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Silk Student Information System School Scheduling Checklist Detail

Phase I: School Setup

Silk SIS 1997 – 2009 ExLogica, Inc. of 36


Calendar and Basic Data Prep (Silk 303)

_____Set up Calendar (Calendar | Edit Calendar)

• Start date and days in scheduling cycle (MTWRF)

• Terms: Traditional High schools and Middle Schools have two Semester terms; Block High schools have 4 Quarter terms.

o Remember to change dates when district dates are official

o Do not allow end date to overlap start date of next term

• Daily Periods (Timeslots) o Extra timeslots for homeroom, OJT, therapy pullouts

o Set last line item equal to homeroom class minutes (can specify position in schedule on the next tab)

Note: Class times are used only to compute contact minutes / class duration. This tab is not intended to reflect actual bell schedule, unless coincidentally you have no overlapping timeslots (such as lunch waves built into three different timeslots).

• Custom Meeting codes

o Per 1, Per 2, Per 3, Per HR, OJT, ARR, etc.

• Per HR used by all middle schools for homeroom.

• HR used by high schools to load homeroom classes in alphabetical order. o Use the pulldown called Period Number to determine the display order of meeting

times on printed schedules. Example: If homeroom is after Per 1 on a student schedule, use the pulldown to set Per HR to number 2, even though it is mapped to the 8 th row for the purpose of tracking class minutes. Per 2 is then set to 3 so it appears 3 rd on the schedule.

Report: Custom Meeting Codes




_____Add courses to Courses Offered (VIEW | COURSES OFFERED)

• Add courses from District Course list offered at your school next year. (use green new record button)

• View added courses with binoculars

• Remove course offerings not offered in the Scheduling Calendar o Delete courses not used next year using trash can icon

o If attempt to delete causes a referential integrity error, use the Offered in Scheduler control (clear the checkbox)

Reports: Course Catalog (district full set); Courses Offered by course ID

_____Set up teachers, teacher courses, and teacher schools (VIEW | TEACHERS)

• If a staff member is to be assigned to classes in master schedule o Status must be Active o Teaching status must be C (Certified)

o Check Is Counselor if assigned to students as the Guidance Counselor.

• Primary room assignment – used for autoassign function o maximum of one teacher per room for autoassign

o do not assign multiuse rooms to a teacher o do not assign floating teachers to any rooms

• Teacher Courses – which courses to be assigned in next year’s master schedule (in Silk this is called “Certifications”)

o Allowed, intended, or certified to teach

• Do not bother with priority for now; maybe later

• Do no assign min, max class sections; maybe later

• Teacher Schools – for itinerate staff who teach at multiple schools and need to be assigned in each school’s master schedule




• Add new teacher Records as needed (neon green box is New Record icon) o Make sure to use the correct teacher ID, since this cannot be edited. Use payroll

number that are numeric containing no alpha characters o Add temporary teacher records as place holders if needed for new hires. Use

alpha characters for the teacher id. Do not start a fake ID with 000. Use a teacher id that identifies your school and the position to be filled. Example:

• TID: AMSLA1 (for Allen Middle School, first Language Arts vacancy)

• First Name: Teacher

• Last Name: LangArts1 o Inactivate teachers with incorrect IDs or unused placeholders

o If no longer at your school, move teacher to district pool called No School

Reports: Course Certifications report by Teacher; by Course




_____Set up rooms (VIEW | ROOMS)

Reports: Room Caps; Room Teacher Assignment report

• Room description may include teacher name or department name

• Capacity takes precedence over class maximums if room capacity is lower.

_____Set up guidance groups (VIEW | GROUPS) Guidance Counselors need a way to easily access information about the students under their purview. If they create guidance groups, they can use the Group Filter feature rather than student filter criteria to view student records or print reports for their own students.

Additionally, if the district establishes a naming convention such as Guidance Jones Ma – Tz, someone with access to query the database can easily populate the Student.CounselorID field for all students.

• Add Students to Group. o Choose VIEW | GROUPS, create new group, accept the new record (Green check)

o Add students to the Student Roster tab § Use the 3 rd button down: Add Students from this School

o Use button to Add Selected Students. § Filter the selection list to narrow down the students to choose from.

§ Hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple students and Click OK to add students to the group.

o Unlike Teams where students can only belong to one team, students can be member of an unlimited number of groups.

Note: When selecting students to add to groups, the grade level shown in the student selection list is current grade level. Once you add students to a group and view the group in the Scheduler, the grade level shown is next year’s grade level.

• Refresh Guidance Groups periodically

o Choose VIEW | STUDENT GROUPS and go to the Roster tab. o Select all students and click the Remove button

o Recreate the roster by using the button Add Students from this School

Reports: Student Group Rosters




Scheduler Settings (Silk 401)

_____Global Scheduler Settings (OPTIONS MENU| SCHEDULER SETTINGS)

• Default class size purpose and use o Any one or all three of the class size values can be overridden coursebycourse

by Scheduler Administrators in Courses Offered individual records o MIN and OPT Used by SILK to in the onetime automatic process that creates

your starter set of sections:

§ Used only in the onetime automatic process to create sections in February § Changes to MIN and OPT settings that you make after you begin adjusting

sections manually affect your set up for subsequent years, but not for the current scheduling cycle

§ MIN tells Silk whether to create even one section of the course. Set the default Min class to ONE if you want Silk to create a section for courses with only one student request for the course. You can always delete the section later if you determine that you cannot combine those classes with similar sections into one multilevel class (see Class Combinations in section 403)

§ OPT to compute precisely how many sections to create as a starter set of sections:

• number of total requests ÷ OPT = number of sections o MAX Not used by Silk until when running Loads in March/April

§ Upper limit class cap that Silk uses when loading students. This is the ONLY class size value used by Silk loader

• APPLY GLOBAL ALTERNATES TOWARDS ELECTIVE REQUESTS ONLY o Set this option to YES always

• TEACHER MAX CLASSES PER DAY an average that Silk uses to auto assign teachers and later, to assign times to classes assigned to teachers.

• ENABLE TEAM SCHEDULING – set to null for now; we’ll change this setting at load time

• LOADER TIMEOUT – set to 60 second to allow loader up to 1 min per student

_____Set Overrides in Courses Offered (VIEW | COURSES OFFERED)

• Required flag – check box for required courses; leave blank for electives o Requests for required courses get higher priority than elective requests o Required courses are never automatically replaced by alternates

• Terms duration (time to complete the course)




Important: Pay attention to this setting and check it periodically throughout the scheduling season. Terms must be correct prior to creating classes! You will not be able to change terms duration of a course after you create even one section of the course.

o 2 terms to earn 1.0 credit; 1 term to earn .5 credit

• Class size: MAX, MIN, OPT class sizes o Verify defaults in SCHEDULER SETTINGS.

