Conflict Detection
Conflict detection checks the draft session instances in a teaching allocation against all other scheduled sessions, resource availability rules, calendar blackouts, and room capacities to identify any scheduling clashes. Conflicts must be resolved before a timetable can be published — hard conflicts block publication entirely, while soft conflicts are warnings that a planner can acknowledge and override.
Conflict Types
| Conflict Type | Severity | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Room double-booking | Hard | Two sessions are assigned the same room at the same date and time. |
| Staff double-booking | Hard | A staff member is assigned to two different sessions at the same date and time. |
| Cohort overlap | Hard | The same cohort group has two sessions scheduled at the same date and time, meaning students would be expected in two places simultaneously. |
| Calendar blackout | Hard | A session falls on a date marked as a blackout in the allocation's timetable calendar. |
| Room availability rule violation | Hard or Soft | A session falls within a room's unavailable availability rule (hard) or a restricted rule (soft). |
| Staff availability rule violation | Hard or Soft | A session falls within a staff member's unavailable availability rule (hard) or a restricted rule (soft). |
| Capacity mismatch | Soft | The allocation's expected enrollment exceeds the assigned room's capacity. |
| Incomplete allocation | Soft | The allocation has no meeting patterns defined, or no staff assigned. It cannot be safely published in this state. |
Note: Cancelled sessions are excluded from all conflict checks. A session marked as Cancelled does not count as occupying a room or a staff member's time.
Evaluate Conflicts
Conflict detection runs either on a single allocation or across all allocations in a term.
Evaluate conflicts for a single allocation
- Open the allocation from Timetable → Allocations.
- Click Check Conflicts (or open the Conflicts panel).
- The system evaluates all draft and confirmed session instances for the allocation and displays a summary: the number of hard conflicts and soft conflicts found.
- Expand each conflict type in the panel to see the specific sessions and the nature of each clash.
Each conflict row shows the affected session date and time, the conflict message (for example, "Room R101 is double-booked on Mon 10 Mar 09:00–10:00 with Data Structures"), and a link to navigate to the conflicting session. For soft conflicts, a Resolve button is available to acknowledge the issue.
Evaluate conflicts for a term
To check all allocations in a term at once — useful before publishing a full term timetable — go to Timetable → Publications, select the term, and click Check Conflicts. The system queues a full evaluation across every allocation in the term and shows a summary when complete. This is the same check that runs automatically when you initiate a publication.
Note: Conflict records are always fresh. Every time you run an evaluation, the system deletes the previous conflict records for the allocation and inserts new ones. Stale conflicts from previous evaluations are never accumulated.
Resolve Conflicts
Fixing hard conflicts
Hard conflicts cannot be acknowledged — they must be fixed by changing the underlying schedule. Common fixes include the following.
- Room double-booking: Edit one of the conflicting meeting patterns and assign a different room, or change the session time.
- Staff double-booking: Edit the allocation's staff assignments to remove the conflicting staff member from one of the sessions, or change the session time of one allocation.
- Cohort overlap: Change the day or time of one of the conflicting sessions so the cohort group is not expected in two places at once.
- Calendar blackout: If the session date must stay as-is, remove the blackout date from the calendar, or regenerate sessions after disabling the Skip Blackouts option on the pattern. Otherwise, adjust the pattern's date range to avoid the blackout period.
- Room availability rule: Assign a different room, or change the session time to a period when the room is available.
- Staff availability rule: Assign a different staff member, or change the session time to a period when the staff member is available.
After making changes, re-run conflict detection to confirm the hard conflicts are cleared.
Acknowledging soft conflicts
Soft conflicts do not block publication. If you have reviewed a soft conflict and accept it — for example, a room is slightly over capacity but it is the only suitable option — you can acknowledge it.
- Open the Conflicts panel for the allocation.
- Find the soft conflict you want to acknowledge.
- Click Acknowledge next to the conflict entry.
Acknowledged conflicts are visually de-emphasised in the panel and no longer contribute to the unresolved conflict count. The acknowledgement is recorded with the planner's name and timestamp for audit purposes. Acknowledged soft conflicts are still visible in the conflict list for reference.
Note: Acknowledging a soft conflict does not change the underlying schedule. If you re-run conflict detection after acknowledging, the conflict will reappear and must be acknowledged again.
Term Conflict Summary
The term conflict summary shows the aggregate conflict state across all allocations in a term. It is used as the publication gate check — publication is only allowed when the hard conflict count is zero.
To view the summary, go to Timetable → Publications and select the term. The summary banner shows the total number of hard and soft conflicts and indicates whether the term is ready to publish. Links in the summary navigate directly to the allocations with outstanding issues.
The Re-evaluate button on the summary runs a fresh full-term evaluation if the current results are stale (for example, if patterns or availability rules have changed since the last evaluation was run).
Next: Publishing a Timetable