInheritance to true.
Instructor Unavailability
Instructor unavailabilty can include special and course-related events that are approved.
These are events for which the instructor is the main contact or he/she is present in the additional contacts of the event.
This feature can be enabled by setting the application property unitime.events.instructorUnavailability to true (default is false).
If enabled, the unavailabilities will also show:
in the Timetable Grid (in the same way as blocking events are displayed for rooms now)
on the Instructor Detail page (there is a new section called Instructor Unavailability, only visible when there is at least one such blocking event for the instructor).
The RoomAvailabilityInterface has been extended to provide instructor availability, the default room availability service has been extended to provide instructor availability from the events as described above.
COURSE CREDIT:
Course credit moved from instructional offering to course offering.
That is, each course of a cross-list can have a different credit information.
This allows for variable credit courses where a student can pick the proper number of credits by selecting the appropriate course offering in the cross-list.
Course credit information is now also visible in the Course Finder dialog of the Student Scheduling Assistant page. Other Changes
EVENT MANAGEMENT: NO ROOM CHECK
Rooms that have the Ignore Room Check toggle enabled can be overbooked.
To easily identify such a room, there is a No Room Check note in the room's tooltip and the room name is in italic in the Meetings table on the Add / Edit Event pages.
Meetings that are in a room with no room check never show any conflicts and such meetings also never show among conflicting events.
ROOMS:
Added ability to provide room pictures.
Pictures (of a room) can be updated for
the current academic session only,
the current academic session and all future academic sessions, or
all academic sessions.
APPLICATION PROPERTIES:
All (or most of) application properties are now registered and used through the ApplicationProperty enum.
This allows for an easy place to see all configuration properties, define their default values and short descriptions.
Application Configuration page was modified to include all registered properties, including their defaults and descriptions.
Data Exchange
Added export of student course requests.
Student Class Enrollment Import: update student course requests to match student class enrollments.
Room Sharing: added ability to export and import room sharing.
Student Import, Student Class Enrollments Import: added incremental mode
When not in incremental mode, students (student class enrollments) that are not included in the XML are deleted (this is the default).
When in incremental mode, students that are not included in the file are completely ignored.
Student Course Requests Import
Added ability to cancel a student through the import (cancelStudent element).
Added ability to include class enrollments with the course requests.
Added enrollment mode (attribute enrollment on the root element) with the following values:
update: enrollments are updated to point to new course requests, orphaned enrollments (enrollments without course requests) are deleted (this is the default)
nochange: all enrollments are kept (previously, this was achieved by keepEnrollments='true')
import: import enrollments from the file (default when there are class elements in the file)
delete: all class enrollments (of the related students) are deleted
CAS AUTHENTICATION:
Added provisions for CAS-based authentication.
To enable CAS, uncomment the CAS Authentication sections in securityContext.xml and web.xml (see the comments there).
LOCALIZATION:
Added en_UK locale: it is much like the default, except of time (24-hour format) and date (day before moth) formatting.
Course Timetabling: Added ability to display assigned times in either 12-hour or 24-hour time format (based on the locale).
CONSTRAINT SOLVER:
Course Timetabling: Deterministic Student Sectioning Customization
This custom sectioning assign students to groups in a deterministic way.
Students are ordered by their academic information (curriculum) and unique ids and assigned in this order to the first available group (configuration or lecture).
To enable this customization set the following parameter:
StudentSectioning.Class=org.cpsolver.coursett.custom.DeterministicStudentSectioning
COURSE TIMETABLING: GROUP CONSTRAINT:
Forward checking extended to all hard group constraints (not only meet-together).
It is possible to avoid forward check on variables with large domains (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDomainSize, defaults to 1000) and to limit the depth (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDepth, defaults to 2).
COURSE TIMETABLING:
MaxBreaks constraint MaxBreaks constraint limits the number of blocks of non back-to-back classes of an instructor on a day.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of breaks and a minimal length of a break between two classes not to be considered in the same block.
For example, reference _MaxBreaks:1:30_ translates to a maximum number of one break (two blocks) on a day of classes not more than 30 minutes a part.
COURSE TIMETABLING: CLASS WEIGHTS:
Added an ability to provide each class with a weight.
This weight is used in the time and room preferences (the preference is weighted by the "importance" of the class).
For instance, this can be used for classes that are only offered once in a semester to have a lower weight.
So that there is an incentive to put a class that is taught every week in a preferred time even if it bumps two classes (that only meet once) from their preferred times.
This also allows for things like giving compulsory or elective courses more weight over optional courses in the curriculum timetabling, if ever needed.
This feature can be enabled by the solver parameter Class Weights, two implementations are now available:
Default Class Weights (default): all class weights are 1.0 (so, all works as before).
Average Hours A Week Class Weights: a weight of a class is estimated by the average number of hours it takes during the academic session.
IFS: NEIGHBORHOOD SEARCH ALGORITHMS:
Added a general versions of Hill Climber, Great Deluge, and Simulated Annealing to the solver, with three problem independent neighboorhoods:
Random move just picks a random unconflicting value to a variable.
Random swap tries to resolve all possible conflicts (unlike with suggestions there is no limit on depth, however, no new conflict can be created by resolving an existing one).
Suggestion move: a variable is selected randomly, a limited depth backtracking is used to find a possible change.
Unlike in NeighbourSelectionWithSuggestions, the very first found suggestion is returned.
Added a "simple search" algorithm that combines the ifs, hill climber, and great deluge or simulated annealing in a similar way as the examination solver (or the ITC competition solver) does.
This algorithm is enabled by setting the Search Algorithm solver parameter to Experimental.
Student Scheduling: Required Reservation Constraint
This global constraint ensures that reservations that must be used are used.
That is, an enrollment is conflicting when there is a reservation for the student that must be used, but the given enrollment does not use it.
While the domain of the course request already does not allow for such enrollments, such an enrollment can be loaded in from the database or XML.
This constraint is to prevent assignment of such invalid enrollments.
COURSE TIMETABLING:
Room RatioChanged the computation of minimal room size to round(room ratio x class limit), instead of the previous ceil(room ratio x class limit).
While using ceiling instead of round has some merit, this fixes the ongoing issues with the computation.
E.g., minimal room size of a class with limit 25 and room ratio 0.6 was 16 (as 0.6f * 25 = 15.000001 in Java) instead of the expected 15.
COURSE TIMETABLING: MAXWEEKS CONSTRAINT:
The MaxWeeks constraint limits the number of weeks during which the given set of classes are taught.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of weeks during which the given set of classes can be placed and a day code indicating what days of week are considered.
Reference _MaxWeeks:3:48_ translates to a maximum number of 3 weeks, but only for classes that are placed on Fridays and Saturdays
(64 for Monday, 32 for Tuesday, 16 for Wednesday, 8 for Thursday, 4 for Friday, 2 for Saturday, and 1 for Sunday)
If the second parameter is zero, all days of week are considered.
Course Timetabling: Classes with multiple rooms
For each time, limit the number of room combinations (parameter General.MaxRoomCombinations, defaults to 100).
Domain is dynamic (not cached) in this case, preferring rooms that are available for the given time (for which the room combinations are generated).
COURSE TIMETABLING: MAX N HOURS A DAY CONSTRAINT:
Added ability to consider date patterns (individual weeks).
When solver parameter MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns is set to true (this is also the new default).
For former behavior, set MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns to false.
COURSE TIMETABLING: DISTRIBUTION PREFERENCES:
Added structure One of Each
The distribution constraint is created for each combination of classes such that one class is taken from each line representing a class or a scheduling subpart
For instance, if the constraint is put between three scheduling subparts, a constraint will be posted between each combination of three classes, each from one of the three subparts.
If a constraint is put between a class and a scheduling subpart, there will be a binary constraint posted between the class and each of the classes of the scheduling subpart.

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 169 RC 2 (Nov 5, 2014)