§ No change in course records if defaults in Scheduler Settings apply o OPT number of total requests ÷ Opt = number of sections

o MIN – minimum number of requests needed to create 1 section o MAX – upper limit cap that Silk uses when scheduling students; purpose of Max

is to cap the number seats to be filled by the loader.

• TEAM SCHEDULED flag – class loader control that can be set this before loading classes. (See section 406)

• TERM AFFINITY – Set for semester long courses if all sections of this course must begin in the term

o default of zero allows sections to be distributed equally among all terms

• SEGMENT LENGTH – o This is the length of class segments. Leave default segment length of 1.

• SAME CLASS ROSTER restriction – class loader control that can be set before loading classes (See section 406)

o If cleared, this setting allows students to be scheduled into different sections of the class in different terms.

o This setting applies to all sections of this course. You can opt to leave this global restriction in place and override for an individual student’s request for this course

Reports: Courses Offered by course ID

_____Test District ACR rules (SETUP | RUN AUTOMATIC COURSE REQUESTS)

• Run all rules at once or specify which rules to run. This gives all students a ‘starter’ set of course requests before you begin entering electives.

Tip: Make it a habit to use the CLEAR ALL button as soon as you open the dialog so that you do not inadvertently run ACRs that replace detailed editing by counselors.

• If you do some of the manual entry before applying rules, you can apply them anyway; ACRs applied later simply add to your entries.

Note: If you have manually deleted requests that were initially added by the automatic ACR process, applying the ACR rule again adds them back.

Reports: ACR Rules


Phase II: Student Course Requests



Pre – Registration (Silk 401)

_____Run District ACR rules (SETUP | RUN AUTOMATIC COURSE REQUESTS)

• Run all rules at once or specify which rules to run. This gives all students a ‘starter’ set of core courses before you begin entering electives.

Tip: Make it a habit to use the CLEAR ALL button as soon as you open the dialog so that you do not inadvertently run ACRs that replace detailed editing by counselors.


Note: If you have manually deleted requests that were initially added by the automatic ACR process, applying the ACR rule again adds them back.

_____Verify Requests created by ACRs (SETUP | TRANSFER AND DELETE REQUESTS)

• Review tallies by grade level using team and group filters to isolate problems

• Use the Course Request Roster to see name of students requesting a specific course

• If after analyzing your tallies you want to delete requests, go to the Setup menu and choose the Transfer command. The dialog offers the Delete option, where you delete requests for one course code at a time.

During the ACR testing phase ONLY, you can experiment with ways to mass delete requests. If you create an ACR that deletes all requests as some schools did last year, you should delete that ACR as soon as possible to avoid tragic errors downstream.

• You can do manual entry of requests before applying rules; ACRs applied later simply add to the existing list. However, if your manual work deletes an automatic course, ACRs applied later will add it back

Warning: Do not delete requests using the checkbox on the Run Automatic Course Requests dialog; too many unpredictable results, and the option is

Reports: ACR Rules, Course Request Tallies, Course Request Roster, Request Analysis Report, Request Verification Notices




_____Create Student Teams needed for School ACRs (VIEW | TEAMS)

• Create teams to: o Isolate a group of students and teacher for schedule exclusivity (more on this in

section 405 Loader controls)

o Use in filters for schoollevel Automatic Course Request rules. For example, students in a specialized Technology program may need to request specific Technology courses.

o Display the team name in the student header banner

• If using teams only for this purpose, turn off Team Scheduling in Scheduler Setting

• Choose View | Teams, create new team, save record and add students to the Student Roster tab.

o Use button to Add Selected Students. o Filter the selection list to narrow down the students to choose from.

• Hold down the Shift key to select all records between the first and last

• Hold down the Ctrl key to select nonadjacent records

• Click OK to add students to the team. o Students can belong to one team only.

• Their names are not on the selection list if they belong to another team.

• In order to reassign a student to a different team, you must first remove her from her current team.

Note: When selecting students to add to teams, the grade level shown in the student selection list is current grade level. Once you add students to a team, the display reflects next year’s grade level.

• Add Teachers o Click on the Teachers tab and choose button to Add Selected Teachers. o Teachers can belong to one team only.

§ They are not on the selection list if already assigned to a team

§ In order to reassign a teacher to another team, you must first remove her from her current team.

Note: If you are not using Team Scheduling as a loader control, adding teachers to a team is optional and informational (See Section 406)

Reports: Team Roster (Scheduler), Students with No Team (Scheduler)




_____Create and run schoollevel ACRs

• Create an unlimited number of schooldefined rules with corresponding filters and request sets to reduce the volume of data entry. Start rule name with your school acronym.

• Test ACR filters by using the same filter in the Student Record finder (Binoculars on Student form.) The student records returned in the list are the students affected by the rule. Finetune and correct the ACR filter before running the rule.

• Run all rules at once or specify which rules to run.


• If you run ACRs after deleting requests initially added by an ACR, the ACR adds the deleted courses back.

• Verify tallies by grade level, team, and group; review individual names of students using course rosters and the Student | Requests screen with form filters turned on

_____Distribute Request Verifications with registration packets

Reports: Request Verification Notices

Course Requests Finalization (Silk 402)

_____Enter elective requests, alternates, and schedule preferences

• Use Student registration forms as a guide for entering details of requests into Silk. o Use the Add button

• Learn how to quickly multiple select courses with keyboard entry o Order of requests matters –

• Silk Loader first schedules Required requests in order they appear, then nonRequired requests in order they appear.

• Mass changes (see commands on SETUP MENU) o Autoassign course requests

§ rerun existing ACR rules or create additional rules (SETUP | RUN AUTOMATIC COURSE REQUESTS)

§ If a request already exists in the student’s request file, applying ACRs does not add duplicate requests. ACRs add requests if they do not exist and ignores them if they do exist.

o Batch assign course requests –




§ Go to SETUP | BATCH ADD REQUESTS to add requests using a filter § think of this as a temporary ACR rule that is not stored or saved

o Batch Add Request Preferences

§ Go to SETUP | BATCH ADD REQUESTS o Transfer / delete requests

§ Go to SETUP | TRANSFER REQUESTS § This is the recommended method of deleting requests for all students or by

student filter

• Individual course request changes o Go to STUDENT FORM | REQUESTS tab o Add alternates (right click on a specific request to flag an alternate)

§ Global alternates can replace any elective in the request set

• Refers to Required / Elective flag in Courses Offered § Coursespecific alternates can replace only the course listed above it

o Scheduling preferences for individual requests (double click on specific request to edit preferences) § Teacher – select from list

§ Section – type in Section ID Note: Specify Section preferences after creating classes and editing the section ID. This helps you avoid referencing a section that doesn’t exist. See more info in Silk Course 406.

