Getting started with Suggested Scheduling

Key Benefits

• Saves Schedulers Hours: Drafts a full multi day schedule automatically based on your real time system data. There is no need to manually select pools of instructors or aircraft because the system checks eligibility automatically.
• Prioritizes Student Progression: Automatically calculates which students are behind target and schedules them first to keep everyone on track.
• Keeps Drafts Private: Every proposed session is saved as an unpublished booking marked with a Suggested tag. Instructors and students will not see these sessions, and no emails will be sent until you choose to publish them.
• Prevents Scheduling Conflicts: Checks aircraft qualifications, student availability, operating hours, and resource maintenance before making any suggestions.

System Requirements and Recommendations

Core Requirements

These components must be activated and configured before you can generate suggestions.

• Student Progression Module: Determines which students are behind pace and calculates how many sessions each student needs. Suggested Scheduling cannot be activated without this module.
• Operating Hours (Day and Night): Establishes the daily time windows for booking sessions. Suggestions cannot be generated without operating hours set up.
• Unpublished Bookings Permissions: Schedulers running the tool must have the permission Can view, create, edit, or delete unpublished bookings set to create and edit or higher. 
• Permitted Aircraft Models: Defines allowable aircraft for each session, revision, or program. Sessions without configured aircraft models will be skipped.
• Instructor Aircraft Qualifications: Ensures instructors are only scheduled for aircraft models they are explicitly qualified to operate.

Strongly Recommended Setup

While the system can run without these, configuring the following features ensures your draft schedules reflect real-world availability.

• Availability (Instructors and Students): For user roles with availability enabled, individuals are only booked inside registered availability windows. Anyone without registered availability is assumed free during all operating hours, which can cause scheduling conflicts.
• Program Revision Pace: Ensure the lessons per week field is filled in on every program revision. If an active student does not have a desired completion date set in Student Progression, the system uses this program pace as a fallback and treats the student as on track.
• Lesson Prerequisites: Configures the exact lesson sequence. Without prerequisites set, lessons are planned in simple chronological program order.
• Instructor Certificate Prerequisites: Ensures specific session certificates are checked. Without these, any instructor qualified on the aircraft model can be assigned.
• Certificates (with Blocking Enabled): Ensures expired student or instructor certificates stop invalid bookings on the scheduled date.
• Location Center: Essential for multi base schools to prevent assigning students to instructors or aircraft located at different airfields.

Optional Preferences

These optional settings help tailor suggestions to your team's routine:

• Preferred Instructors per Student: Prioritizes assigned or primary instructors when available.
• Preferred Aircraft Models per Student: Prioritizes a student's primary aircraft preference.
• Account Booking Blocks: Applies live checks for unairworthy squawks, missing or expired maintenance, certificate approvals, missing sign offs, flight and duty time limits, ground training warnings, and credit warnings or limits.

What Suggested Scheduling Can Plan

Suggested Scheduling manages all core practical training activities, including:

• Dual flight lessons
• Solo flight lessons with assigned supervision (a solo lesson always receives an assigned instructor)
• Simulator sessions planned in simulator windows
• Custom lessons, repetitions, and partially completed lessons

How the System Prioritizes Bookings

To keep your flight school running smoothly, FlightLogger evaluates student status using data from the Student Progression module:

• Progression Status: Students who are behind target receive top priority, followed by students on track, and finally students ahead of target.
• Pace Gap: Within each status group, students with the largest gap between their required pace and current pace are planned first.
• Target Dates: If two students are tied because they are equally behind and have the exact same gap in their training pace, the system looks at their dates to decide who goes first. It first prioritizes the student whose target course completion date is coming up sooner. If their target end dates are the same, it gives priority to whoever started their training program earlier. 

Calculating Student Targets

A student's lesson target is simply how many flights they need to take during the days you have selected.

To work this out, the system takes the number of lessons the student should be flying each week, multiplies that by the number of weeks you are planning for, and then subtracts any flights they already have booked. What is left over is the exact number of new lessons the system will try to schedule for the student.

Students who are behind or on track always receive a target of at least one lesson. Students who are ahead have no target and only receive leftover slots. A target is naturally capped by your chosen daily flight limit, the selected calendar days, and any upcoming manual ground checks.

How the System Chooses the Best Booking

Whenever there are several possible combinations of instructors, aircraft, or time slots for a lesson, the system uses a simple point scoring system to pick the winner.

• Earlier time slots score the most points, because getting lessons done sooner is always preferred.
• Primary instructors score higher than backup or fallback instructors.
• Bookings that keep instructors busy back to back get extra points, while awkward gaps that leave too little time for another lesson lose points.
• An instructor who flew with the student recently gets a small bonus, so students stick with familiar faces.

Because this scoring is based entirely on set rules and numbers, there is no guesswork involved. If you run the system with the exact same data, you will always get the exact same schedule.

Predictive Maintenance and Fleet Selection

Suggested Scheduling keeps a close eye on your maintenance schedules so aircraft do not fly when they are due for an inspection:

• Built in Safety Buffer: The system leaves a two hour safety buffer before any maintenance check based on flight hours. It will never schedule a flight that eats into those final two hours.
• Draft Bookings Count Toward Hours: The system counts existing draft bookings and newly suggested lessons as flown hours, ensuring a run will not accidentally book an aircraft beyond its service limit.
• Calendar Inspections: For inspections tied to calendar dates rather than flight hours, the system ensures the aircraft is never scheduled on or after the date the check is due.
• Maintenance Bookings Reset the Clock: If an aircraft has a maintenance booking on the calendar, the system treats it as fully serviced as soon as that maintenance booking finishes, freeing it up for new lessons right away.
• Flying the Aircraft Closest to Service First: When several assets are equally suitable for a lesson, the system chooses the one that is closest to its next inspection. This brings aircraft in for service one by one, and leaves other aircraft open for rental flights or unexpected backups.
• Limiting How Many Aircraft Are Down at Once: If your school reaches its set limit of aircraft grounded for maintenance, the system automatically changes its strategy and starts using the planes with the most hours left instead.
• Sharing the Workload on Other Aircraft: For aircraft that do not track maintenance hours in the system, flights are spread evenly across the fleet

Need help?

If you need assistance, feel free to contact our support team via the Get Support tab inside FlightLogger.