CLUSTERING:
Improved ability for UniTime to run in a cluster.
Remote solver servers connect to each other and the web server(s) using JGroups.
Hibernate L2 cache is now replicated across the cluster.
However, L2 cache is disabled when Hibernate is used outside of Tomcat (e.g., on a remote solver server).
Clustering can be disabled by setting application properties unitime.hibernate.cluster (Hibernate L2 cache) and unitime.solver.cluster (remove solver servers) to false.
Online student scheduling server can now run on multiple machines at once, with the data asynchronously replicated (using infinispan) and one machine being the master (responsible for all the updates).
To enable replication, set unitime.enrollment.server.replicated to true.
CONSTRAINT SOLVER:
Using the latest version of CPSolver 1.3
This update contains a new assignment model and multi-core capabilities.
MOBILE:
A few initial steps have been made towards a frendlier version of UniTime pages on mobile (tables or phone) devices.
Mobile page layout is using less tables, and there is a new menu.
STUDENT SCHEDULING:
Over-Expected Criterion
Added ability to provide a custom criterion that decides whether a class is over-expected or not.
Default implementation now falls back to section balancing when there are no expectations.
I.e., students can be only allowed into sections that are (or will become) dis-balanced by more than 10% if there are no other sections meeting their schedule.
STUDENT SCHEDULING REPORTS:
Added an interface that is implemented by all the reports.
Added time / availability conflicts report: unlike the existing course conflict report, conflicts are counted between individual classes.
Distance conflict report: changed to compute conflicts between individual classes.
Unbalanced sections report: list sections that are dis-balanced by more than 10%.
Time-overlaps report: list time conflicts between classes (that do allow for time overlaps).
Added a page through which various student sectioning solver reports can be displayed:
Works for both batch (page Student Sectioning Solver Reports, menu Students > Solver Reports) and online (page Online Student Scheduling Reports, menu Students > Online Scheduling Reports).
All the existing current reports are available (time conflicts, availability conflicts, unbalanced classes, distance conflicts, time overlaps).
STUDENT SCHEDULING DASHBOARD:
Display Not-Enrolled student requests instead of just the wait-listed ones.
Distinguish wait-listed unassigned request with the w) hint.
This is done in the same way as there is the r) hint for enrollments using reservations or for reserved space.
Filter text field was replaced by the new filter box component (which is used on the events page, e.g., as Event Filter or Room Filter).
STUDENT STUDENT ASSISTANT:
Added ability to wait-list an unassigned course request in the List of Classes table.
Added ability to automatically add course request and alternate course request lines as they are needed.
Time Conflicts: display the allowed time conflicts note (Overlaps with x) in red color.
There is also a warning icon next to each class that has a time conflict.
CUSTOM STUDENT ENROLLMENT INTERFACE:
Added an ability to provide a custom class that synchronizes the enrollments with an external system.
The interface can be used to check student's eligibility (an additional step in the CheckEligibility action).
The external system can request students to enter a PIN number.
Discrepancies between the two systems can be detected (e.g., a student may be denied the ability to enroll through UniTime if the two systems are not in sync).
The interface can be used to enroll students into classes (an additional step in the EnrollStudent action).
The external system may reject enrollment of some classes.
If this happens, student is not enrolled into the rejected classes in UniTime as well (appropriate error messages are displayed instead).
Automated qait-listing is disabled when such a custom interface is used.
This change also includes an example implementation using the new Banner XE (RESTful) interface. Course Timetabling
INSTRUCTOR PREFERENCES:
Added ability to automatically inherit instructor preferences to externally managed classes.
There is a new toggle (inherit instructor preferences) on a department which controls whether instructor preferences are to be inherited or not.
Applicable room and building preferences, global room features and groups can now be inherited onto an externally managed class as well.
If the externally managed department does not allow required time and/or room preferences, the instructor preferences are weakened accordingly.
HIERARCHICAL PREFERENCE INHERITANCE:
If there are two or more scheduling subparts in a parent-child relation with the same instructional type (e.g., Lec
Lec a
Lec b stacked underneath), inherit preferences and the date pattern from the parent subpart whenever possible.
This behavior can be enabled by setting application property unitime.preferences.hierarchicalInheritance to true.
INSTRUCTOR UNAVAILABILITY:
Instructor unavailabilty can include special and course-related events that are approved.
These are events for which the instructor is the main contact or he/she is present in the additional contacts of the event.
This feature can be enabled by setting the application property unitime.events.instructorUnavailability to true (default is false).
If enabled, the unavailabilities will also show:
in the Timetable Grid (in the same way as blocking events are displayed for rooms now)
on the Instructor Detail page (there is a new section called Instructor Unavailability, only visible when there is at least one such blocking event for the instructor).
The RoomAvailabilityInterface has been extended to provide instructor availability, the default room availability service has been extended to provide instructor availability from the events as described above.
COURSE CREDIT:
Course credit moved from instructional offering to course offering.
That is, each course of a cross-list can have a different credit information.
This allows for variable credit courses where a student can pick the proper number of credits by selecting the appropriate course offering in the cross-list.
Course credit information is now also visible in the Course Finder dialog of the Student Scheduling Assistant page. Other Changes
EVENT MANAGEMENT - NO ROOM CHECK:
Rooms that have the Ignore Room Check toggle enabled can be overbooked.
To easily identify such a room, there is a No Room Check note in the room's tooltip and the room name is in italic in the Meetings table on the Add / Edit Event pages.
Meetings that are in a room with no room check never show any conflicts and such meetings also never show among conflicting events.
ROOMS:
Added ability to provide room pictures.
Pictures (of a room) can be updated for
the current academic session only,
the current academic session and all future academic sessions, or
all academic sessions.
APPLICATION PROPERTIES:
All (or most of) application properties are now registered and used through the ApplicationProperty enum.
This allows for an easy place to see all configuration properties, define their default values and short descriptions.
Application Configuration page was modified to include all registered properties, including their defaults and descriptions.
DATA EXCHANGE:
Added export of student course requests.
Student Class Enrollment Import: update student course requests to match student class enrollments.
Room Sharing: added ability to export and import room sharing.
Student Import, Student Class Enrollments Import: added incremental mode
When not in incremental mode, students (student class enrollments) that are not included in the XML are deleted (this is the default).
When in incremental mode, students that are not included in the file are completely ignored.
Student Course Requests Import
Added ability to cancel a student through the import (cancelStudent element).
Added ability to include class enrollments with the course requests.
Added enrollment mode (attribute enrollment on the root element) with the following values:
update: enrollments are updated to point to new course requests, orphaned enrollments (enrollments without course requests) are deleted (this is the default)
nochange: all enrollments are kept (previously, this was achieved by keepEnrollments='true')
import: import enrollments from the file (default when there are class elements in the file)
delete: all class enrollments (of the related students) are deleted
CAS AUTHENTIFICATION:
Added provisions for CAS-based authentication.
To enable CAS, uncomment the CAS Authentication sections in securityContext.xml and web.xml (see the comments there).
LOCALIZATION:
Added en_UK locale: it is much like the default, except of time (24-hour format) and date (day before moth) formatting.
Course Timetabling: Added ability to display assigned times in either 12-hour or 24-hour time format (based on the locale). Constraint Solver
COURSE TIMETABLING - DETERMINISTIC STUDENT SECTIONING CUSTOMIZATION:
This custom sectioning assign students to groups in a deterministic way.
Students are ordered by their academic information (curriculum) and unique ids and assigned in this order to the first available group (configuration or lecture).
To enable this customization set the following parameter:
StudentSectioning.Class=org.cpsolver.coursett.custom.DeterministicStudentSectioning
COURSE TIMETABLING - GROUP CONSTRAINT:
Forward checking extended to all hard group constraints (not only meet-together).
It is possible to avoid forward check on variables with large domains (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDomainSize, defaults to 1000) and to limit the depth (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDepth, defaults to 2).
COURSE TIMETABLING - MAXBREAKS CONSTRAINT:
MaxBreaks constraint limits the number of blocks of non back-to-back classes of an instructor on a day.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of breaks and a minimal length of a break between two classes not to be considered in the same block.
For example, reference _MaxBreaks:1:30_ translates to a maximum number of one break (two blocks) on a day of classes not more than 30 minutes a part.
COURSE TIMETABLING - THE:
Added an ability to provide each class with a weight.
This weight is used in the time and room preferences (the preference is weighted by the "importance" of the class).
For instance, this can be used for classes that are only offered once in a semester to have a lower weight.
So that there is an incentive to put a class that is taught every week in a preferred time even if it bumps two classes (that only meet once) from their preferred times.
This also allows for things like giving compulsory or elective courses more weight over optional courses in the curriculum timetabling, if ever needed.
This feature can be enabled by the solver parameter Class Weights, two implementations are now available:
Default Class Weights (default): all class weights are 1.0 (so, all works as before).
Average Hours A Week Class Weights: a weight of a class is estimated by the average number of hours it takes during the academic session.
IFS - NEIGHBORHOOD SEARCH ALGORITHM:
Added a general versions of Hill Climber, Great Deluge, and Simulated Annealing to the solver, with three problem independent neighboorhoods:
Random move just picks a random unconflicting value to a variable.
Random swap tries to resolve all possible conflicts (unlike with suggestions there is no limit on depth, however, no new conflict can be created by resolving an existing one).
Suggestion move: a variable is selected randomly, a limited depth backtracking is used to find a possible change.
Unlike in NeighbourSelectionWithSuggestions, the very first found suggestion is returned.
Added a "simple search" algorithm that combines the ifs, hill climber, and great deluge or simulated annealing in a similar way as the examination solver (or the ITC competition solver) does.
This algorithm is enabled by setting the Search Algorithm solver parameter to Experimental.
STUDENT SCHEDULING - REQUIRED RESERVATION CONSTRAINT:
This global constraint ensures that reservations that must be used are used.
That is, an enrollment is conflicting when there is a reservation for the student that must be used, but the given enrollment does not use it.
While the domain of the course request already does not allow for such enrollments, such an enrollment can be loaded in from the database or XML.
This constraint is to prevent assignment of such invalid enrollments.
Course Timetabling: Room Ratio
Changed the computation of minimal room size to round(room ratio x class limit), instead of the previous ceil(room ratio x class limit).
While using ceiling instead of round has some merit, this fixes the ongoing issues with the computation.
E.g., minimal room size of a class with limit 25 and room ratio 0.6 was 16 (as 0.6f * 25 = 15.000001 in Java) instead of the expected 15.
COURSE TIMETABLING - MAXWEEKS CONSTRAINT:
The MaxWeeks constraint limits the number of weeks during which the given set of classes are taught.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of weeks during which the given set of classes can be placed and a day code indicating what days of week are considered.
Reference _MaxWeeks:3:48_ translates to a maximum number of 3 weeks, but only for classes that are placed on Fridays and Saturdays
(64 for Monday, 32 for Tuesday, 16 for Wednesday, 8 for Thursday, 4 for Friday, 2 for Saturday, and 1 for Sunday)
If the second parameter is zero, all days of week are considered.
Course Timetabling: Classes with multiple rooms
For each time, limit the number of room combinations (parameter General.MaxRoomCombinations, defaults to 100).
Domain is dynamic (not cached) in this case, preferring rooms that are available for the given time (for which the room combinations are generated).
Course Timetabling: Max N Hours A Day constraint
Added ability to consider date patterns (individual weeks).
When solver parameter MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns is set to true (this is also the new default).
For former behavior, set MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns to false.
Course Timetabling: Distribution Preferences
Added structure One of Each
The distribution constraint is created for each combination of classes such that one class is taken from each line representing a class or a scheduling subpart
For instance, if the constraint is put between three scheduling subparts, a constraint will be posted between each combination of three classes, each from one of the three subparts.
If a constraint is put between a class and a scheduling subpart, there will be a binary constraint posted between the class and each of the classes
of the scheduling subpart.