§ Term preference – for a partyear course offered in multiple terms. In other words, if offered only in fall semester, no preference is needed.

Note: Term preferences are not needed for prerequisites. Use Course Scheduling Rules to make sure prerequisites get scheduled in the correct term.

§ Partial Sched – for a yearlong course which the student needs only part (e.g., one semester). In other words, if the course is already split into different course codes (like Algebra 1a and 1b), no partial request is needed.

Note: Use either a term preference or a partial Schedule request never both.

_____Rerun Tallies, verify 100% complete course requests

Reports: Course Request Tallies: Students with No Requests; Requests Analysis Report – exceptions only; Requests for Courses Not Offered




_____Distribute final Request Verifications Notices to students and parents

Reports: Request Verification Notices – one page per student

_____Create Student Scheduling Rules (OPTIONS | COURSE SCHEDULING RULES)

Create Course Scheduling Rules to define the relationship between two courses requested by a student that the class loader must follow when scheduling students into classes.

• This loader rule affects only students requesting both courses o Course A not same term as Course B o Course A not same period as Course B

o Course A same teacher as Course B o Course A before Course B

o Course B after Course A

• District may request that a basic set of Course Scheduling Rules be copied to all schools to encourage consistency and reduce errors. Please contact your trainer if you have created a rule that could be useful at other schools.

Reports: Course Scheduling Rules


Phase III: Master schedule Construction



Section decisions (Silk 403)

_____Create and name the master schedule file (FILE | NEW)

• Choose FILE | NEW or launch the Create Master Schedule task from the SCHEDULING STATUS CHECKLIST

• Consider your first MS file a template or a foundation for other Master Schedules

• Use a naming convention that includes your school acronym and the date, such as AMS 228

Tip: After creating the MS file, you can rename it at anytime using the Master Schedule Properties dialog: right click anywhere in the MS Class window and choose the Properties command. (There is no File | Save As command.)

_____Analyze and adjust MS Courses

• Once it’s created, your MS file window opens with 2 tabs; Classes and Courses. Click on the COURSES TAB.

• Review the following columns on the COURSES TAB of the MS window: Nrequests, Max Sections, Nterms, Max, Min, Opt students.

• Adjust course settings one of the following ways: o Right click on a course and choose VIEW | COURSES OFFERED command as a

shortcut to the form.

§ Changing the setting in COURSES OFFERED does NOT change the setting in the existing MS.

§ After making changes, you can create a new master schedule file. o Double click on the selected course to open COURSE PROPERTIES DIALOG.

§ Changing course properties only affects this MS. § Make changes BEFORE creating class sections.

• Right click on a course and choose the REQUESTS command to display a list of student requesting the course

Tip: Right click on student name and select Edit Student Requests as a shortcut to the specific student’s request screen

Reports: Courses Offered by Course ID




_____Create a starter set of class sections (SETUP | CREATE CLASS SECTIONS) Multiple instances of a course are known as ‘classes’ (synonymous with ‘sections’ in Silk). One way to create classes is to add them to the MSClasses window one at a time using the Add button. In order to reduce your keyboard entry time, Silk offers an automatic process that creates your starter set of class sections. When you launch the process, Silk quickly and efficiently generates hundreds of sections and displays them on the MSClasses pane. Do not run the automatic process again after you start finetuning the number of sections.

Note: Silk determines the appropriate number of sections to create based on Opt and MIN class size criteria and request counts. Please verify those settings carefully before launching the automatic process to set up class sections.

• Launch the Create Class Sections task from the SCHEDULING STATUS CHECKLIST or choose SETUP | SETUP CLASS sections

• SILK uses your Min and Opt settings in this onetime automatic process

o Number of total requests ÷ OPT = number of sections o MIN tells Silk whether to create even one section of the course

o Global Min and Opt settings in Options | Scheduler Settings o Courselevel overrides of global Min and Opt settings in Courses Offered

Warning: Never run the automatic process to create class sections again after you begin making manual adjustments to the number of sections. If you do, Silk replaces the sections you deleted in your analysis process.

• Verify that class sections now exist by opening the master schedule to the MS Classes tab

Reports: Master Schedule Class List

_____Analyze and adjust the number of class sections (MS WINDOW | CLASSES TAB)

• Go to the COURSES TAB and sort on NSections o Verify that Silk created an appropriate number of sections o Check the specific mathematics for a sampling of sections to reinforce your

understanding of the formula, ie where Silk gets the values used in the formula • To view all sections, switch to CLASSES TAB

o You may need to use REFRESH button at bottom right of screen to see the number of sections in the NSections column

• On the CLASSES TAB, relocate columns (left mouse – lift, drag, and drop) to match this order from left to right:

o LINK– Classes related through the Silk Linking feature

o COMBO – Classes related through the Silk Class combination feature




o CRS ID – Course code from District courses

o SEC – Sequential section ID starting with 1 for the first section created by Silk o COURSE NAME from District courses

o NSECTIONS – number of sections o NREQUESTS – Avg seats per section / total number of requests

o NTERMS – course duration in number of terms o BEGTERM – the term number of the term the class should start

• Carefully review the values the following columns: o NTERMS (as set in Courses Offered); o NREQUESTS (number on the right is the count of primary requests – without

alternates); o NSECTIONS (course with one section is a singleton, course with 2 sections a

doubleton) o SEC – Section number (doubleclick to edit the number – builtin default is

sequential) § Change section number to highlight special handling (see details below)

• To add class sections manually: o Focus your cursor on any existing section of the course and click ADD button. o In the ADD CLASSES dialog, specify course and number of sections to add

o If no sections of the course exist, use the lookup to open the SEARCH WINDOW and locate the course, either by course code or name

• To delete a class section o Focus your cursor on the existing section on the CLASSES tab, click the DELETE

button, and answer Yes to Are you sure?

o Delete the highestnumbered section first; SILK does not renumber sections if you delete a lower section number.

