Creating Event and Location Searches for Schedule25

Schedule25 requires the results of two searches as its input for each run:

  • An event search consisting of all the sections you want it to place
  • A location search consisting of all the valid locations it can place the sections in

Schedule25 will never place a section that is not included in the event search results, and it will never place a section in a location that is not in the location search results.

See below for tips on creating event and location searches for use in Schedule25 runs. For detailed information on creating searches in 25Live, see Advanced Searching for Events, Locations, Organizations, Resources, and Tasks.

Tips For Creating Event and Location Searches For Use By Schedule25

Tip:

After creating your event and location searches, run them in 25Live (or use them in an Event Listing or Location Listing report) to make sure that they include all the events and locations you want, and none that you don't. Double-checking search results before you run Schedule25 can save you a lot of pain later.

Tip:

Too many preassigned sections will slow Schedule25 processing down. For best results, include only sections that need location assignments. You can do this by adding the "Missing Location Assignments" criterion in the event search in 25Live. In the example below, the search will be limited to events having at least one occurrence without an assigned location between the specified dates.

Missing location assignments exampleImage: Missing location assignments example.

Best practice: Make sure you've previously checked LYNX or TCS Interface import errors to ensure that all preassignments have imported correctly into 25Live. If even a single occurrence of a section did not receive a location assignment, it will show up in the results of a "Missing Location Assignments" search.

Tip:

The easiest way to create a search that returns the locations you want included in your Schedule25 run is to use a location category. To do this, in the 25Live > System Settings > Master Definitions section, create a location category called "Schedule25 Assignable" and add it to every location you may want to use in your Schedule25 runs. When creating your location search in 25Live, use that category as the sole criterion.

As locations are activated and deactivated, you can add and remove this category to easily toggle the location's inclusion in search results without needing to recreate your search criteria.

Categories optionsImage: Category checkboxes.

Tip:

Another search alternative is to manually add a list of partitions to your location search criteria. This method works especially well if you have multiple campuses and need to create separate searches to perform Schedule25 runs for each campus.

If you have created your partitions so that each partition corresponds to a geographically isolated area (like a building) you can add or remove partitions from your search criteria to easily deactivate entire buildings without changing any location data.

Partitions optionsImage: Partition checkboxes.