New in UniTime 3.4 Build 321 (Oct 30, 2014)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 164 RC 1 (Oct 25, 2014)

Clustering:
Improved ability for UniTime to run in a cluster.
Remote solver servers connect to each other and the web server(s) using JGroups.
Hibernate L2 cache is now replicated across the cluster.
However, L2 cache is disabled when Hibernate is used outside of Tomcat (e.g., on a remote solver server).
Clustering can be disabled by setting application properties unitime.hibernate.cluster (Hibernate L2 cache) and unitime.solver.cluster (remove solver servers) to false.
Online student scheduling server can now run on multiple machines at once, with the data asynchronously replicated (using infinispan) and one machine being the master (responsible for all the updates).
To enable replication, set unitime.enrollment.server.replicated to true.
Constraint Solver:
Using the latest version of CPSolver 1.3
This update contains a new assignment model and multi-core capabilities.
Mobile:
A few initial steps have been made towards a frendlier version of UniTime pages on mobile (tables or phone) devices.
Mobile page layout is using less tables, and there is a new menu. Student Scheduling
Over-Expected Criterion
Added ability to provide a custom criterion that decides whether a class is over-expected or not.
Default implementation now falls back to section balancing when there are no expectations.
I.e., students can be only allowed into sections that are (or will become) dis-balanced by more than 10% if there are no other sections meeting their schedule.
Student Scheduling Reports:
Added an interface that is implemented by all the reports.
Added time / availability conflicts report: unlike the existing course conflict report, conflicts are counted between individual classes.
Distance conflict report: changed to compute conflicts between individual classes.
Unbalanced sections report: list sections that are dis-balanced by more than 10%.
Time-overlaps report: list time conflicts between classes (that do allow for time overlaps).
Added a page through which various student sectioning solver reports can be displayed:
Works for both batch (page Student Sectioning Solver Reports, menu Students > Solver Reports) and online (page Online Student Scheduling Reports, menu Students > Online Scheduling Reports).
All the existing current reports are available (time conflicts, availability conflicts, unbalanced classes, distance conflicts, time overlaps).
Student Scheduling Dashboard
Display Not-Enrolled student requests instead of just the wait-listed ones.
Distinguish wait-listed unassigned request with the w) hint.
This is done in the same way as there is the r) hint for enrollments using reservations or for reserved space.
Filter text field was replaced by the new filter box component (which is used on the events page, e.g., as Event Filter or Room Filter).
Student Scheduling Assistant
Added ability to wait-list an unassigned course request in the List of Classes table.
Added ability to automatically add course request and alternate course request lines as they are needed.
Time Conflicts: display the allowed time conflicts note (Overlaps with x) in red color.
There is also a warning icon next to each class that has a time conflict.
Custom Student Enrollment Interface
Added an ability to provide a custom class that synchronizes the enrollments with an external system.
The interface can be used to check student's eligibility (an additional step in the CheckEligibility action).
The external system can request students to enter a PIN number.
Discrepancies between the two systems can be detected (e.g., a student may be denied the ability to enroll through UniTime if the two systems are not in sync).
The interface can be used to enroll students into classes (an additional step in the EnrollStudent action).
The external system may reject enrollment of some classes.
If this happens, student is not enrolled into the rejected classes in UniTime as well (appropriate error messages are displayed instead).
Automated qait-listing is disabled when such a custom interface is used.
This change also includes an example implementation using the new Banner XE (RESTful) interface. Course Timetabling
Instructor Preferences
Added ability to automatically inherit instructor preferences to externally managed classes.
There is a new toggle (inherit instructor preferences) on a department which controls whether instructor preferences are to be inherited or not.
Applicable room and building preferences, global room features and groups can now be inherited onto an externally managed class as well.
If the externally managed department does not allow required time and/or room preferences, the instructor preferences are weakened accordingly.
Hierarchical Preference Inheritance
If there are two or more scheduling subparts in a parent-child relation with the same instructional type (e.g., Lec
Lec a
Lec b stacked underneath), inherit preferences and the date pattern from the parent subpart whenever possible.
This behavior can be enabled by setting application property unitime.preferences.hierarchicalInheritance to true.
Instructor Unavailability
Instructor unavailabilty can include special and course-related events that are approved.
These are events for which the instructor is the main contact or he/she is present in the additional contacts of the event.
This feature can be enabled by setting the application property unitime.events.instructorUnavailability to true (default is false).
If enabled, the unavailabilities will also show:
in the Timetable Grid (in the same way as blocking events are displayed for rooms now)
on the Instructor Detail page (there is a new section called Instructor Unavailability, only visible when there is at least one such blocking event for the instructor).
The RoomAvailabilityInterface has been extended to provide instructor availability, the default room availability service has been extended to provide instructor availability from the events as described above.
Course Credit:
Course credit moved from instructional offering to course offering.
That is, each course of a cross-list can have a different credit information.
This allows for variable credit courses where a student can pick the proper number of credits by selecting the appropriate course offering in the cross-list.
Course credit information is now also visible in the Course Finder dialog of the Student Scheduling Assistant page. Other Changes
Event Management:
No Room Check
Rooms that have the Ignore Room Check toggle enabled can be overbooked.
To easily identify such a room, there is a No Room Check note in the room's tooltip and the room name is in italic in the Meetings table on the Add / Edit Event pages.
Meetings that are in a room with no room check never show any conflicts and such meetings also never show among conflicting events.
Rooms
Added ability to provide room pictures.
Pictures (of a room) can be updated for
the current academic session only,
the current academic session and all future academic sessions, or
all academic sessions.
Application Properties
All (or most of) application properties are now registered and used through the ApplicationProperty enum.
This allows for an easy place to see all configuration properties, define their default values and short descriptions.
Application Configuration page was modified to include all registered properties, including their defaults and descriptions.
Data Exchange
Added export of student course requests.
Student Class Enrollment Import: update student course requests to match student class enrollments.
Room Sharing: added ability to export and import room sharing.
Student Import, Student Class Enrollments Import: added incremental mode
When not in incremental mode, students (student class enrollments) that are not included in the XML are deleted (this is the default).
When in incremental mode, students that are not included in the file are completely ignored.
Student Course Requests Import
Added ability to cancel a student through the import (cancelStudent element).
Added ability to include class enrollments with the course requests.
Added enrollment mode (attribute enrollment on the root element) with the following values:
update: enrollments are updated to point to new course requests, orphaned enrollments (enrollments without course requests) are deleted (this is the default)
nochange: all enrollments are kept (previously, this was achieved by keepEnrollments='true')
import: import enrollments from the file (default when there are class elements in the file)
delete: all class enrollments (of the related students) are deleted
CAS Authentication
Added provisions for CAS-based authentication.
To enable CAS, uncomment the CAS Authentication sections in securityContext.xml and web.xml (see the comments there).
Localization
Added en_UK locale: it is much like the default, except of time (24-hour format) and date (day before moth) formatting.
Course Timetabling: Added ability to display assigned times in either 12-hour or 24-hour time format (based on the locale). Constraint Solver
Course Timetabling: Deterministic Student Sectioning Customization
This custom sectioning assign students to groups in a deterministic way.
Students are ordered by their academic information (curriculum) and unique ids and assigned in this order to the first available group (configuration or lecture).
To enable this customization set the following parameter:
StudentSectioning.Class=org.cpsolver.coursett.custom.DeterministicStudentSectioning
Course Timetabling: Group Constraint
Forward checking extended to all hard group constraints (not only meet-together).
It is possible to avoid forward check on variables with large domains (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDomainSize, defaults to 1000) and to limit the depth (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDepth, defaults to 2).
Course Timetabling: MaxBreaks constraint
MaxBreaks constraint limits the number of blocks of non back-to-back classes of an instructor on a day.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of breaks and a minimal length of a break between two classes not to be considered in the same block.
For example, reference _MaxBreaks:1:30_ translates to a maximum number of one break (two blocks) on a day of classes not more than 30 minutes a part.
Course Timetabling: Class Weights
Added an ability to provide each class with a weight.
This weight is used in the time and room preferences (the preference is weighted by the "importance" of the class).
For instance, this can be used for classes that are only offered once in a semester to have a lower weight.
So that there is an incentive to put a class that is taught every week in a preferred time even if it bumps two classes (that only meet once) from their preferred times.
This also allows for things like giving compulsory or elective courses more weight over optional courses in the curriculum timetabling, if ever needed.
This feature can be enabled by the solver parameter Class Weights, two implementations are now available:
Default Class Weights (default): all class weights are 1.0 (so, all works as before).
Average Hours A Week Class Weights: a weight of a class is estimated by the average number of hours it takes during the academic session.
IFS: Neighborhood Search Algorithms
Added a general versions of Hill Climber, Great Deluge, and Simulated Annealing to the solver, with three problem independent neighboorhoods:
Random move just picks a random unconflicting value to a variable.
Random swap tries to resolve all possible conflicts (unlike with suggestions there is no limit on depth, however, no new conflict can be created by resolving an existing one).
Suggestion move: a variable is selected randomly, a limited depth backtracking is used to find a possible change.
Unlike in NeighbourSelectionWithSuggestions, the very first found suggestion is returned.
Added a "simple search" algorithm that combines the ifs, hill climber, and great deluge or simulated annealing in a similar way as the examination solver (or the ITC competition solver) does.
This algorithm is enabled by setting the Search Algorithm solver parameter to Experimental.
Student Scheduling: Required Reservation Constraint
This global constraint ensures that reservations that must be used are used.
That is, an enrollment is conflicting when there is a reservation for the student that must be used, but the given enrollment does not use it.
While the domain of the course request already does not allow for such enrollments, such an enrollment can be loaded in from the database or XML.
This constraint is to prevent assignment of such invalid enrollments.
Course Timetabling: Room Ratio
Changed the computation of minimal room size to round(room ratio x class limit), instead of the previous ceil(room ratio x class limit).
While using ceiling instead of round has some merit, this fixes the ongoing issues with the computation.
E.g., minimal room size of a class with limit 25 and room ratio 0.6 was 16 (as 0.6f * 25 = 15.000001 in Java) instead of the expected 15.
Course Timetabling: MaxWeeks constraint
The MaxWeeks constraint limits the number of weeks during which the given set of classes are taught.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of weeks during which the given set of classes can be placed and a day code indicating what days of week are considered.
Reference _MaxWeeks:3:48_ translates to a maximum number of 3 weeks, but only for classes that are placed on Fridays and Saturdays
(64 for Monday, 32 for Tuesday, 16 for Wednesday, 8 for Thursday, 4 for Friday, 2 for Saturday, and 1 for Sunday)
If the second parameter is zero, all days of week are considered.
Course Timetabling: Classes with multiple rooms
For each time, limit the number of room combinations (parameter General.MaxRoomCombinations, defaults to 100).
Domain is dynamic (not cached) in this case, preferring rooms that are available for the given time (for which the room combinations are generated).
Course Timetabling: Max N Hours A Day constraint
Added ability to consider date patterns (individual weeks).
When solver parameter MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns is set to true (this is also the new default).
For former behavior, set MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns to false.
Course Timetabling: Distribution Preferences
Added structure One of Each
The distribution constraint is created for each combination of classes such that one class is taken from each line representing a class or a scheduling subpart
For instance, if the constraint is put between three scheduling subparts, a constraint will be posted between each combination of three classes, each from one of the three subparts.
If a constraint is put between a class and a scheduling subpart, there will be a binary constraint posted between the class and each of the classes of the scheduling subpart.