Warning: Never run the automatic process to create class sections again after you begin making manual adjustments to the number of sections




_____ Edit Section Details (MS WINDOW | CLASSES TAB)

Use your cursor to highlight an individual class and double click to open the CLASS PROPERTIES dialog. From here you can change the following attributes of one individual class section:

• Section ID for this section in this master schedule only Silk creates section numbers using a sequential convention, but allows you to renumber sections

o Section ID is integers only, from 1 – 9999 o If you delete the 2 nd of five sections order, renumber sections to fill hole in the

sequence o Customize section ID number to highlight special handling

§ Make all classes in a combination the same section ID § Highlight special handling by the Loader, usually involving a class filter

to include or exclude a specific group

• Suggested Section numbering convention for high schools: o sequential number default – all sections are the same, treated equally by loader,

no class filters o 50 – 99 homeroom classes, filtered and unfiltered

o 100s – regular or onlevel classes where other sections of the same course require special treatment

o 200s – Students requiring remediation o 300s – Inclusion classes

o 400s – Magnet academies; tech teams; teaching teams o 500s – Special programs: IB, Arts

o 600s – ESE classes (where no separate course code) o 700s – ESOL classes (where no separate course code)

o 9000 – 9999 section has modified content such as 2nd half taught in 1st semester

• Maximum Class size for this section in this master schedule ONLY o Change Max before loading students.

o To hold true for all master schedules, change Courses Offered at the same time. Note: Changing class properties while in a master schedule affects only the current master schedule; subsequent and previous MS files do not reflect changes you make in the active MS.

• Beginning Term for this section in this master schedule only o You can change the beginning term for classes that are less than yearlong




• Student Filters for this section in this master schedule only (see details in section 406) Warning: Never run the automatic process to create class sections again after you begin making manual adjustments to the number of sections

_____ Combine Classes (MSWINDOW | CLASSES TAB)

Combine classes for the purpose of conserving resources by assigning the same meeting time, teacher and room. A typical Class Combination is multiple levels of a course taught in the same room at the same time by the same teacher. This allows schools to offer sections of sparselyrequested courses that would not ‘make’ on their own.

A more advances use of class combinations is creating extra sections of a sparselyrequested course and offering it in combination with all sections of an extremely popular course. Weights I has 100 requests and Weights II has 25 requests. Create 4 sections of each and combine the level 1 sections with each of the level II sections to ensure that the Weights II students are scheduled.

Note: The Class Combo feature requires that classes be of equal duration. To combine classes of unequal duration, you must use a manual process. Open the meeting time dialog and assign the unequal classes to the same time. Nothing appears in the Combo column. We suggest that you change the section ID to a 3digit number to remind you of the combination, since the Combo column is blank.

• Select classes holding the control key down and right click on one of the selected classes to open the CONTEXT MENU

• Select CLASS COMBINATION COMMAND to open the dialog o Click ADD ALL SELECTED and use the checkbox to specify the primary class o The ID of primary class becomes the ID of the COMBINATION

Note: Class Combinations that you create while in a master schedule are saved only for the current master schedule; subsequent and previous MS files do not reflect changes you make in the active MS. To propagate details of the current MS to a copy, make sure to select the attributes at the bottom of the CREATE ANEWMASTER SCHEDULE dialog that apply to Sections.

• To combine multilevel courses, all courses/levels must have an equal number of sections. If the levels have different section counts, create enough sections to take all courses to the highest count. In the following example, we need a total of 9 classes:

o Weights I 5 sections 150 requests (add 4 sections) o Weights II 3 sections 90 requests (add 6 sections)

o Weights III 1 section 30 requests (add 8 sections)

Reports: Unit Projections – Detail; Unit Projections – Summary




_____Block Teacher planning periods Use schedule blocking for planning periods or parttime staff. Review Section 401, Block Teacher Schedules.

_____Assign all sections to teachers and all teachers to sections Assigning teachers to classes helps identify where there are too many or too few sections.

• Right click on a specific class and choose ASSIGN TEACHER / ROOM command o Use filters:

§ IF CERTIFIED clear filter to select from a list of all teachers

§ IF SCHEDULE OPEN clear filter to ignore teachers’ schedules § NO MORE THAN ___SEGMENTS.

o Turn on SELECT NEXT so that the cursor moves automatically down list. o Use the APPLY button to save and keep the dialog open; use OK to save and

close. o When assigning the same teacher to multiple classes, first select classes holding

down the Ctrl key, then open the ASSIGN TEACHER / ROOM dialog.

_____Verify teacher schedules

• Sort on the TEACHER column

• Scroll through the classes to verify that each teacher has the appropriate number of classes

Reports: Master Schedule Matrix; Teacher Schedules;




Master Schedule Baseline Scenarios (Silk 404)

_____ Place sections with Nonnegotiable and constrained meeting times

• Manually assign classes that have restricted or predetermined, nonnegotiable meeting times

o Right click on a class and choose ASSIGN MEETING TIMES o Place the class in the appropriate meeting time; Silk never overwrites manually

placed meeting times Tips: Use APPLY button to save and keep dialog open; OK to save and close.

_____ Freeze MS file with Nonnegotiables (Constrained MS)

• Click COPY and choose to copy all elements

• Name the new file Nonnegotiables along with today’s date

_____ Add Singletons priority 1 and Doubletons priority 1 classes Assign meeting times to classes with highest potential for conflict; i.e., required academic singletons requested by seniors. These classes are Singleton priority 1 classes, as opposed to Singleton priority 2 classes that are elective or nonrequired.

• Rebuild the conflict matrix for Singletons only: SETUP | REFRESH CONFLICT MATRIX

• Choose Refresh button on the MSCLASSES page

• Multisort MSCLASSES page by NSECTIONS and NREQUESTS descending o When sorting on multiple columns, click the first column, hold down control key,

and click the second column o Click second column again to reverse sort (descending)

o The mostrequested singleton is now at the top of the first page

• Start with academic classes that have the highest scheduling priority, ignoring the elective singletons for now

• Analyze conflict matrix – o Right click on a singleton class and choose REQUEST CONFLICTS command

§ displays a list of the courses for which there are potential conflicts with the selected course

§ Only Singleton courses are included in this round of conflict evaluation; later, we’ll add doubletons to the mix




§ The larger the number in the POTENTIAL column, the greater the potential for conflict. We will place Singletons into the MS avoiding other Singletons with a high potential for conflict

§ Right click on a course and choose to SHOW CONFLICTING REQUESTS to see a list of students.

