Why didn't the scheduler honor my "Prefer" availability entry?

The scheduling engine generates optimized schedules -- not just schedules where the sessions barely fit.  The default optimization preferences are a delicate balance between a lot of factors.  While this balance is often a great starting point, it may not exactly reflect your priorities and preferences.  In those cases, it's important for you to tell the scheduler which factors are most important to you.

When you set a "Prefer" availability entry for a grade/teacher/student, these soft constraints are only one of many factors considered by the scheduling engine.  As much as possible, the engine will attempt to honor these "Prefer" requests, but it may not do that if it works against other factors that it's trying to optimize (like Productivity).

For more info on hard/soft constraints, please see Hard constraints vs. soft constraints.  The 3 types of availability entries are:

• "Must Not" - hard constraint
• "Prefer Not" - soft constraint
• "Prefer" - soft constraint

Astute readers will notice that there is no "Must" hard constraint.  This is because it's equivalent to manual scheduling, which is handled differently within the scheduling engine (and generally detracts from optimized schedules).  More info on this can be found here:

• Manually scheduling some of your students
• Can I manually edit a generated schedule? Or am I stuck with it?

So, if you're trying to encourage the scheduling engine to honor your "Prefer" availability entries, here are some things you can try:

• Adjust your Therapist Preference for "Maximize Taking Students During Preferred Times" up to 10
• Adjust your Therapist Preference for "Maximize Productivity" down to 1
• Utilize manual scheduling (see links above)