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 153 Beta 1 (Oct 2, 2014)

UniTime 3.5.153 release notes
TECHNOLOGY UPDATE:
Clustering:
Improved ability for UniTime to run in a cluster.
Remote solver servers connect to each other and the web server(s) using JGroups.
Hibernate L2 cache is now replicated across the cluster.
However, L2 cache is disabled when Hibernate is used outside of Tomcat (e.g., on a remote solver server).
Clustering can be disabled by setting application properties unitime.hibernate.cluster
(Hibernate L2 cache) and unitime.solver.cluster (remove solver servers) to false.
Online student scheduling server can now run on multiple machines at once, with the data
asynchronously replicated (using infinispan) and one machine being the master (responsible for
all the updates).
To enable replication, set unitime.enrollment.server.replicated to true.
Constraint Solver:
Using the latest version of CPSolver 1.3
This update contains a new assignment model and multi-core capabilities.
Mobile:
A few initial steps have been made towards a frendlier version of UniTime pages on mobile
(tables or phone) devices.
Mobile page layout is using less tables, and there is a new menu.
STUDENT SCHEDULING:
Over-Expected Criterion:
Added ability to provide a custom criterion that decides whether a class is over-expected or
not.
Default implementation now falls back to section balancing when there are no expectations.
I.e., students can be only allowed into sections that are (or will become) dis-balanced by more than 10% if there are no other sections meeting their schedule.
Student Scheduling Reports:
Added an interface that is implemented by all the reports.
Added time / availability conflicts report: unlike the existing course conflict report,
conflicts are counted between individual classes.
Distance conflict report: changed to compute conflicts between individual classes.
Unbalanced sections report: list sections that are dis-balanced by more than 10%.
Time-overlaps report: list time conflicts between classes (that do allow for time overlaps).
Added a page through which various student sectioning solver reports can be displayed:
Works for both batch (page Student Sectioning Solver Reports, menu Students > Solver Reports) and online (page Online Student Scheduling Reports, menu Students > Online Scheduling Reports).
All the existing current reports are available (time conflicts, availability conflicts, unbalanced classes, distance conflicts, time overlaps).
Student Scheduling Dashboard:
Display Not-Enrolled student requests instead of just the wait-listed ones.
Distinguish wait-listed unassigned request with the w) hint.
This is done in the same way as there is the r) hint for enrollments using reservations or for reserved space.
Filter text field was replaced by the new filter box component (which is used on the events
page, e.g., as Event Filter or Room Filter).
Student Scheduling Assistant:
Added ability to wait-list an unassigned course request in the List of Classes table.
Added ability to automatically add course request and alternate course request lines as they
are needed.
Time Conflicts: display the allowed time conflicts note (Overlaps with x) in red color.
There is also a warning icon next to each class that has a time conflict.
Custom Student Enrollment Interface:
Added an ability to provide a custom class that synchronizes the enrollments with an external
system.
The interface can be used to check student's eligibility (an additional step in the
CheckEligibility action).
The external system can request students to enter a PIN number.
Discrepancies between the two systems can be detected (e.g., a student may be denied the ability to enroll through UniTime if the two systems are not in sync).
The interface can be used to enroll students into classes (an additional step in the
EnrollStudent action).
The external system may reject enrollment of some classes.
If this happens, student is not enrolled into the rejected classes in UniTime as well (appropriate error messages are displayed instead).
Automated qait-listing is disabled when such a custom interface is used.
This change also includes an example implementation using the new Banner XE (RESTful)
interface.
COURSE TIMETABLING:
Instructor Preferences:
Added ability to automatically inherit instructor preferences to externally managed classes.
There is a new toggle (inherit instructor preferences) on a department which controls whether
instructor preferences are to be inherited or not.
Applicable room and building preferences, global room features and groups can now be inherited
onto an externally managed class as well.
If the externally managed department does not allow required time and/or room preferences, the
instructor preferences are weakened accordingly.
Hierarchical Preference Inheritance:
If there are two or more scheduling subparts in a parent-child relation with the same
instructional type (e.g., Lec - Lec a - Lec b stacked underneath), inherit preferences and the
date pattern from the parent subpart whenever possible.
This behavior can be enabled by setting application property
unitime.preferences.hierarchicalInheritance to true.
Instructor Unavailability:
Instructor unavailabilty can include special and course-related events that are approved.
These are events for which the instructor is the main contact or he/she is present in the additional contacts of the event.
This feature can be enabled by setting the application property unitime.events.instructorUnavailability to true (default is false).
If enabled, the unavailabilities will also show:
in the Timetable Grid (in the same way as blocking events are displayed for rooms now)
on the Instructor Detail page (there is a new section called Instructor Unavailability, only visible when there is at least one such blocking event for the instructor).
The RoomAvailabilityInterface has been extended to provide instructor availability, the
default room availability service has been extended to provide instructor availability from
the events as described above.
Course Credit:
Course credit moved from instructional offering to course offering.
That is, each course of a cross-list can have a different credit information.
This allows for variable credit courses where a student can pick the proper number of credits by selecting the appropriate course offering in the cross-list.
Course credit information is now also visible in the Course Finder dialog of the Student
Scheduling Assistant page.
Other Changes
- Event Management: No Room Check
Rooms that have the Ignore Room Check toggle enabled can be overbooked.
To easily identify such a room, there is a No Room Check note in the room's tooltip and the room name is in italic in the Meetings table on the Add / Edit Event pages.
Meetings that are in a room with no room check never show any conflicts and such meetings also
never show among conflicting events.
Rooms:
Added ability to provide room pictures.
Pictures (of a room) can be updated for
the current academic session only,
the current academic session and all future academic sessions, or
all academic sessions.
Application Properties:
All (or most of) application properties are now registered and used through the
ApplicationProperty enum.
This allows for an easy place to see all configuration properties, define their default values and short descriptions.
Application Configuration page was modified to include all registered properties, including
their defaults and descriptions.
Data Exchange:
Added export of student course requests.
Student Class Enrollment Import: update student course requests to match student class
enrollments.
Room Sharing: added ability to export and import room sharing.
Student Import, Student Class Enrollments Import: added incremental mode
When not in incremental mode, students (student class enrollments) that are not included in the XML are deleted (this is the default).
When in incremental mode, students that are not included in the file are completely ignored.
Student Course Requests Import
Added ability to cancel a student through the import (cancelStudent element).
Added ability to include class enrollments with the course requests.
Added enrollment mode (attribute enrollment on the root element) with the following values: - update: enrollments are updated to point to new course requests, orphaned enrollments (enrollments without course requests) are deleted (this is the default)
nochange: all enrollments are kept (previously, this was achieved by keepEnrollments='true')
import: import enrollments from the file (default when there are class elements in the file)
delete: all class enrollments (of the related students) are deleted
CAS Authentication:
Added provisions for CAS-based authentication.
To enable CAS, uncomment the CAS Authentication sections in securityContext.xml and web.xml
(see the comments there).
Localization:
Added en_UK locale: it is much like the default, except of time (24-hour format) and date (day
before moth) formatting.
Course Timetabling: Added ability to display assigned times in either 12-hour or 24-hour time
format (based on the locale).
CONSTRAINT SOLVER:
Course Timetabling: Deterministic Student Sectioning Customization:
This custom sectioning assign students to groups in a deterministic way.
Students are ordered by their academic information (curriculum) and unique ids and assigned in this order to the first available group (configuration or lecture).
To enable this customization set the following parameter:
StudentSectioning.Class=org.cpsolver.coursett.custom.DeterministicStudentSectioning
Course Timetabling: Group Constraint:
Forward checking extended to all hard group constraints (not only meet-together).
It is possible to avoid forward check on variables with large domains (parameter
ForwardCheck.MaxDomainSize, defaults to 1000) and to limit the depth (parameter
ForwardCheck.MaxDepth, defaults to 2).
Course Timetabling: MaxBreaks constraint:
MaxBreaks constraint limits the number of blocks of non back-to-back classes of an instructor
on a day.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of breaks and a minimal length of a break between two
classes not to be considered in the same block.
For example, reference _MaxBreaks:1:30_ translates to a maximum number of one break (two blocks) on a day of classes not more than 30 minutes a part.
Course Timetabling: Class Weights:
Added an ability to provide each class with a weight.
This weight is used in the time and room preferences (the preference is weighted by the "importance" of the class).
For instance, this can be used for classes that are only offered once in a semester to have
a lower weight.
So that there is an incentive to put a class that is taught every week in a preferred time even if it bumps two classes (that only meet once) from their preferred times.
This also allows for things like giving compulsory or elective courses more weight over
optional courses in the curriculum timetabling, if ever needed.
This feature can be enabled by the solver parameter Class Weights, two implementations are now
available:
Default Class Weights (default): all class weights are 1.0 (so, all works as before).
Average Hours A Week Class Weights: a weight of a class is estimated by the average number of hours it takes during the academic session.
IFS: Neighborhood Search Algorithms:
Added a general versions of Hill Climber, Great Deluge, and Simulated Annealing to the solver,
with three problem independent neighboorhoods:
Random move just picks a random unconflicting value to a variable.
Random swap tries to resolve all possible conflicts (unlike with suggestions there is no limit on depth, however, no new conflict can be created by resolving an existing one).
Suggestion move: a variable is selected randomly, a limited depth backtracking is used to find a possible change.
Unlike in NeighbourSelectionWithSuggestions, the very first found suggestion is returned.
Added a "simple search" algorithm that combines the ifs, hill climber, and great deluge or
simulated annealing in a similar way as the examination solver (or the ITC competition solver)
does.
This algorithm is enabled by setting the Search Algorithm solver parameter to Experimental.
Student Scheduling: Required Reservation Constraint:
This global constraint ensures that reservations that must be used are used.
That is, an enrollment is conflicting when there is a reservation for the student that must be used, but the given enrollment does not use it.
While the domain of the course request already does not allow for such enrollments, such an
enrollment can be loaded in from the database or XML.
This constraint is to prevent assignment of such invalid enrollments.
Course Timetabling: Room Ratio
Changed the computation of minimal room size to round(room ratio x class limit), instead of
the previous ceil(room ratio x class limit).
While using ceiling instead of round has some merit, this fixes the ongoing issues with the
computation.
E.g., minimal room size of a class with limit 25 and room ratio 0.6 was 16 (as 0.6f * 25 = 15.000001 in Java) instead of the expected 15.
Course Timetabling: MaxWeeks constraint
The MaxWeeks constraint limits the number of weeks during which the given set of classes are
taught.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of weeks during which the given set of classes can be
placed and a day code indicating what days of week are considered.
Reference _MaxWeeks:3:48_ translates to a maximum number of 3 weeks, but only for classes that
are placed on Fridays and Saturdays
(64 for Monday, 32 for Tuesday, 16 for Wednesday, 8 for Thursday, 4 for Friday, 2 for Saturday, and 1 for Sunday)
If the second parameter is zero, all days of week are considered.
Course Timetabling: Classes with multiple rooms
For each time, limit the number of room combinations (parameter General.MaxRoomCombinations,
defaults to 100).
Domain is dynamic (not cached) in this case, preferring rooms that are available for the given time (for which the room combinations are generated).
Course Timetabling: Max N Hours A Day constraint
Added ability to consider date patterns (individual weeks).
When solver parameter MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns is set to true (this is also the new default).
Course Timetabling: Distribution Preferences
Added structure One of Each
The distribution constraint is created for each combination of classes such that one class is taken from each line representing a class or a scheduling subpart
For instance, if the constraint is put between three scheduling subparts, a constraint will be posted between each combination of three classes, each from one of the three subparts.
If a constraint is put between a class and a scheduling subpart, there will be a binary constraint posted between the class and each of the classes of the scheduling subpart.