§ Right click on a student and choose to EDIT STUDENT REQUESTS. This shortcut jumps you to the Request screen of the selected student, where you can review her full request set.

Tip: The Conflict Matrix (CM) refreshes each time you open Scheduler. To refresh statistics without closing your Silk session, you can manually force a CM refresh by choosing Setup | Refresh Conflict Matrix. Always refresh the CM after making changes to requests involving singletons and doubletons, or after adding and deleting class sections involving singletons and doubletons.

• The MEETING TIME dialog helps you determine the best meeting time by displaying: o Conflict potential: the total of the potential conflicts between the selected class

section and all other class sections already scheduled into the meeting time. The higher the index number, the greater the likelihood of creating a student schedule conflict if you put the selected class here.

Note: If you are working with a class with more than 1 section (doubletons, tripletons, quadrupletons, etc), no data displays; we ran the computation for Singletons only.

o Loading estimate: represents an estimated number of occupied seats based on students with requests for classes scheduled into the specified period so far. If there is no teacher or room conflict, and 0 conflict potential, place the class in the period with the lowest number of seats occupied.

Tip: To concentrate your attention on one grade level, use the Grade filter to see a load estimate for that grade only.

o Teacher and room conflicts: a Y in the teacher or room column indicates a conflict: teacher busy or room occupied

Tip: When you select multiple classes before opening the Meeting Time dialog, the statistics reflect conflict data for one class – the class that you selected last.

• REFRESH CONFLICT MATRIX, this time running for Doubletons

• Repeat the above process, assigning meeting times to Priority 1 (required academic) doubletons: SETUP | REFRESH CONFLICT MATRIX

_____ Freeze a baseline MS with Nonnegotiables + Priority 1s (Baseline #1s MS)

• Use FILE | NEW command


• Name the new file “Baseline #1s” and today’s date




_____ Add remaining Singletons; freeze as All Singles and #1 Doubles MS

• REFRESH CONFLICT MATRIX, again for Singletons

• Multisort by NSections ascending and NRequests descending

• Repeat the steps to build remaining singletons o If you find yourself adhering to statistical recommendations, you can stop using

the interactive schedule building process and allow the automatic MSB to finish the job.

• Use FILE | NEW command


• Name the new file Singles and #1 Doubles and today’s date

_____ Place remaining Doubleton Classes; freeze as Baseline Doubletons MS

• REFRESH CONFLICT MATRIX, again for Doubletons

• Repeat the above process, assigning meeting times to Priority 2 (elective) doubletons: SETUP | REFRESH CONFLICT MATRIX

o If you find that you are assigning doubletons in agreement with statistical recommendations, you can stop using the interactive schedule building process and allow the automatic MSB to finish the job.

After assigning nonnegotiable meeting times, all singletons, and all or most doubletons, this master schedule is your new baseline. You can revisit that decision after running a preliminary student load, but definitely preserve this version before the next step of running the Silk automatic master schedule builder.

• Rename the current MS file as Baseline and today’s date

• Create a new MS file, copying all attributes from Baseline

• Use the new MS file as a workspace for autoassigning

Automatic Meeting Times (Silk 405)

_____Analyze and adjust teacher schedules in all MS versions

• Sort on the TEACHER column

• Scroll through the classes to make sure each teacher has the correct number of classes.

• Use the Print button on the MSCLASSES tab to print a list of classes sorted by teacher.

Reports: Master Schedule Matrix report, Teacher Schedule Report and Teacher Free Period Analysis




_____Assign preferred meeting times

• Change meeting times for classes where there are teacher preferences or other considerations that the Scheduler does not know about.

• Assign times to classes that will be linked (i.e., classes that share the same roster) and should be scheduled a certain way. Example: Class A is in same period different term as Class B, Class A is in a period immediately after Class B.

Note: Before running autoassign meeting times, freeze the Baseline MS file that reflects adjusted sections and assignment of constraints, singletons, doubletons and preferences.

_____Autoassign remaining meeting times in MS named Autoassign

• Make a copy of Baseline and name it Autoassign

• Open calendar and check settings to verify meeting times used in the auto assign process. (CALENDAR | EDIT CALENDAR | CALENDAR PROPERTIES | MEETING CODES TAB)

• Build a new conflict matrix with number of sections set to 6.

• Autoassign meeting times to the remaining classes (SETUP | AUTOASSIGN MEETS)

Reports:

Conflict Matrix (by Course ID and by Course Name)

_____Find missing meeting times in MS Autoassign

• Sort onMEETS column to identify classes that did not get assigned meeting times. o Typically, classes are left with no meeting times because teachers are fully

scheduled according to the limit setting in Options | Scheduler Settings

o For Tpayroll staff or other staff who can exceed the limit, manually assign the meeting times to the classes (A future version of Silk allows an override of the global limit at the teacher level).

o Another culprit is too much schedule blocking; investigate this possibility by going to the Teacher | Schedule tab summary view. If a teacher is overblocked, removed the schedule blocks and autoassign meeting times again.

o If you run Autoassign on the same master schedule, note that only classes with blank meeting times are involved in the process.

• OpenMEETING TIME dialog to identify the teacher and/or room conflicts. o Note corrections that need to be made in the Baseline MS file to

§ class teacher assignments




§ room assignments

§ Beginning Term o Remember that the automatic MSB process does not overwrite existing meeting

times. If you want Silk to reassign meeting times for one teacher or for one department, simply delete meeting times for those classes before you run the automatic process again

_____Correct the Baseline MS, keeping earlier Baselines on reserve

• Delete and recreate master schedule file called Autoassign

• Auto assign times and analyze

• Repeat this process until all classes have meeting times.

_____If moving a singleton, open MS called Nonnegotiables and repeat subsequent steps, eventually deleting all copies spawned from old baseline

_____Verify and Approve Teacher Schedules

• In MS with all meeting times assigned check teacher schedules

o Sort on TEACHER column o Hold down Ctrl key and multisort onMEETS column

• Analyze teacher schedules o To jump quickly to a teacher schedule

§ Highlight a class assigned to the teacher whose schedule you want to review

§ Right click and choose Teacher schedule

Reports: Master Schedule Matrix report, Teacher Schedule Report and Teacher Free Period Analysis


Phase IV: Master Schedule Trial Loads



Settings to Control Loader (Silk 406)

_____Set up to run Team Scheduling Team scheduling allows you to control the Silk Loader to schedule students into classes with a specified set of teachers for a specified set of courses. The class loader randomly schedules teamed students into sections of team courses taught by team teachers. Note: Use Class Filters instead of Team Scheduling if teachers teach students on more than one team.

