Building a Draft Board is the task of creating sections and assigning teachers, courses, and timeblocks to these sections.
Are you copying an old schedule or creating a new one?
Copying an old schedule can save time, but relies on term and timeblock setup matching from one year to the next. See Import Live Schedule to Draft help document for details on importing.
If terms and timeblocks do not match from one year to the next, and/or if your schedule will be drastically different from the previous year, then you'll follow the rest of the steps in this lesson to build a fresh schedule using Illuminate tools. See Create a Draft Schedule help document to get started.
Pro Tip 1: Save a Draft with a Blank Board
Before starting the task of placing sections on the board, it is highly recommended to save a Draft version that has a blank board in case you decide to start over.
This often assists when a draft is prematurely published as there is no way to unpublish a schedule.
Pro Tip 2: Place Non-Negotiable Sections First
Illuminate tools will try and place sections in the best way possible to allow for the least scheduling conflicts possible. However, if you absolutely must have specific sections occur in particular timeblocks and assigned to certain teachers, you'll want to place those first. For example, if Mr. Smith teaches 1 section of Marching Band and 4 sections of Music Appreciation, and Marching Band absolutely has to be offered Period 5, but Music Appreciation can happen at other times, then place the section of Marching Band with Mr. Smith in Period 5.
Pro Tip 3: Duplicate Drafts Along the Way
As you work on placing sections and move some around, it is highly recommended to duplicate your draft as you experiment with different possibilities so that you always have a version to go back to if the new one doesn't work out.
Pro Tip 4: Save a Draft of the Board with All Sections Placed but No Students
Illuminate Scheduling Tools aim at fulfilling as many course requests as possible, but there may be a need for manual updates. It's possible to make different selections when running the Mass Student Scheduler in Phase 5. If for any reason you find you want to start over in scheduling students, it is recommended to save a draft version with your finalized board before students are placed in any sections. This allows for a fallback option.