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 136 Beta (Sep 9, 2014)

Technology Update
Clustering
Improved ability for UniTime to run in a cluster.
Remote solver servers connect to each other and the web server(s) using JGroups.
Hibernate L2 cache is now replicated across the cluster.
However, L2 cache is disabled when Hibernate is used outside of Tomcat (e.g., on a remote solver server).
Clustering can be disabled by setting application properties unitime.hibernate.cluster (Hibernate L2 cache) and unitime.solver.cluster (remove solver servers) to false.
Online student scheduling server can now run on multiple machines at once, with the data asynchronously replicated (using infinispan) and one machine being the master (responsible for all the updates).
To enable replication, set unitime.enrollment.server.replicated to true.
Constraint Solver
Using the latest version of CPSolver 1.3
This update contains a new assignment model and multi-core capabilities.
Mobile
A few initial steps have been made towards a frendlier version of UniTime pages on mobile (tables or phone) devices.
Mobile page layout is using less tables, and there is a new menu.
Student Scheduling
Over-Expected Criterion
Added ability to provide a custom criterion that decides whether a class is over-expected or not.
Default implementation now falls back to section balancing when there are no expectations.
I.e., students can be only allowed into sections that are (or will become) dis-balanced by more than 10% if there are no other sections meeting their schedule.
Student Scheduling Reports
Added an interface that is implemented by all the reports.
Added time / availability conflicts report: unlike the existing course conflict report, conflicts are counted between individual classes.
Distance conflict report: changed to compute conflicts between individual classes.
Unbalanced sections report: list sections that are dis-balanced by more than 10%.
Time-overlaps report: list time conflicts between classes (that do allow for time overlaps).
Added a page through which various student sectioning solver reports can be displayed:
Works for both batch (page Student Sectioning Solver Reports, menu Students > Solver Reports) and online (page Online Student Scheduling Reports, menu Students > Online Scheduling Reports).
All the existing current reports are available (time conflicts, availability conflicts, unbalanced classes, distance conflicts, time overlaps).
Student Scheduling Dashboard
Display Not-Enrolled student requests instead of just the wait-listed ones.
Distinguish wait-listed unassigned request with the w) hint.
This is done in the same way as there is the r) hint for enrollments using reservations or for reserved space.
Filter text field was replaced by the new filter box component (which is used on the events page, e.g., as Event Filter or Room Filter).
Student Scheduling Assistant
Added ability to wait-list an unassigned course request in the List of Classes table.
Added ability to automatically add course request and alternate course request lines as they are needed.
Time Conflicts: display the allowed time conflicts note (Overlaps with x) in red color.
There is also a warning icon next to each class that has a time conflict.
Custom Student Enrollment Interface
Added an ability to provide a custom class that synchronizes the enrollments with an external system.
The interface can be used to check student's eligibility (an additional step in the CheckEligibility action).
The external system can request students to enter a PIN number.
Discrepancies between the two systems can be detected (e.g., a student may be denied the ability to enroll through UniTime if the two systems are not in sync).
The interface can be used to enroll students into classes (an additional step in the EnrollStudent action).
The external system may reject enrollment of some classes.
If this happens, student is not enrolled into the rejected classes in UniTime as well (appropriate error messages are displayed instead).
Automated qait-listing is disabled when such a custom interface is used.
This change also includes an example implementation using the new Banner XE (RESTful) interface.
Course Timetabling
Instructor Preferences
Added ability to automatically inherit instructor preferences to externally managed classes.
There is a new toggle (inherit instructor preferences) on a department which controls whether instructor preferences are to be inherited or not.
Applicable room and building preferences, global room features and groups can now be inherited onto an externally managed class as well.
If the externally managed department does not allow required time and/or room preferences, the instructor preferences are weakened accordingly.
Hierarchical Preference Inheritance
If there are two or more scheduling subparts in a parent-child relation with the same instructional type (e.g., Lec Lec a Lec b stacked underneath), inherit preferences and the date pattern from the parent subpart whenever possible.
This behavior can be enabled by setting application property unitime.preferences.hierarchicalInheritance to true.
Instructor Unavailability
Instructor unavailabilty can include special and course-related events that are approved.
These are events for which the instructor is the main contact or he/she is present in the additional contacts of the event.
This feature can be enabled by setting the application property unitime.events.instructorUnavailability to true (default is false).
If enabled, the unavailabilities will also show:
in the Timetable Grid (in the same way as blocking events are displayed for rooms now)
on the Instructor Detail page (there is a new section called Instructor Unavailability, only visible when there is at least one such blocking event for the instructor).
The RoomAvailabilityInterface has been extended to provide instructor availability, the default room availability service has been extended to provide instructor availability from the events as described above.
Course Credit
Course credit moved from instructional offering to course offering.
That is, each course of a cross-list can have a different credit information.
This allows for variable credit courses where a student can pick the proper number of credits by selecting the appropriate course offering in the cross-list.
Course credit information is now also visible in the Course Finder dialog of the Student Scheduling Assistant page.
Other Changes
Event Management: No Room Check
Rooms that have the Ignore Room Check toggle enabled can be overbooked.
To easily identify such a room, there is a No Room Check note in the room's tooltip and the room name is in italic in the Meetings table on the Add / Edit Event pages.
Meetings that are in a room with no room check never show any conflicts and such meetings also never show among conflicting events.
Rooms
Added ability to provide room pictures.
Pictures (of a room) can be updated for
the current academic session only,
the current academic session and all future academic sessions, or
all academic sessions.
Application Properties
All (or most of) application properties are now registered and used through the ApplicationProperty enum.
This allows for an easy place to see all configuration properties, define their default values and short descriptions.
Application Configuration page was modified to include all registered properties, including their defaults and descriptions.
Data Exchange
Added export of student course requests.
Student Class Enrollment Import: update student course requests to match student class enrollments.
Room Sharing: added ability to export and import room sharing.
Student Import, Student Class Enrollments Import: added incremental mode
When not in incremental mode, students (student class enrollments) that are not included in the XML are deleted (this is the default).
When in incremental mode, students that are not included in the file are completely ignored.
Student Course Requests Import
Added ability to cancel a student through the import (cancelStudent element).
Added ability to include class enrollments with the course requests.
Added enrollment mode (attribute enrollment on the root element) with the following values:
update: enrollments are updated to point to new course requests, orphaned enrollments (enrollments without course requests) are deleted (this is the default)
nochange: all enrollments are kept (previously, this was achieved by keepEnrollments='true')
import: import enrollments from the file (default when there are class elements in the file)
delete: all class enrollments (of the related students) are deleted
CAS Authentication
Added provisions for CAS-based authentication.
To enable CAS, uncomment the CAS Authentication sections in securityContext.xml and web.xml (see the comments there).
Localization
Added en_UK locale: it is much like the default, except of time (24-hour format) and date (day before moth) formatting.
Course Timetabling: Added ability to display assigned times in either 12-hour or 24-hour time format (based on the locale).
Constraint Solver
Course Timetabling: Deterministic Student Sectioning Customization
This custom sectioning assign students to groups in a deterministic way.
Students are ordered by their academic information (curriculum) and unique ids and assigned in this order to the first available group (configuration or lecture).
To enable this customization set the following parameter:
StudentSectioning.Class=org.cpsolver.coursett.custom.DeterministicStudentSectioning
Course Timetabling: Group Constraint
Forward checking extended to all hard group constraints (not only meet-together).
It is possible to avoid forward check on variables with large domains (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDomainSize, defaults to 1000) and to limit the depth (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDepth, defaults to 2).
Course Timetabling: MaxBreaks constraint
MaxBreaks constraint limits the number of blocks of non back-to-back classes of an instructor on a day.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of breaks and a minimal length of a break between two classes not to be considered in the same block.
For example, reference _MaxBreaks:1:30_ translates to a maximum number of one break (two blocks) on a day of classes not more than 30 minutes a part.
Course Timetabling: Class Weights
Added an ability to provide each class with a weight.
This weight is used in the time and room preferences (the preference is weighted by the "importance" of the class).
For instance, this can be used for classes that are only offered once in a semester to have a lower weight.
So that there is an incentive to put a class that is taught every week in a preferred time even if it bumps two classes (that only meet once) from their preferred times.
This also allows for things like giving compulsory or elective courses more weight over optional courses in the curriculum timetabling, if ever needed.
This feature can be enabled by the solver parameter Class Weights, two implementations are now available:
Default Class Weights (default): all class weights are 1.0 (so, all works as before).
Average Hours A Week Class Weights: a weight of a class is estimated by the average number of hours it takes during the academic session.
IFS: Neighborhood Search Algorithms
Added a general versions of Hill Climber, Great Deluge, and Simulated Annealing to the solver, with three problem independent neighboorhoods:
Random move just picks a random unconflicting value to a variable.
Random swap tries to resolve all possible conflicts (unlike with suggestions there is no limit on depth, however, no new conflict can be created by resolving an existing one).
Suggestion move: a variable is selected randomly, a limited depth backtracking is used to find a possible change.
Unlike in NeighbourSelectionWithSuggestions, the very first found suggestion is returned.
Added a "simple search" algorithm that combines the ifs, hill climber, and great deluge or simulated annealing in a similar way as the examination solver (or the ITC competition solver) does.
This algorithm is enabled by setting the Search Algorithm solver parameter to Experimental.
Student Scheduling: Required Reservation Constraint
This global constraint ensures that reservations that must be used are used.
That is, an enrollment is conflicting when there is a reservation for the student that must be used, but the given enrollment does not use it.
While the domain of the course request already does not allow for such enrollments, such an enrollment can be loaded in from the database or XML.
This constraint is to prevent assignment of such invalid enrollments.
Course Timetabling: Room Ratio
Changed the computation of minimal room size to round(room ratio x class limit), instead of the previous ceil(room ratio x class limit).
While using ceiling instead of round has some merit, this fixes the ongoing issues with the computation.
E.g., minimal room size of a class with limit 25 and room ratio 0.6 was 16 (as 0.6f * 25 = 15.000001 in Java) instead of the expected 15.
Course Timetabling: MaxWeeks constraint
The MaxWeeks constraint limits the number of weeks during which the given set of classes are taught.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of weeks during which the given set of classes can be placed and a day code indicating what days of week are considered.
Reference _MaxWeeks:3:48_ translates to a maximum number of 3 weeks, but only for classes that are placed on Fridays and Saturdays
(64 for Monday, 32 for Tuesday, 16 for Wednesday, 8 for Thursday, 4 for Friday, 2 for Saturday, and 1 for Sunday)
If the second parameter is zero, all days of week are considered.
Course Timetabling: Classes with multiple rooms
For each time, limit the number of room combinations (parameter General.MaxRoomCombinations, defaults to 100).
Domain is dynamic (not cached) in this case, preferring rooms that are available for the given time (for which the room combinations are generated).
Course Timetabling: Max N Hours A Day constraint
Added ability to consider date patterns (individual weeks).
When solver parameter MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns is set to true (this is also the new default).
For former behavior, set MaxNHoursADay.ConsiderDatePatterns to false.