Complete these steps to use the team scheduling feature: • Enable Team Scheduling (OPTIONS | SCHEDULER SETTINGS) • Specify courses to be teamed (COURSES OFFERED | TEAM SCHEDULED FLAG) • Define teams using the Teams form (VIEW | TEAMS)

o Roster teachers on the team (one team allowed per teacher) o Roster students on the team (one team allowed per student)

• Assign team teachers to class sections of the team courses requested by the team students

Reports: Team Rosters

_____Create Student Groups for Class Filters (View | Groups)

In conjunction with the Silk Team function or when the Silk Team function is too restrictive, use Class filters for Groups as a loading control. You can restrict the loader to include (or exclude) only the members of a particular group. For example, you can filter certain sections of Spanish to include the group called Native Spanish Speakers; or you can identify sections of Algebra reserved only for students repeating the course.

• Choose View | Student Groups, create new group, accept the new record (Green check)

• Add students to the Student Roster tab.

o Use button to Add Selected Students. § Filter the selection list to narrow down the students to choose from.

§ Hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple students and Click OK to add students to the group.

o Unlike Teams where students can only belong to one team, students can be member of an unlimited number of groups.




Note: When selecting students to add to groups, the grade level shown in the student selection list is current grade level. Once you add students to a group and view the group in the Scheduler, the grade level shown is next year’s grade level.

Reports: Student Group Rosters

_____Setup Filters for Classes Class filters limit the Silk loader to schedule only students who meet the filter criteria.

• Double click on a class section to open the CLASS PROPERTIES DIALOG

• Choose which subset of students to restrict to this section o By grade level and / or gender

o By membership in a group

• Close the edit dialog and verify that Classes with filters have an asterisk (*) before the section number.

o Tip: Edit the section ID (change it to a 3digit number using your district convention) to highlight the fact that the class is restricted

• Filter only the primary class in a link

• If one section is filtered, all sections must be filtered o If a section has a positive filter, other sections must have a negative filter

Exception: If a class filter excludes a group of students, the other sections do not need a filter

_____Apply Preferences to Requests by Batch (SETUP | BATCH ADD REQUESTS)

• Another way to force a group of students into a specific class is to use a batch command to apply section or teacher preferences.

o Go to the Setup menu and choose the Batch Add Requests command to open the dialog where you specify the criteria for preferences

Remember that a preference attached to a request is actually a requirement; therefore, if a student cannot schedule into the preferred section, for whatever reason, the request fails.

o Use the Student Filter to set preferences on requests for a subset of students. o Use teacher preferences to force students into classes taught by a specific teacher.

o Type in a range of sections (13), or multiple sections (1, 3, 5) to distribute students across more than one class.

Note: Using preferences does not keep other students out of these classes. Use Class Filters to restrict classes to certain group of students without allowing other students in.




_____Verify Student Scheduling Rules (OPTIONS | COURSE SCHEDULING RULES)

Course Scheduling Rules define the relationship between two courses requested by a student that the class loader must follow when scheduling students into classes.

• Ask your ExLogica consultant to copy a set of rules from another school into your school to minimize keyboard entry

• Eliminate unnecessary rules to maximize the performance of the loader.

Report: Course Scheduling Rules

_____Create Class Links Creating a Class Link between two or more sections instructs the Silk Loader to copy the roster of the primary (or parent) class into the rosters of the linked (or child) classes. Linked classes have identical rosters, at least initially.

Use class linking instead of course scheduling rules or team scheduling when the rosters of the linked classes must be exact duplicates, at least initially. You can move students as necessary after the loader creates the initial exact copy of the roster

• How to Link o Multiselect parent and ALL child classes by pressing the Ctrl key

o While pointing at any one of the selected classes, right click to CONTEXT MENU

o Choose the LINK SECTIONS COMMAND to open the dialog

o Click ADD ALL SELECTED o Use the checkbox to specify the primary (PARENT) class. The ID of primary

class becomes the ID of the LINK Note: Links that you create while in one master schedule are saved in current and future master schedules only; Silk does not retroactively copy links into previous MS files.

• Linking is allowed only for: o Class Sections of different courses. Silk does not support linking sections of the

same course. o Class sections of courses with Same Roster restriction turned on in Courses

Offered

• Child classes need not be requested, but we recommend it so all classes contribute to total credits requested

o If parent and child courses are requested, then ALL parent sections must be involved in parallel links. Extra unlinked sections of child classes are allowed.

• Students requesting just the child and not the parent course are allowed to be scheduled only into unlinked child sections. Linked sections are reserved for students requesting the parent and child of the link.




o Example: A student requesting B but not A, where some sections of B are linked classes of parent A, the student is scheduled into unlinked sections of B ONLY

_____Lift Same Roster restriction (COURSES OFFERED | SAME ROSTER CHECKBOX)

In order to give the Silk Scheduling Loader maximum flexibility, you can allow certain courses to “break” at the end of the term. In other words, you can allow students to be scheduled into different sections of a multiterm course. . Use the SAME ROSTER restriction when a student’s schedule will not succeed any other way.

• You can set this option in Courses Offered or at the individual course request level Tip: If you do want to lift the restriction globally for all students, use the Same Roster flag in Courses Offered. If not, you can edit an individual student’s course request to allow only that specified request to split (see Section 409)

• Global setting: Lift the Same Roster restriction to allow all students requesting a multi term course to be scheduled into different sections each term

o Go to Courses Offered and navigate to the course o Remove Same Roster restriction – clear Same Roster flag

o An example of a course that could have split sections in Florida schools is Practical General Arts

Load Analysis and Master Schedule Adjustment (Silk 407)

_____Run Initial Test Load (LOAD | LOAD CLASSES) Initial loads of a master schedule are not expected to yield ‘keeper’ student schedules. The purpose of these early loads is to test, analyze, and adjust the master schedule.

Please avoid working on details of student schedules in this phase, and concentrate instead on relocating underloaded sections.

