Non-Weekly Programs - Block Release Procedure
VCS automatically provides a weekly repeating schedule to simplify data entry of educational programs - however - not all programs are all weekly so...
Where programs repeat on a monthly or 5 weekly or any other basis, it is recommended that activities be created for the first week or block program using the same week number starting and end. e.g. week starting 1 and week end 1.
These activities would then be copied to the next repeat week number and any more weeks until the program is complete as shown below.
This will result in a larger number of activities than for teaching groups using weekly repeating activities but will not affect VCS operation unduly.
Where full semester weekly programs and non-weekly or block release programs co-exist in a teaching section or department, it is recommended that the non-weekly or block release activities be completed first to simplify copy and paste steps.
This is really quite easy - the step by steps below will guide you through what would be very dificult manually.
Copy Procedure
Two methods are available - one for small numbers of activities and the other for larger jobs
1. For a small number of activities - say up to 10 - use the VCS (E)dit (C)opy main menu functions to duplicate the activities and then update the week number starting and end on the duplicated activities.
2. For a larger number of activities it may be quicker to export the data to a spreadsheet and then copy them there, change the week numbers and re-import the data into VCS.
1. For a small number of activities - say up to 10 - use the VCS (E)dit (C)opy main menu functions to duplicate the activities and then update the week number starting and end on the duplicated activities.
Step 1 - Use VCS to create activities for the 1st week or block of weeks of the program.
Use the same starting and end week number. Click on the Save file icon to save your work!
Step 2 - Select (E)dit (C)opy from the main menu. Click on each activity in turn in order to duplicate the activities.
Step 3 - Select (E)dit, (U)pdate from the main menu and click on each duplicate in turn. Update the week number starting and end on the duplicated activities to the next week number.
Step 4 - Repeat steps 2 and 3 as required. e.g. for a program running every 5 weeks for 15 weeks, these steps would need to be done twice - one for week 6 and one for week 11.
Click on the Save file icon to save your work!
2. For a larger number of activities it may be quicker to export the data to a spreadsheet and then copy them there, change the week numbers and re-import the data into VCS.
Step 1 - Use VCS to create activities for the 1st week or 1st block of weeks of the program.
Use the same starting and end week number. Click on the Save file icon to save your work!
Tip! It is best to allocate teaching staff, include all preferences and eliminate all clashes now as we are about to copy the current activities!
Step 2 - Select (F)ile (E)xport from the main menu. Select Normal Spreadsheet and Room to create the data.
Select Export and Export from the dialog menu and then click on the [Export File] button to save your file in the VSS directory.
Note the file name will be defaulted to the file name of your VSS file with an .xls extension.
Step 3 - Open your spreadsheet program and open the filename.xls file in the C:\VSS directory.
Click on [Finish] to import the text file into your spreadsheet.
Step 4 - highlight the data rows you need for the next block and copy them.
Step 5 - Paste these rows below the current data rows.
Step 6 - Change the week starting and week end numbers on the copied and pasted rows to week numbers in the next block.
Step 7 - Repeat steps 4,5 and 6 if more than one block of activities is needed.
Step 8 - Save the file. Click [Yes] to keep the work book in this text format or VCS will not be able to import it.
If you have accidentally saved it as a workbook - re-open your spreadsheet program and re-open the file.
Select (F)ile, Save(A)s and make sure the the last line on the dialog box says "Save as type" "text file (tab-delimited)(*.txt)" - not Microsoft Excel Workbook (*.xls) or something else.
Step 9 - Start VCS and select (F)ile, (I)mport and click on the file name.xls in the vss directory. Click [OK].
The file will now be imported and all the data for all the weeks will be available for display.
When using the "All Week" view, the activities will be close together - but not clashed as VCS recognises that the week numbers are different.
When viewing week 1 or week 2 etc, only activities scheduled for that week will appear.
If there is a clash - the cell will appear sunken. Use the mouse to check the activities - the week numbers will be shown in the zoom boxes below e.g. 6 - 6, 7 - 7 etc. If there is an overlap of the weeks then this is what is causing the clash and needs to be attended to in the normal way. Update if incorrect or move one of the activities to another room.
Hope this helps with those difficult programs.
Once entered, VCS will certainly reduce effort and provide certainty in your planning. Good Luck!!