New in UniTime 3.4 Build 320 (Sep 9, 2014)

Bug Fixes:
Add Event
Fixed the behavior of the "contact information changed" confirmation when an academic session is changed.
Original contact got incorrectly reset to the current value of the main contact when the academic session was changed.
Examination Detail: Enrollment Table
Fixed the link when clicking on another exam of a student (from his/her examination schedule).
The link was broken in Firefox, but it worked fine in Chrome and Safari.
Buildings: Update Data
When update of room departments is enabled for existing rooms (unitime.external.room.update.existing and unitime.external.room.update.existing.departments are set to true):
Reset the list of departments to what is set in the external room departments table (instead of just adding new departments from the relation).
This fixes the issue of adding the same department into the relation every time the Update Data is clicked.
Data Exchange: Academic Session Restore
Fixed import of travel times (location ids were not properly translated).
Add Instructor
Fixed a Tomcat issue (page fails to compile with NoSuchElementException when Apache Tomcat 7.0.50 or later is used).
See https://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=56529 for more details (NoSuchElementException for attribute with empty string in custom tag).
Data Exchange: Session Restore
Fix Location.managerIds during restore.
It needs to list unique ids of the newly created departments, not the exported value.
Other Improvements
Examination Detail: Enrollments Table
Examinations for a student dialog: added a column (named Conflict) displaying examination conflicts.
Only course of the conflicting exam is displayed, following the conflict color coding (direct conflict in red, >2 exams a day in orange, back-to-back in yellow).
More information is available in mouse-over tooltip.
Conflicting class and course related events are displayed as well, also in red, with just the event name.
The Conflict column is only visible if there is at least one examination conflict in the student's schedule.
Events: Time Grid
Room details popup is shown whenever it is allowed to select some time in a room (mouse cursor is a cross).
Examination PDF Reports: Abbreviated Schedule, Individual Schedule, Instructor / Student
Conflicts, Schedule by Course / Period / Room, Period Chart
Subject field increased to 7 characters.
Course (number) field increased to 8 characters.
Section field increased to 9 characters.
Few additional adjustments to accommodate for the above changes.
Session Roll Forward
Do not check the target session on the SessionRollForward permission in the permission check.
This change allows a session administrator role to do the first step of the roll forward (there are no managers in the target academic session yet).
Constraint Solver Update
Student Scheduling: Reservations
Reservations that allow assignment over the class / configuration / course limit (i.e., individual reservations) have no limit cap.
Student Scheduling: Save XML
Fixed a null exception when the given file has no parent.
Ensure that student weights are formated with US locale (i.e., can be parsed using Float.valueOf()).
Student Sectioning Model
Extended info: Added ability to display a list of unbalanced sections
Maximal number of unbalanced sections to display is given by solver parameter Info.ListDisbalancedSections, defaults to zero.
Student Sectioning Reports
Added an interface that is implemented by all the reports (StudentSectioningReport).
Added time / availability conflicts report: unlike the existing course conflict report, conflicts are counted between individual classes.
Distance conflict report: changed to compute conflicts between individual classes.
Unbalanced sections report: list sections that are dis-balanced by more than 10%.
Time-overlaps report: list time conflicts between classes (that do allow for time overlaps).
Student Scheduling: Required Reservation constraint added
This global constraint ensures that reservations that must be used are used.
That is, an enrollment is conflicting when there is a reservation for the student that must be used, but the given enrollment does not use it.
While the domain of the course request already does not allow for such enrollments, such an enrollment can be loaded in from the database or XML.
This constraint is to prevent assignment of such invalid enrollments.
Student Sectioning: Student Choice Order
When the new solver property StudentChoiceOrder.Fast is set to true, estimate the number of choices in an offering simply by multiplying sizes of subparts that have no children.
This is turned on by default.
Student Sectioning: Course Request
Added a new solver parameter Sectioning.MaxDomainSize (defaults to -1) which, if set to a positive integer, effectively limits the domain size of a course request.
This means that offerings with hundreds of thousands of possible enrollments will only return a subset of the possible enrollments in the domain.
Also, an effort was made (in CourseRequest.computeEnrollments(...)) to spread the returned enrollments evenly across the (original/huge) domain.
Distance Metrics
Synchronize access to distance cache and travel times to improve thread safety.
IFS: neighborhood search algorithms
Added a general versions of hill climber, great deluge, and simulated annealing to the solver.
With two problem independent neighboorhoods:
Random move just picks a random unconflicting value to a variable
Random swap tries to resolve all possible conflicts (unlike with suggestions there is no limit on depth, however, no new conflict can be created by resolving an existing one)
Added a "simple search" algorithm that combines the ifs, hill climber, and great deluge or simulated annealing in a similar way as the examination solver (or the ITC competition solver) does.
Course Timetabling: Added a few problem dependent neighborhoods (only time or room is changed or swapped).
Added suggestion move
A variable is selected randomly, a limited depth backtracking is used to find a possible change.
Unlike in NeighbourSelectionWithSuggestions, the very first found suggestion is returned.
Use construction or IFS heuristics whenever there are unassigned variables.
Bigger neigbourhoods (swap / suggestion moves) limited by a time limit (defaults to 200ms)
If the limits is reached, the number of attempts is reduced to 1.
IFS: Hill Climber
Added ability not to set the HC mode on the neigbhourhoods.
In HC mode, the neighbourhoods (that support this feature) avoid returning worsening moves.
This, while improving the quality of the provided neighbourhoods, can slow down the sovler quite a bit in certain situations.
IFS: Step Counting Hill Climber
Implemented SCHC algorithm.
Inlike with the ordinary hill climber, there is a bound.
The bound is updated (to the value of the current solution) after a given number of moves.
Based on the given mode, either all moves, only accepted moves, or only improving moves are counted.
Weakening Constraints
Moved weakening of constraints into the standard neighbor selection (more general).
Also weaken all related weakening constraints when no value cannot be selected for the selected variable.
Course Timetable: Student Sectioning
Added ability to customize initial and final student sectioning.
All sectioning functions (that are needed in course timetabling) are accessed through TimetableModel.getStudentSectioning() interface.
Default (existing sectioning functionality) is wrapped with the DefaultStudentSectioning class, a custom sectioning can be provided by StudentSectioning.Class parameter.
Course Timetabling: Deterministic Student Sectioning
Deterministic implementation of the initial student sectioning.
This class assign students to groups in a deterministic way:
Students are ordered by their academic information (curriculum) and unique ids and assigned in this order to the first available group (configuration or lecture).
Course Timetabling: Group Constraint Forward Checking
Extend forward checking to all hard group constraints (not only meet-together).
Also include forward checking when inConflict method is used (to be consistent with computeConflicts).
Improved forward checking routine to avoid unnecessary pair checks.
Limit the depth of the forward checking (to avoid spending too much time in there).
Avoid forward check on variables with large domains (parameter ForwardCheck.MaxDomainSize, defaults to 1000).
Course Timetabling: MaxBreaks constraint
The MaxBreaks constraint limits the number of blocks of non back-to-back classes of an instructor on a day.
It has two parameters: a maximal number of breaks and a minimal length of a break between two classes not to be considered in the same block.
For example, reference _MaxBreaks:1:30_ translates to a maximum number of one break (two blocks) on a day of classes not more than 30 minutes a part.
Course Timetabling: XML Save
Ensure that student weights are formated with US locale (i.e., can be parsed using Float.valueOf()).
Course Timetabling: fixing (complete) solution phase
Limit the number of fixes by only fixing a new best solution if it was found more than 5000 iterations away from the last best solution.
Moved the parameters from the constructor to the initSolver method (to ensure that the parameters are properly set every time the solver starts).
Added a few parameters to be able enable / disable fix solution phase, or to define how often it can be executed.
Few more tweaks in the computation of the incremental change of the criterion.
Course Timetabling: Group / Flexible Constraint
Do not return a penalty when the constraint is hard (must be satisfied).
Course Timetabling: Useless Half Hours, Flexible Constraint, Broken Time Patterns, and Distribution Preferences criteria
Corrected computation of the incremental change of the criterion (wrong value was returned in some cases).
Course Timetabling: Class Weights
Added an ability to provide each class with a weight.
This weight is used in the time and room preferences (the preference is weighted by the "importance" of the class).
For instance, this can be used for classes that are only offered once in a semester to have a lower weight.
So that there is an incentive to put a class that is taught every week in a preferred time even if it bumps two classes (that only meet once) from their preferred times.
This also allows for things like giving compulsory or elective courses more weight over optional courses in the curriculum timetabling, if ever needed.
Course Timetabling: Group Constraints
Cache TimeLocation.getFirstMeeting.
This significantly improves the evaluation of precedence constraints.
Back-to-back sequence check: prefer conflict sets that do not contain the placement in question.
Course Timetabling: Placement.getNotValidReason(Assignment)
When the placement is invalid due to an instructor or a room that is not available, try to include the name of the conflicting event in the reason.
Course Timetabling: Placement Validity Check (e.g. used in purging invalid values)
Exclude weakening constraints from the check (a value that may become valid later in the search process should not be removed from the domain).
Student Scheduling Assistant
Display the allowed time conflicts note (Overlaps with x) in red color.
There is also a warning icon next to each class that has a time conflict.