• With no filter specified, the loader ranks students’ in order of schedule difficulty within grade level (those with the most singletons are most difficult) and schedules the most difficult first.

o This ranking process ignores alternate requests; it applies only to primary requests.

o Run Students in Scheduling Order report § Higher numbers indicate most difficult

• For each student, the loader ranks primary requests in order of schedule priority. o The ranking is based on

§ whether the course is required,




§ how many sections are available,

§ its location in the list within its category § For example, three required singletons are scheduled in the order that they

appear relative to each other on the Student | Requests tab. o Schedule priority of one student’s Primary (nonalternate) requests

§ Required singletons in the order listed § Required doubletons in the order listed

§ Remaining required courses in the order listed § Elective singletons in the order listed

§ Elective doubletons in the order listed § Remaining electives in the order listed

• Run the first load by choosing Load Classes from the Load menu. Set the following options:

o Allow Partial schedules – always

o Do not keep existing schedules (there are none before the first load) § Keep schedules when you are layering in schedules by grade level or some

other filter criteria o Do not schedule alternate requests in the general load process.

§ Alternates come into play at the student level later when resolving specific conflicts or balancing elective class loads

o Balance Passes: Start with three; if performance is too slow, revise to two. o Student filter: You can use a filter to load a subset of students.

§ For subsequent loads, you can keep existing schedules and load a different group of students.

_____Analyze Load for patterns in conflicts and overfull classes

• Go to COURSES TAB; sort on various columns: o NCONFLICTS (Number of students that did not get the course due to conflicts) o NFULL (Number of students that did not get the class because it was full)

Tip: Drill down to analyze failures by right clicking on classes with a high number of conflicts and choose Students not scheduled to list students requesting the course that did not get scheduled and the reason.

Reports: Students in Scheduling Order; Load Performance by Grade; Student Schedule Conflicts by Course




_____Adjust Master Schedule to reduce conflicts (Tripletons + only)

• Never move a singleton unless you are willing to start over at Baseline 0 (before step to Build Singletons)

• Never move a doubleton unless you are willing to start over at Baseline 1 (before step to Build Doubletons)

• Make a copy for experimentation, so if you get bad results you can return to the original.

• Remove student schedules before changing meeting times. Changing meeting times can create conflicts.

• Limit the number of changes you make before running another load to determine which changes have positive versus negative impact.

• Do not move Singletons and Doubletons since they cause the greatest number of conflicts. Instead, identify a multiple section course (3+) that a set of conflicted students have in common and move a section of that course.

_____Run Load again after moving classes

• Do not exceed class max in initial loads; reserve that option for downstream when you need to resolve individual student conflicts due to full classes.

• Run another load to see if your adjustments improve your results. Again: o Allow Partial schedules – always

o Do not keep existing schedules (until your master schedule is set in concrete)

• Unless you are loading one group at a time for testing the master schedule o Do not schedule alternate requests in the general loader

o Balance Passes: Start with three; to improve balance, increase to 4 or 5. o Student filter: You can use a filter to pick a set of students for testing a specific

area of your master schedule. For subsequent loads, you can keep existing schedules and load a different group of students.

_____Analyze Load Balance After resolving the highest number of schedule conflicts, analyze the loads statistics of all sections of a course. You may decide to create an extra section for the same meeting time as an overfull class, or to delete a section that scheduled a low number or no students

• Place the following columns together for comparison: NRequests, NStudents, Max, NConflicts, NFull

o NStudents should be close to the top number in NRequests.

• Sort on CID and pay attention to color coding.




o Blue the class is full (at maximum class size)

o Black the class is almost full (>75%) o Red the class is overfilled (only if you specified a % to exceed by)

o Green the class is under loaded < 70% full. Hint: If you see blue and green or red and green for the same course, you have class sections out of balance.

• Run Class Load Report.

• To improve class balance, move multiple section courses with too few students scheduled into them. Use the estimated loading number to analyze the balance of class size across the day, and identify periods or days where there are too many or too few seats.

• Again, make a copy of your master schedule before moving classes. After changing meeting times, run another load.

o Balance passes – Use a higher number (not higher than 4 or 5) when you are trying to get a better balance of class loads

Reports: Class Load Report

Master Schedule finetune and complete (Silk 408) After new test scores or grade marks are uploaded to SILK, you can rerun District ACRs to place students in the correct course. You have the option to apply ACRs individually one student at a time or globally for all students.

_____Rerun select ACRs for recent test scores and final grades

• Select Run Automatic Course Requests

• CLEAR ALL

• Select only the ACRs that need to be rerun

_____Run Request Analysis Report for exceptions (over max credits)

• Print for exceptions: students with more than X credits requested

_____Clean Student Requests

• New requests added as a result of rerun appear at the end in a student’s request list

o Remember that you can override the suggested requests if you determine that your original program of studies is more appropriate for a student




o Delete either the old or the new requests for students with too many credits requested

• Batch Transfer or Delete requests as needed. (SETUP | TRANSFER REQUESTS)

• Clean up requests as needed and rerun Request Verification Report until all students have the correct number of credits requested.

_____Run general loader for filtered sets of students After cleaning up student course requests you must reload your master schedule.

• Allow Partial schedules – always

• Do not keep existing schedules (not yet – see Locking Schedules)

• Do not schedule alternate requests except at the individual student level

_____Analyze load, adjust master schedule, and reload

• Repeat this process until further adjustments do not impact the overall loading results

_____Retool Master schedule for the final time

Reports: Master Schedule Matrix; Master Class List; Teacher schedules

_____Verify MS Class Segments The many changes in course settings may have affected class segments. It is extremely important to verify that every section has the same number of segments as the course is terms long. In other words, a twosemester class is two segments, a fourquarter class is 4 segments. Exception: Homeroom classes are always the same number of segments in durations as a yearlong term.

• Check the box that says Show Segment Detail; multiple lines for each section appear.

• If number of segments is not correct, delete and recreate the class

_____Verify MS Courses Your master schedule has undergone massive changes since creating your first file. The courses tab provides valuable feedback during all phases of scheduling, especially in the final stages.

• Click on the COURSES TAB.

• Multisort Nsections on and Nrequests. Courses Offered with no sections are in green font. If there are courses with requests and no sections at this stage, this is usually an error at this stage. You should either create at least one section, or transfer requests to a different course.




• If there are sections for courses that do not have requests, you can delete them now or leave them in place for future use.

• Adjust course settings one of the following ways: o Right click on a course and choose VIEW | COURSES OFFERED command as a

shortcut to the form.

§ Changing the setting in COURSES OFFERED does NOT change the setting in the existing MS.

§ After making changes, you can create a new master schedule file. o Double click on the selected course to open COURSE PROPERTIES DIALOG.

§ Changing course properties only affects this MS. § Make changes BEFORE creating class sections.

