Manual placement of lessons

Placing a lesson by hand means choosing its time slot yourself, instead of letting the algorithm decide. This almost always combines with Automatic generation: building a timetable is a cycle (place a few lessons → generate → adjust), described in Module overview.

When to place by hand

• Anchoring immovables before generating — a dated guest session, an exam, an imposed fixture: you place it (and often lock it, see Locking a lesson) so that the generation builds around it.
• Making marginal fixes after a generation — moving a lesson, settling a special case, changing your mind about a time slot.
• Building entirely by hand — on a small timetable, or when you prefer to keep full control from start to finish (see below).

The gesture: pin, then colored time slot

Placing a lesson is never a drag and drop. Click the lesson's placement button (the pin, Place on timetable) — on its sticky-note card, its listing row, or in its details (Place on timetable) if it is already placed. Omniscol then displays all the possible time slots, colored by conflict level:

• green — no conflict;
• yellow then orange — minor to moderate conflicts (the reason is displayed);
• red — blocking conflict.

The details of each level and the full list of detections are in Conflicts and diagnostic.

The time slots appear on the class and on the teacher(s) concerned, along with the other lessons already placed to help you choose. Click the chosen time slot to place the lesson there. To remove it, double-click a lesson that is already placed (it goes back to the unplaced lessons area, without being deleted).

Batch placement — schedule view

Click Grid: the schedule of the classes / teachers appears, handy for chaining placements. The gesture does not change — a lesson's pin , then a click on a colored time slot. This is useful in calendar mode to pin down imposed dates or to locally rework the result of a generation.

Locking to freeze a manual placement

A lesson placed by hand remains, by default, movable by the next generation. To make sure it stays put, lock its position (padlock): the generation then builds around it. Details (mass locking, effect on the diagnostic): Locking a lesson.

Doing everything by hand (without generation)

Nothing forces you to run the solver. On a small weekly timetable, or when placement is heavily constrained by human choices, you can place each lesson one by one (or in batches in the schedule view) and never generate. The real-time diagnostic stays active: conflicts (teacher, room, class, resource) are reported as you go, just as during generation. You then publish as usual.

For lessons that fall outside the grid (explicit times, extended exams), see Off-grid lessons.

What next

Once the timetable is placed — by hand, by generation, or both — Publishing (activating) a timetable.