New in UniTime 3.2 Build 125 (Feb 21, 2011)

New in UniTime 3.2 Build 120 (Feb 2, 2011)

User interface:
Student Scheduling Assistant:
Adopted to use the new priority weighting model
adding penalization for sections without time assignment, over
expected sections, and sections that have a different time or
instructor than selected
Only show Enroll button when it is available
Show LoadingWidget while waiting
Display free time requests as red background in the timetable grid
Examination Timetable
Date filter corrected for the case when session start date is in a different year than the period.
Event Timetable:
Room Timetable: Only show rooms that can be used for event management.
Scheduling Subpart Detail / Edit
Added student allow overlap toggle.
If checked, students will be allowed to take classes from this
subpart even when they are overlapping with other classes.
Constraint Solver Update (CPSolver 1.2.29)
Student Sectioning Solver:
New priority weighting model:
total student weight is between zero and one (one means student got
the best schedule)
weight of the given priority course is higher than sum of the
remaining weights the student can get
first alternative is better than the following course
second alternative is better than the second following course
distance conflicts are considered secondary (priorities should be
maximized first), and only counted on the lower priority course
time overlaps can cut up to 50% of the weight on both courses that
overlap (when overlapping completely)
if alternative sections are otherwise equal, the better balanced one
is preferred
New equal weighting model:
all course (non alternative) requests have equal weight
first alternatives have lower weight than first choices, but equal
among themselves
second alternatives have lower weight than first alternatives,
alternative course requests than second alternatives
distance conflicts are considered secondary, and only counted on
the lower priority course
time overlaps can cut up to 50% of the weight on both courses that
overlap (when overlapping completely)
if alternative sections are otherwise equal, the better balanced one
is preferred
Time overlaps:
added ability for some classes to overlap (time overlap is
minimized) -- to be defined on scheduling subparts
minimize overlaps with free times (when those cannot be fully
satisfied)
Batch sectioning improvements:
added a new priority based construction phase
enforce course and configuration limits
Section balancing:
Small weight is removed from assignments that further dis-balance
a section
Small weight is added to assignments that better balance the section
Target balance:
Sections with limits: section limit x ( subpart enrollment /
subpart limit )
Unlimited sections: subpart enrollment / number of sections in
the subpart
Student weights parameters were added to solver configuration.
Load information about whether student overlaps are allowed.
Apache Tomcat 7 Compatibility Issues
Query Log:
Fixed the AbstractMethodError in QueryLogFilter (by changing the
HttpServletRequestWrapper to be a Java Proxy)
Various Pages:
Corrected syntax to meet the new Tomcat 7 validation
Bug Fixes:
Course Timetabling Database Loader
Avoid meetings outside of the session (IndexOutOfBoundsException:
bitIndex < 0: -167)
Other Changes:
Data Exchange:
Course Offering Import: student overlaps should be disabled by
default.

New in UniTime 3.2 Build 107 (Dec 23, 2010)

New in UniTime 3.2 Build 93 RC 3 (Dec 1, 2010)

BUG FIXES & OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
First Release of UniTime 3.2 (Release Candidate 3)
Look & feel changes
Menu on the top of the page or on the side
Can be changed in user preferences (user.menu.style property)
User / solver info -> solver, user, session components under page title
Back button (does not work well in Chrome)
Help page opens in a dialog
A disclaimer message (in HTML format) can be added at the bottom of every page.
Value of the application property tmtbl.page.disclaimer.
Room & building coordinates can be in GPS
A map showing the room's location can be displayed on the Room Detail page
Edit pages can use Google maps to enter coordinates
Non-university locations can have GPS coordinates set
Rooms can ignore distances (not just non-university locations)
More informative tooltips
Events (all pages): show tooltip on locations including name, display name, room type, minimap,
capacity, global groups and features
Classes, Instructional Offerings: show enlarged version of the time preferences table as tooltip
for time preferences icon
Examinations: show enlarged version of the period preferences table as tooltip for period
preferences icon
Classes, Instructional Offerings, Examinations: show list of distribution objects in the tooltip
of a distribution preference
Classes, Instructional Offerings, Examinations: show a bigger tooltip for room and building preferences
(including minimap and capacity, global room/features for rooms)
Rooms: show a bigger tooltip for room sharing, exam period preferences, room and building names
New version of people lookup dialog
Show each person only once (merging information from various sources)
Only people having external id are displayed (external id is used to merge contact information)
Except on events, where people without external id are displayed in gray and at the bottom of the list
It is now possible to search people by email as well
Suggestions, Class Assignment, Examination Assignment, Date pattern preview, wiki help
Use GWT-based dialog box instead of opening a new browser window
Suggestions, Class/Examination Assignment -refresh the parent page when a new assignment is made
Event Timetable
Timetable of a room, person, department, curriculum, subject area
Including all events, calendar-like time grid as well as list, export to iCalendar
Solver changes
Added ability to use GPS coordinates
Back-to-back distance student conflict are now based on break times
Course demand can be based on
Last-like student enrollments
Projected course demands (last-like + curriculum projections)
Curriculum-based (with or without last-like information)
Current student enrollments
Student course requests
Student sectioning in course timetabling changes
Students can be moved among committed classes as well
May or may not include courses that do not have any classes of the problem (default only for
curriculum-based demands where students are made up)
New features
Curriculum-based Course Timetabling
Curriculum Projections page
Curricula / Curriculum Edit / Curriculum Details page
Curricula section on Instructional Offering Details page
Academic Areas, Classifications, Majors, Minors administrative page
Curricula XML export/import
Student Sectioning Assistant
Still more of a demo as it only allows for class assignment changes (with no rescheduling)
Student Course Requests page for collecting student pre-registration (must be enabled by
session status)
Other
Update of underlying technologies
Constraint Solver Library 1.2
Hibernate 3.5, Struts 1.3.10, iText 5.0.2, GWT 2.1
Unified sending of emails
Replaced Hibernate Synchronizer with a home-made class
Code cleanup
Queue for roll-forward and data exchange
Online documentation moved to help.unitime.org (powered by Google Sites)
Added default implementation of LDAP external uid lookup, translation between uid and external id
Excessive days/months on sessions/date patterns made more general.
Few improvements to the Timetable (grid) page (e.g., show event when a solution from the database is
displayed).
Room allocation report (Solvers Reports page) improved (counting of weekly hour usage)
Select Academic Session / Select User Role: table or roles / sessions made sortable, default order
by session (last session first)
Event Detail: added Inquire button (an email is sent, a message is added to events history); added
ability to attach a file to a approve / inquiry / reject email
Events / Meetings: added export to CSV; added enrollment counts for exam and course related events;
added filter by day of week and time
Woebegon example contains a new term (Fall 2010) with few example curricula defined
Examination Assignment page, examination reports: for the sake of consistency, exam size (if set)
overrides the number of students on an exam in all cases (not just for the examination solver)
Exporting an iCalendar now produces a URL that can be shared.
Manage Solvers: it is now possible to unload a (working) solver
Hibernate configuration files: all table names are now in lower-case avoiding the need to set MySQL to
case insensitive mode on Linux based systems
Timetable: added ability to show/hide non-class events
It is now possible to create an academic session over a whole year (but not longer than a year)
Events: when filtering rooms by non-university location room type, added ability to select the room
from a drop down box
Rooms: added navigation
Added optional registration
License update to GNU General Public License, Version 3 (was Version 2)
Added list of dependencies (including URLs, copyrights, and licenses)
Added query log (Page Statistics page)
Examinations: Added ability to automatically put a preference on an original building (i.e., building of
a room in which the related class took place)
Course timetabling solver: handling of meet with constraint improved
Course offerings: course number can be in lower case (automatic conversion to upper case is disabled when
tmtbl.courseNumber.upperCase property is set to false)
Fixes
All recent fixes of UniTime 3.1 are included (see below)
Personal Schedule -fixed the ability to change sessions for an administrator looking up a student's schedule
Fixed a problem in people lookup (single quotation marks were not escaped)
Preview of a date pattern -window size increased to fit more months
Delete Session -all room group / feature relations were deleted (not just the ones of the session)
Added workaround for a Java Bug 4466485 (URL.getFile() may return for spaces on Windows).
UniTime 3.1 Bug Fixes & Other Improvements
PDF Exam reports
Reports Queue
Process only one report at a time by putting all requests for a PDF exam report into a queue.
Display current queue (of PDF exam reports) on the page, if it is not empty.
There is also an ability to delete a request from the queue before it is processed.
Also show reports (including log and output files) that were finished during the last hour.
Exam Verification Report -Class not full-term message
Fixed an issue with the message not being printed in some cases (POL 10100).
Session Roll-Forward
After rolling forward last like demand data, update the last like demand counts on the Course Offerings.
Fix bug where solver groups were not being placed on the timetable managers during roll forward.
Data Exchange
Student Enrollment Import
Update class / course enrollments by default.
Fixed the queries that do the update to work on MySQL as well.
When classes have no external ids, allow the given external id (in the XML file) to match on the class name.
Student Sectioning Import
If a new student is created, set all required properties.
Update both sides of the course request relations (student demands requested courses) to avoid
Hibernate cache issues.
Other
When a manager of a class is changed, not only delete all related class assignments (class belongs to
a different problem), but also delete the related class event.
This (class having an event associated but no committed assignment) was causing a problem on the
Class Assignment page.
Fixed a bug that was introduced in October 2009 -exam print offset got completely ignored.
Fixes related to an old date patterns change (adding extra 3 months before and after the data pattern,
from Jul)
Exam print offset got completely ignored
Week filter on Timetable page fixed
Course timetabling solver -room availability was incorrect (all meetings got shifted by these 3 months).
Room Allocation report (Solution Reports page) fixed.
Add Event: Changed location search to use an in statement when searching for room groups rather than
an or statement. This makes the search more efficient.
Examination conflicts: query returning overlapping course meetings with required attendance improved
Add Event: fixed a problem with creating a course event with >1000 students
Enrollment Audits: Ensure the correct enrollment is used for the audit results when a student is enrolled
in multiple names of a cross listed course.
Edit Date Pattern: fixed ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException when pattern offset is negative, assumption about
the days of weeks corrected
Class Assignment: remove all related constraint infos to avoid hibernate cache issues when an orphaned
constraint info is automatically deleted
This should fix the ObjectNotFoundException on the Class Assignment page
Student sectioning: check for LazyInitializationException during save
Remote solver server: added ability to override database connection string by the
tmtbl.solver.connection.url property
Examination verification report: limit the length of the scheduling note to fit within one line

