4.2.8 Restrictions

As we have mentioned earlier in this section, FineTime does not allow lessons to be scheduled such that they would be in conflict with other lessons. For example, lessons with the same student or teacher may not be scheduled at the same time. The rules governing this behaviour are called hard restrictions; they are always applicable.

In addition to the hard restrictions, FineTime implements a number of so-called soft restrictions whose applicability may be set as desired. An example of a soft restriction is the rule that only one lesson of a particular type may take place per day. You can instruct FineTime to either ignore this rule, to regard it as a recommendation, or to strictly enforce it, according to your requirements.

Figure 4.3: The Restrictions dialog, showing settings which include allowing groups to be scheduled at times of limited availability, forbidding more than one lesson of a type per day, and discouraging lessons at venues other than the group's preferred one.

To specify how you would like FineTime to treat the soft restrictions, choose Settings - Restrictions from the menu bar to invoke the Restrictions dialog, as shown in Figure 4.3. Now use the mouse to drag the sliders to positions corresponding to the degree to which you would like FineTime to enforce each of the soft restrictions.