Setting up Special Days
When a day is set to “special”, right-click to set the periods that are in-session for that date. In the dialog, list the periods that are in session that date, one per line. The first value is the PeriodGroupTag and the second is the Period that the section will be scheduled on that date. For most schools, since they will use the Period as the PeriodGroupTag, both values will usually be the same.


So, if the school wants a special day that has periods 1, 2, 6, & 9, set up the special day as follows:


1=1
2=2
6=6
9=9
 
If the same school uses different scheduling types for different grades (or other criteria), the PeriodGroupTag names can be set up to implement that.


For example:
Let's say a middle school has grades 5-8, and grades 5-6 use regular “W” days, and 7-8 use A/B days. If the school wants special days to apply to only the 7-8 grade, the section group tags would be like the following:
  • Grade 5 sections, tag=”G5”
  • Grade 6 sections, tag=”G6”
  • Grade 7-8 “A” sections, tag=”A.1” through “A.8”
  • Grade 7-8 “B” sections, tag=”B.1” through “B.8”

Then, for a special day where grade 5-6 are the same as usual, but 7-8 have a special day, set up the day as:


G5=*W        (this treats the day as a normal weekday for this group)
G6=*W
A.3=1            (“A” day period 3 sections will be period 1 today)
B.1=2
A.2=3
B.2=4
 

The above would treat grades 5-6 as regular weekday, and for grades 7-8, the regular A.3 periods would be scheduled for period 1, B.1 would be during period 2, A.2 in period 3, and B.2 during period 4.


There is a good bit of flexibility, though for complex cases it will take some thought to set up the group tags properly. Please contact support if you need assistance with setup.