New in UniTime 3.1 Build 284 (Oct 20, 2010)

New in UniTime 3.1 Build 264 (May 26, 2010)

BUG FIXES & OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
Student Sectioning
Added a set of Enrollment Audit PDF reports.
Enrollments Violating Course StructureThis report lists where students are enrolled in a class that has
a parent class but the student is not enrolled in the parent class.
Missing Course EnrollmentsThis report lists where student are enrolled in a course offering but are not
enrolled in a class in each of the subparts within a configuration of the courses offering.
Multiple Course EnrollmentsThis reports lists where students are enrolled in more than one class within
a subpart. If a student is allowed to enroll in a course offering more than once in a term this student will
be listed here as well.
Session Roll-Forward
Fixed bug that occurred when rolling forward courses that do not have a unique subject area and course number.
Added functionality to push class time patterns up to the scheduling subpart level as part of the roll forward
of scheduling subparts.
Fixed bug with rolling forward a room preference for a room that does not have an external id.
The course offering roll forward is being modified to do the following:
1. An option has been added to allow the user to select whether or not to roll forward subpart level time
preferences. The default is for these preferences to roll forward as is. Required stays required, prohibited
stays prohibited, etc. If the user chooses not to roll forward subpart level time preferences the time patterns
will remain but the time preferences for those patterns a removed.
2. An option has been added to allow the user to select whether or not to roll forward subpart level location
preferences. The default is for these preferences is to roll forward as is. If the user chooses not to roll
forward subpart level location preferences, no room, building, room feature or room group preferences are moved
forward.
3. An option has been added to allow the user to promote appropriate class preferences to the subpart level.
The default is to do nothing with class level preferences. If the user selects to promote the appropriate
class preferences to the subpart level and the scheduling subpart does not already have a room preference,
then any room preferences that exist on all classes within a scheduling subpart are moved to the subpart
level as is. The same rule applies to building, room group, and room feature preferences. In this case
required stays required, prohibited stays prohibited, etc. If a scheduling subpart does not have any time
patterns assigned to it, all time patterns on its child classes will be pushed up the the subpart level.
In addition if the same time preference exists on all classes within a scheduling subpart and does not
contain any requires or prohibits then that time preference is also moved to the subpart level.
PDF Exam reports speedup
Preloading student exam enrollments (this broke with the change for cross-listed exams).
Preloading Class_ -> ClassEvent relation.
When solver is used, preload crosslisted exams (solver does not know about them, it takes too long to load
them one by one).
Removed relation Class_-> sectioningInfo (using SectioningInfo -> Class_ instead where needed) to avoid
unnecessary queries.
Few other small changes.
Configuration
Hibernate DTDs bundled with the application.
This is to avoid application deployment problems when Hibernate is unable to validate configuration because
of a poor internet connection.
See Q9 of http://wiki.unitime.org/Timetabling_Installation_FAQ
Simplified JAAS configuration by using tmtbl.authenticate.modules rather than .java.login.config file.
It contains a semicolon separated list of authentication modules with their configuration flag.
Default is sufficient DbAuthenticateModule;sufficient LdapAuthenticateModule
Ldap module is ignored if LDAP provider is not set
Changes to Database Update to allow custom add on packages to UniTime to install their own database updates
on startup.
Other
Instructors: When application property tmtbl.instructor.allowExternalIdEdit exists and is set to true, it is
allowed to edit instructor external id.
Rooms: Corrected display of departmental room groups and features (i.e., display departmental features/groups
of the selected department).
Added many to many relation between curricula and majors.
Class assignment: Avoid throwing an exception when given dates are empty (this fixes the issue with SCI
90900 Ind 1).
Modified Time Pattern Edit to allow a time pattern that is in use to be edited if the session is in the
Initial Data Load status and the "tmtbl.time_pattern.initial_data_load.editable" application property is set
to true. By default this value is "false".
If a time pattern is edited in this state, all time preferences that refer to the time pattern will have
their preference string set back to null. This is because modifying a time pattern changes the layout of
the preference string for that time pattern so existing preferences using that time pattern are no longer
valid.

New in UniTime 3.1 Build 248 (Apr 8, 2010)

BUG FIXES & OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
Timetable page (containing the time grid)
Added following properties in order to be able to change the periods in which the time is printed (30 minutes periods starting 7:30am by default). The default values are as follows:
tmtbl.timeGrid.slotsPerPeriod=6 # Number of time (5-minute long) slots per period
tmtbl.timeGrid.firstDaySlot=90 # 90 5-minutes slots from midnight ~ 7:30 am
tmtbl.timeGrid.lastDaySlot=209 # last day slot 5:25 pm5:30 pm
tmtbl.timeGrid.lastEveningSlot=275 # last evening slot 10:55 pm11:00 pm
Instructional Offerings
Put in temporary change to prevent users from entering 9999 in the "Number of Classes" field on the
"Instructional Offering Configuration" edit page. If the user enters 9999 in the field when they leave the field the value is set to 0.
Remove restriction from Instructional Offering Configuration edit page that prevented the user from
creating more than one class per scheduling subpart when working with a configuration marked as having unlimited enrollment.
Added display of infinity symbol to limits column for classes that are part of unlimited enrollment configurations. Changed drunken 8 to be a true infinity symbol.
Limit size of number of classes field to 3 digits on the Configuration Edit screen.
Class Assignment
Toggle "Do not unassign conflicting classes" moved to a more appropriate place (under the table with
new assignments). The conflicting assignments are now recomputed on change.
Added ability to filter the list of rooms by room types, global room groups and global room features.
Examination Assignment
Added ability to filter the list of rooms by room types, global room groups and global room features.
Examination Reports
Removed number of registered students from the Exam Statistics Report as this number may be misleading (it could include last-like students).
Administration
Manage Solvers: Improved checking for solver inconsistencies (fewer exceptions should be thrown when a solver instance is caught in an inconsistent state)
Other
If an exception is seen print a warning message (including request URI, user login and request parameters for easier debugging).
Fixed broken compatibility with Java 5.

UniTime Changelog

What's new in UniTime 4.0 Build 17

New in UniTime 4.0 Build 12 (Apr 20, 2015)

New in UniTime 4.0 Build 2 (Mar 26, 2015)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 210 (Mar 3, 2015)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 196 (Jan 26, 2015)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 187 (Dec 29, 2014)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 169 RC 2 (Nov 5, 2014)

New in UniTime 3.4 Build 321 (Oct 30, 2014)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 164 RC 1 (Oct 25, 2014)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 153 Beta 1 (Oct 2, 2014)

New in UniTime 3.5 Build 136 Beta (Sep 9, 2014)

New in UniTime 3.4 Build 320 (Sep 9, 2014)

New in UniTime 3.2 Build 125 (Feb 21, 2011)

New in UniTime 3.2 Build 120 (Feb 2, 2011)

New in UniTime 3.2 Build 107 (Dec 23, 2010)

New in UniTime 3.2 Build 93 RC 3 (Dec 1, 2010)

New in UniTime 3.1 Build 284 (Oct 20, 2010)

New in UniTime 3.1 Build 264 (May 26, 2010)

New in UniTime 3.1 Build 248 (Apr 8, 2010)

New in UniTime 3.1 Build 129 (Dec 28, 2008)

New in UniTime 3.1 Build 122 (Oct 28, 2008)