I have installed the Gibbon software successfully with no errors
I have also attempted poking around adding data here and there B)
In order to understand the system a little better, I have set up a second installation of Gibbon with the Demo data…
What actual data is in the “Demo Data”? I can see that is has many users set up but cannot find anything else.
In the Documentation, it states that the demo data is there for “when you configure your database to see what Gibbon looks like in a fully operational school.”
I can’t actually see anything working with the demo data, I have tried logging in to different academic years but still cannot see anything functioning.
Is there some other data imports I have to do to see the system working correctly?
Good question. The demo data has students, parents, families, staff, library books, a sample unit, timetables, year groups, form groups, school years, terms, school days, etc.
As a test to see if the data is there, can you go to Admin > Timetable Admin, and see if there is a timetable in the 2019-20 academic year (which should be default).
So if the dates are always tied to the dates how or why are they given an option to tie them?
Also once I get to the class setup assigning the class members and a teacher I get a little fuzzy. It can be seen that the class is assigned activities then this is then somehow slotted into a timetable.
I understand that there are some other pictures that can be used in a similar fashion to explain what I’m understanding here, such as a teacher can have their own nest (Class OOP) and also so can a course and a time table.
Could you help me paint the picture so I can understand it?
It’s a little tricky to get the concept unfortunately. It’s probably the toughest part of Gibbon.
Anyway, we all went through it probably cursing a lot. Today I value the flexibility such a system offers, e.g. the possibility of having multiple day structures for a particular date, which is rather cool. But enough, I don’t want to confuse you more
The “Tie Days To Dates” step is in fact just a part of the whole timetabling setup. You can find out more here:
“Days” in this context refers to a day structure. Therefore it’s not naturally tied and you must tell Gibbon which day structure to use for each date.
If you have the same day structure for every school day things become very easy for you tho
You have demo data available so playing around with it should help you to get your bearings rather quickly.
Tie Days to Dates is the process where timetable days (e.g. Monday, or Day 5, or Day 8, or Odd Day, or however your timetable calls the days in its cycle) are tied to dates within the school calendar.
In the sample data the timetable has two weeks, so there is Red Week, with Mon-Fri, and Blue Week, with Mon-Fri. These days are then tied to dates to form a working timetable.
However, if you are seeing School Closed, then I would start by confirming which school year you are looking into, and checking to see the start and end dates for the school year, and the term dates. Make sure the date you are viewing in the timetable are within these dates.
Unfortunately, that link does not help for understanding the “Tie Days To Dates” step.
It only states that they need setting up before you can create a time table.
“You should have created the school year(s) and the term(s).
You should have a list of all the days the school is active
You should have a list of all the activities the school does in all days the school is on.
This should be in terms of the periods, the times and the activities of a particular time set.”
“multiple day structures for a particular date”
Now, this has my attention!
So for any given date I can have several day stucters for differand courses
e.g
Monday 12th August for a course in woodworking I can have the day start at 08:00 and finish at 15:00
On the same day I can have for a course in Cookery I can have the day start at 10:00 and finish at 16:00
So neither of you have mentioned if I am anywhere near, with my little scetch!
Nor have you mentioned anything about being able to tie the same day to the same date multiple times… Is this a glitch?
Admin
I have definitely set up correctly the prerequisites to enable the time table to display.
Many thanks for your input guys it’s really appreciated.
Right, I think I know where you are going wrong. You can have different timings on a single day, but only if you have multiple timetables. For each timetable you should only assign one day to one date, otherwise days don’t display.
You can have different timetables within a school, but each one must be attached to one or more year groups, and these cannot overlap.
The reason this is all rather complex is that timetabling is complex! Gibbon attempts to be very flexible here…and the result is additional options…and thus complexity.
No worries. If you bulk-add days to dates, there are no constraints (I’ve added this to our v19 project board as an issue we need to address): if you add them one at a time, the interface won’t let you do it.
I’d suggest you remove any duplicates by hand, from a selected date, and see if that resolves the issue.
If you’d like us to log in and look at the issue, we are now offering commercial support options via gibbonedu.com, and can do a Skype call billed by the hour. Otherwise, we’ll do our best to help you here.
If I am going to pay to understand your software to write a guid for it. Seems a wast of money on my part. So I will have to keep bugging you on here untill we have built a better picture.
OK I have an idea if I present a simple School scenario could you talk me through the setup
Let’s keep this a simple as possible
The school has 20 students 1 course called “General education”
4 members of staff
Staff 1
Staff 2
Staff 3
Staff 4
And 4 classrooms
Room 1
Room 2
Room 3
Room 4
And 5 subjects/Topics
Math
English
Geography
Science
History
How would one go about setting this up… I know there are lots of reasons this setup would never go ahead but is a start.
