High Council Matrix program

[geek]

I'm just a lowly ward clerk guys, but I'm bored today and I coded up a quick-and-dirty round-robin solution that ensures a balance of speaking assignments and accounts for ward conferences, etc. The only problem is that it does not seem to (a) evenly distribute the effects of a speaker's schedule -- meaning, a speaker may get a cluster of assignments and (b) a speaker may visit a ward twice. .

Of course, as soon as I type that, I find a case that causes it to fail perfectly. That's what I get for ignoring my dissertation.

[mkmurray]

Actually, what if g(x) is just the number of speaking assignments that individual already has assigned? That would give preference to those who currently have the least assignments. Wouldn't that give equal spacing between each assignment, while doing a round-robin approach? I'll see if I can do a proof of concept with it and post a diagram or something.

Same here, I just type it and then realize my idea is flawed. Having only this as the g(x) is the same algorithm I already have in place, where it round-robins until it's done. The g(x) has to be expanded to include this AND something like what thedqs suggested, to try and give priority to spread out assignments.

Although, I don't know if any of this matters...I can imagine people want different things out of this application. Like with the example of 12 speakers and 6 units...My algorithm makes sure each unit gets visited and the assignemtns are all bunched together in the first 6 months. If I were to spread that out, then the other 6 speakers wouldn't speak that year and wards are only being visited every 2 months. This seems to be a hard algorithm to parameterize for the user, let alone just design the algorithm.

[WelchTC]

I'm just a lowly ward clerk guys, but I'm bored today and I coded up a quick-and-dirty round-robin solution that ensures a balance of speaking assignments and accounts for ward conferences, etc. The only problem is that it does not seem to (a) evenly distribute the effects of a speaker's schedule -- meaning, a speaker may get a cluster of assignments and (b) a speaker may visit a ward twice. How important are these?

I have been playing with some other stuff today and thinking in ksh, but I can send you the solution. I've been testing it with different numbers of wards and ward conference configurations (including multiple wards having conference the same month, and it seems to work well, given the two caveats above).

In our stake, here are the important criteria

1. No one should speak at the same ward twice in a year (unless illness or other incidents such as military leave cause an absence by a high councilor).
2. Everyone should get roughly the same amount of "time off" from speaking.

Tom

[russellhltn]

(unless illness or other incidents such as military leave cause an absence by a high councilor).

Which raises a issue. The program needs to re-calculate the assignments if there's been changes. A simple release/call isn't a big deal - the new counselor simply follows the schedule of the one that he replaced. But what happens when substitutions are made? Or new units created during the year? As well as carrying things over to the next year and not just "start over" and potentially getting "two in a row" between December and January.

Gee, it seemed so simple......

[mkmurray]

Gee, it seemed so simple......

Yes, I'm beginning to wonder if expanding the app is worth the trouble.

[WelchTC]

Which raises a issue. The program needs to re-calculate the assignments if there's been changes. A simple release/call isn't a big deal - the new counselor simply follows the schedule of the one that he replaced. But what happens when substitutions are made? Or new units created during the year? As well as carrying things over to the next year and not just "start over" and potentially getting "two in a row" between December and January.

Gee, it seemed so simple......

In our stake when a high councilor was sent to Iraq, the Stake Presidency decided to leave him in his calling as his deployment is expected to be short (a few months). Because of this, other high councilors filled in. I don't think that the application needs to worry about short term substitutions. Long term subs, however, should be considered.

The goal of the program should be to "suggest" a schedule and not to make it perfect. Some fine tuning would still need to be applied in many cases.

Tom

[russellhltn]

Because of this, other high councilors filled in. I don't think that the application needs to worry about short term substitutions. Long term subs, however, should be considered.

The goal of the program should be to "suggest" a schedule and not to make it perfect. Some fine tuning would still need to be applied in many cases.

It all depends on how the stake wants to handle it. Having councilors fill in disrupts the schedule. If the stake want to re-calculate based on even a one-time substitute, then the program needs to be able to recalculate from that.

What I envision is a system that will calculate a schedule for a year, but then allow for manual entries to reflect special situations and give the option to recalculate from there. It's the stake's option whether they want to stick to the original schedule printed for the year or do a revised one with the help of the program.

[mkmurray]

What I envision is a system that will calculate a schedule for a year, but then allow for manual entries to reflect special situations and give the option to recalculate from there. It's the stake's option whether they want to stick to the original schedule printed for the year or do a revised one with the help of the program.

It's a great idea. We just need to go through the process of picking an appropriate algorithm and mapping out the problem, perhaps with some tree diagrams or something.

[GarciaB]

Thank you, Thank you, thank you! This saved me so much time. Took me longer to find your exe than to enter data. I'm a fairly new Stake Executive Secretary and you just made me look good. Thanks, again.