Troubleshooting
Find solutions to common problems you might encounter while using Caldemic.
Problem: My schedule failed to generate.
If the status of your schedule job is "Failed", it usually means the optimizer could not find a valid solution that satisfies all the "hard" constraints. This is almost always due to the initial setup.
Common Causes & Solutions:
- Not Enough Lab Capacity: The total maximum capacity of all your lab slots is less than the number of students you need to schedule.
Solution: Add more lab sections or increase the "Max Students" for existing labs until the total capacity is greater than or equal to your student count. - Overly Restrictive Constraints: A student might have so many class/work commitments that there are no available lab slots for them.
Solution: Check the schedules of unassigned students (if any from a previous run). Consider adding lab slots at different times of the day or week to accommodate more students. - High Minimum Student Requirement: If the "Min Students" setting is too high on all labs, the AI may not be able to fill every lab to its minimum threshold.
Solution: Lower the "Min Students" on some lab sections to give the optimizer more flexibility. Review our Best Practices for Lab Definitions.
Problem: A student's schedule upload is failing.
When a student uses the unique upload link, their file might be rejected for a few key reasons.
Common Causes & Solutions:
- Incorrect File Source: The student is trying to upload a class schedule from a personal calendar (like Google Calendar or Outlook) instead of their official university portal.
Solution: Direct the student to our Importing Student Schedules guide for instructions on how to download the correct file. - Malformed `.ics` File: The file might be corrupted or not contain any valid, schedulable events for the current semester.
Solution: Ask the student to try re-downloading the file from their university portal. - Student Already Exists: A student with the same name or EIN has already been added to your course.
Solution: Check your "Students" page. If you need to update an existing student's schedule, you must first delete the old student record before they can re-upload.
Problem: The generated schedule seems unbalanced.
Sometimes a generated schedule might look unbalanced, with some labs nearly empty and others full, or some students having more labs than others. The AI optimizer is always trying to find the best possible solution based on a hierarchy of rules.
Common Reasons:
- Hard Constraints Come First: The AI will *always* prioritize hard constraints (like a student's class schedule) over soft preferences (like balancing lab sizes). An "unbalanced" schedule is often the only way to ensure no student has a direct conflict.
- Work Conflicts and Preferences: The AI is programmed to heavily penalize assigning a student during their registered work hours and to reward placing them in preferred slots. It may choose to create an unbalanced schedule to better accommodate these factors.
- Student Availability: If many students are only available during a specific block of time, the labs in that block will naturally be more full.
Still Having Trouble?
If your issue isn't covered here, please don't hesitate to reach out. We're in beta and your feedback is essential.