• Right click on a course and choose the REQUESTS command to display a list of student requesting the course

Tip: Right click on student name and select Edit Student Requests as a shortcut to the specific student’s request screen

Reports: Courses Offered by Course ID

_____Verify Room Schedules

• Sort on ROOM column, then hold down Ctrl key to mutlisort onMEETS column

• Analyze room schedules o Select a class assigned to the room whose schedule you want to review o Right click and choose Room schedule

Reports: Room Schedule report: Room Free Period Analysis


Phase V: Student Schedules in Best and Final MS



Student Schedule Finetune and Finish (Silk 409) After further adjustments to classes do not impact the overall loading results, resolve scheduling problems for individual students. Your master schedule is now the “Real Deal”. APCs can now unleash guidance counselors to begin working with individual student schedules. If you need to run another load for any reason, you should choose the option to:

_____Run general loader for the final time (optional)

• Keep existing schedules (at last!)

_____Right click on class to view unscheduled students Right click on an unscheduled student’s name to jump directly to the Student | Requests tab.

• Use the Student Schedule tab to look for other available classes to fill in schedule gaps or to move classes around.

Note: SILK does the best possible job of scheduling students using the loading parameters set up in Section 406. You can override those parameters by manually changing the student schedule.

_____Use the Form Filter by status category to browse individual issues To scroll to each student schedule that needs attention, guidance counselors should filter the student form for the students they serve

• If more than one master schedule remains in the database for your school, make sure that Counselors know which file to open

Schedule changes made in the wrong master schedule are lost and must be redone

• Open the approved, sanctioned, final master schedule

• From the student form, open the form filter using the Filter icon on the Student form toolbar and specify conditions

o Filter for students with partial schedules

o Add filter by Counselor group to narrow down students you need to focus on.




_____Edit and Reschedule individual Primary and Alternate requests When APCs are finished running the general load process, counselors and other users can edit schedules for individual students.

• Request status in the student banner shows status of requests for the ACTIVE master schedule

Tip: Keep form filter by schedule status turned on. Toggle between the Requests tab and Schedule tab to identify issues and possible resolutions.

• To give a request higher priority than another course in its category (ie, Required Singletons), move the request to the top of the list using the MOVE UP button

• Allow student requesting a multiterm course to be scheduled into different sections each term.

o Right click on Request to open the Edit dialog o Check the box to Allow Student to be scheduled into different sections each term.

Counselors and other users can run a local version of the loader (miniloader) on an individual student.

• Choose Reschedule All button to drop all classes and reload the student into classes.

• Choose Schedule Open Requests to reschedule failed courses, leaving scheduled classes in place

• This loader attempts to schedule alternates; don’t use this option if you are still working on primary requests

• Options to exceed maximum class and/or room size are not available to Counselors

• For students with one or more failed primary requests o Schedule status in banner is Partial

• For students whose primary requests are scheduled but openings appear in his schedule

o Schedule status in banner is Complete – carefully review ALL student schedules in case the number of credits requested as primary requests is too low

• Run the Schedule Exceptions report with setting for credits scheduled

• Choose Schedule Open Requests button to schedule consider alternates that were ignored during the batch load or recently added.

o This leaves scheduled requests in place.




Important: check the Student | Schedule tab after scheduling alternates. The alternate course may not be the same duration as the course it replaced. Even though SILK shows the schedule status as COMPLETE after successfully scheduling the alternate, the student may still have openings in his schedule

_____ Handplace unscheduled classes directly into open periods

• Use the Schedule tab | Summary Matrix display o To drop a class, point to class, right click, and choose Drop Class

o Right click on open time cell and choose AVAILABLE CLASSES command

• Available classes of requested courses that match the meeting time of the selected cell

o Right click on open time slot, hold down CTRL key and choose available classes

• Available classes of all classes in the master schedule in meeting time of the selected cell.

• Use the List or Summary Matrix o Click ADD button to display available classes that match the student’s requests o Press CTRL key and ADD button to display all classes in MS o To drop a class, select class and click DROP button o Click DROP ALL button to drop all classes from the student schedule

_____Synchronize status of requests with actual schedule Silk uses the status of requests to determine the status of the student schedule (partial, complete or modified). If you add or delete classes from a student schedule you must also update the status of the requests to match the student’s actual schedule.

• After dropping a scheduled class, go to the Request tab. o Locate the request for the dropped class and flag it as an alternate, or o Delete the unscheduled request for the dropped class

• Silk automatically adds requests for a courses you manually add to a student schedule o Verify total credits after manually adjusting schedules

Reports: Schedule Conflicts by Student; Student Schedule Conflict Analysis; Student Free Period Analysis Report; Students Without Classes Report




_____Lock Student Schedules

• Check LOCK checkbox on SCHEDULE tab to freeze a student’s schedule in place so that no one can modify the student schedule without first unlocking it.

o This setting locks schedules for the ACTIVE master schedule only.

• Choose the LOCK SCHEDULES command on the LOAD menu to lock multiple schedules or unlock schedules.

o This locks schedules for the ACTIVE master schedule only.

Reports: Student Schedules; Class Rosters

_____ Print Final reports

• Master Schedule Matrix and List formats

• Master Class List

• Teacher schedules o Print for all or selected teachers

• Student Schedules

o Print for all or selected students o Show All classes returns classes all terms

o Choose the first term to print classes for start of school

• Class Rosters o Print for all or selected classes.

o Choose to print for selected class, then sort selection list by CID, meets time, Teacher etc, and multiselect the classes you want to print.




Master Schedules Finalize (Silk 410) Finalization is the formal process of closing the Scheduler files and attaching the new master schedule to the new calendar.

It is not necessary to rush to finalize your master schedule in order to print final reports. All Silk Scheduling reports look the same in Scheduler before you finalize as in Silk main program after you finalize. In fact, if you finalize before EOY, your schedules are not visible in Silk main during the time lag between processes.

_____ Run the Finalization task from the Scheduling Checklist What happens during finalization?

• The finalization process deletes all working files and all other master schedule files.

• It resets scheduler flags in preparation for the next scheduling cycle.

• You can finalize schedules before or after End of Year processing, but schedules do not display until after your district runs the End of Year process.

_____ Delete shortcut to Scheduler desktop icon You are now finished working in Scheduler until your district initializes the Silk Scheduling program for next year. All subsequent schedule maintenance is done in the main program.

_____ After District EndofYear, Verify your operating master schedule in the main program

Followup Silk courses cover master schedule and student schedule maintenance during the operation academic year:

• Silk course 801 Master Schedule Maintenance in Silk Main Program o Includes mass changes in Class Roster

• Silk course 802 Student Schedule Maintenance o Includes Quick Scheduler

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