Generating Assignments

Generating Assignments

Once you have added your students, classes, and configured any preferences, restrictions, or pre-assignments, you are ready to generate balanced class lists.

How to Trigger Generation

To generate assignments:

• Navigate to the Generate tab on your yearly class dashboard.
• Review your assignment settings (max students per class, gender balance threshold) and adjust if needed.
• Click the Generate button to start the process.

The button is disabled while a generation is in progress. You will see a loading indicator until the process completes.

What Happens Behind the Scenes

When you click Generate, the system sends all your data to the assignment engine. The algorithm then:

• Locks in all pre-assigned students to their designated classes.
• Enforces all restrictions to keep separated students apart.
• Distributes the remaining students across classes while respecting the max class size and gender balance settings.
• Optimizes for friend placement (honoring preferences) and balances academic and behavioral scales across classes.

Processing Time

Generation typically takes a few seconds for a standard school setup. Larger student populations or heavily constrained configurations may take longer. The system will notify you when the process finishes.

Handling Failures and Warnings

If the algorithm cannot find a valid assignment, you will see an error message. Common causes include:

• Too many constraints — Conflicting restrictions, pre-assignments, or an overly tight gender balance threshold can leave no feasible arrangement.
• Class size too low — The max students per class setting does not leave enough room to fit all students.
• Conflicting rules — Two restricted students are both pre-assigned to the same class, or other contradictions exist.

To resolve failures:

• Review your restrictions and pre-assignments for conflicts.
• Try relaxing your settings — increase the class size cap or raise the gender balance threshold.
• Remove non-essential constraints and re-generate.

Re-Generating with Different Parameters

You can generate assignments multiple times. Each run produces a new result based on your current data and settings. This lets you:

• Experiment with different constraint combinations to see how they affect class composition.
• Compare results across runs by adjusting settings between generations.
• Try loosening or tightening specific constraints to find the best balance for your school.

Viewing the Generated Results

After a successful generation, the results are displayed directly on your dashboard. You can see each class with its assigned students, along with statistics about gender balance, scale distribution, and preference fulfillment. For a detailed walkthrough of the output, see Understanding Results.

For more information on how the algorithm processes your data, see How the Algorithm Works.