Teaching Allocations

A teaching allocation is the core planning record in the Timetable module. It binds a module offering to a cohort group for a specific academic term and serves as the container for staff assignments, meeting patterns, and generated session instances. One allocation exists for each unique combination of module offering, cohort group, and academic term.

How Allocations Work

When you create an allocation, Kampus SIS automatically looks up the number of students enrolled in the module offering to set the Expected Enrollment figure. This value is used later during conflict detection to flag room capacity mismatches. The allocation starts in Draft status and remains invisible to students until the timetable is published.

Each allocation can have multiple staff members assigned (for example, a lead lecturer and a tutorial assistant) and multiple meeting patterns (for example, a weekly lecture and a fortnightly lab). The meeting patterns define the recurrence rules; the system expands them into individual session instances when you run the Generate Sessions action.

Scenario: A planner needs to schedule the "Principles of Accounting" module offering for a cohort of 45 students in Semester 1. They create a single allocation linking the module offering and the cohort group to the Semester 1 calendar. They assign one lecturer and one tutor, add a weekly Monday lecture pattern and a fortnightly Wednesday tutorial pattern, and then generate sessions. The system produces 12 lecture instances and 6 tutorial instances, skipping the two public holidays in the calendar.

Allocation Statuses

Create an Allocation

1. Go to Timetable → Allocations.
2. Click New Allocation.
3. Fill in the allocation details:
   • Academic Term — select the term for this allocation. Required.
   • Module Offering — select the module offering to schedule. Must belong to the selected term. Required.
   • Cohort Group — select the teaching group that will attend this module. Required.
   • Timetable Calendar — optionally link a calendar to apply blackout dates during session generation.
   • Delivery Mode — optionally specify how the module is delivered, such as onsite, online, or hybrid.
   • Notes — optional internal planner notes.
4. Click Save. The allocation is created in Draft status.

Note: Only one allocation can exist per module offering and cohort group combination within a term. If you attempt to create a duplicate, the system will return an error.

Assign Teaching Staff

Each allocation must have at least one staff member assigned before it can be confirmed or published.

1. Open the allocation from Timetable → Allocations.
2. In the Staff panel, click Add Staff.
3. Search for the staff member by name or staff number. Staff are drawn from the Staff Profiles directory, which includes visiting and external staff who may not have a SIS login.
4. Select a Role for this staff member:
   • Lecturer — primary content deliverer (default).
   • Tutor — delivers tutorials or smaller group sessions.
   • Demonstrator — supports laboratory or practical sessions.
   • Coordinator — oversees module delivery without delivering sessions.
   • Supervisor — supervises independent or project-based work.
5. Click Add.

To remove a staff member, click the remove icon next to their name in the Staff panel. To change a role, click the role badge and select a different option from the dropdown.

Note: Staff members who do not have a SIS system account are shown with a No SIS Login indicator. This is informational — they can be fully scheduled and their availability rules can be managed, but they will not be able to view their timetable in the portal.

Add Meeting Patterns

A meeting pattern defines when and how often sessions occur for this allocation. You must add at least one pattern and then generate sessions before the allocation can be confirmed.

1. Open the allocation and click Add Pattern in the Meeting Patterns section.
2. Configure the pattern:
   • Session Type — the type of teaching session: lecture, tutorial, lab, seminar, workshop, or other.
   • Recurrence Type — how often sessions repeat: weekly (every week), fortnightly (every second week), or custom (specific week numbers only).
   • Day of Week — the day sessions occur.
   • Start Time / End Time — the session time slot. The duration must be greater than zero and no longer than 12 hours.
   • Effective From / Effective To — the date range within the term during which this pattern applies. Must fall within the term's start and end dates.
   • Room — optionally assign a room now. Rooms are filtered by campus and capacity. A warning is shown if the room capacity is less than the allocation's expected enrollment.
   • Week Numbers — required for custom recurrence. Enter the specific ISO week numbers within the term when sessions should occur.
   • Skip Blackouts — when enabled (default), sessions are not generated on dates marked as blackouts in the linked calendar.
3. Click Save & Preview to see a preview of the sessions this pattern will generate, then confirm to save the pattern.

Pro Tip: Use Time Slot Templates to pre-fill the day, start time, end time, and session type fields with a saved standard configuration, such as a "Standard Lecture" block. Templates are managed in Timetable → Settings → Templates.

Generate Sessions

After adding meeting patterns, generate the individual session instances from them.

1. Open the allocation and click Generate Sessions.
2. Review the summary dialog, which lists each pattern, the expected number of sessions, and any blackout dates that will be skipped.
3. If the allocation already has draft sessions, a warning is shown that they will be replaced. Confirm to proceed.
4. Click Generate.

The system expands each meeting pattern into individual session instances, one per qualifying date. Generated sessions start with Draft status. Review them in the session grid and run conflict detection before confirming the allocation.

Important: You cannot regenerate sessions once any session in the allocation has been published. To make changes to patterns after publication, use the session management actions (cancel, reschedule) on individual sessions.

Cancel an Allocation

If a module offering is no longer being delivered to the cohort in this term, you can cancel the allocation.

1. Open the allocation.
2. Click Cancel Allocation.
3. Enter a reason for the cancellation in the dialog.
4. Click Confirm Cancellation.

Cancelling an allocation sets its status to Cancelled and automatically cancels all Draft and Confirmed sessions linked to it. Sessions that have already been Published retain their published status and remain in the historical record — they are not modified.

Important: Cancellation is irreversible. A cancelled allocation cannot be reactivated. If you need to reschedule the module delivery, create a new allocation.

Next: Conflict Detection