Hi Meppy,
I would appreciate your advice on how to proceed with my project. I hope my question is not redundant and that your response may be useful to other users. I am sure my application is very typical (but I did not see what I needed in the tutorials).

I am creating a scheduling program for a processing plant. I will be importing their customer orders and using their bill of materials to define a process schedule to fulfill the order. There are up to 24 work centers (resources) that need scheduling and for each ordered item there may be up to 5 levels of processing each flowing linearly from one work center to the next time-wise. Also each work center has its own defined work day with breaks and multiple shifts.

So I need to create an initial schedule programmatically from the orders and then allow the planner to modify the schedules graphically via drag and drop. I will maintain the schedule in a separate database where I am tracking other production acitivity as well.

I am not looking for you to write my application but rather give me a thumbnail sketch (flow chart) of how best to use MindFusion Scheduling to implement my project. Perhaps I can discover most of this from the help file and trial and error but your assitance will give me a head start.

Just to let you know where I am so far...it seems the Schedule class would be the place to begin. I would create items with start/end times and use the GetFreePeriod to find slots for new items. Once I have all the items scheduled via this class, I could read them back into my database and then use them for the planner's activities using the timetable calendar view.

I do not know if that is the way to start. Also I do not know how to handle the work schedule (i.e. lunch, breaks, work hours and non-work hours etc.), how to show the planner the schedule for one work center over several days or all work centers on a given day or one order's schedule. You advice on how to do these actions is greatly appreciated.

Again, I am not asking you to provide detail code but just point me to the right classes and properties/methods and a suggestion how to use them. I think you have a great product! I reviewed the competition and none came close to providing what MindFusion Scheduling provides (at least as far as my needs are concerned).

Thanks for all your help (PS...that is another reason I choose MindFusion, your responses to questions have been timely and very thorough).

John

Hi Meppy,
Thank you for your speedy reply. It did help. I will just have to ask specific questions as I go. My problem is that your product is so powerful and feature rich it is hard to know what to use when. But I am sure that becomes second nature as I get into it. And I will have to work through more of the tutorials to learn.

I have a question about GetFreePeriod. Using tutorial one as my starting point, I modified the code as shown below. What I am trying to do is create two appointments. One has a resource and the other does not. I then have 2 buttons. One to get free period without regard to resource. And one to get free period relative to the assigned resource.

The first button getting free period without regard to resource works fine. It reports a start time at the end of the second appointment as I expected.

But the one for free period based on the resource, gives the same start time as the first appointment. I expected it to give me the end time of the first appointment. So I must be missing a setup somewhere. Please advise.

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

calendar.BeginInit()
calendar.TimetableSettings.Dates.Clear()

Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To 5

calendar.TimetableSettings.Dates.Add( _
DateTime.Today.Add(New TimeSpan(i, 0, 0, 0)))

Next i
Dim app As New Appointment()
app.HeaderText = "Meet George"
app.DescriptionText = "This is a sample appointment"
'app.StartTime = New DateTime(2006, 1, 10, 14, 0, 0)
'app.EndTime = New DateTime(2006, 1, 10, 16, 30, 0)
Dim startTime As Date = CDate(Format(Now, "MM/dd/yyyy") & " 01:00")
app.StartTime = startTime
app.EndTime = DateAdd(DateInterval.Minute, 210, startTime)
'app.Style.Brush = New MindFusion.Drawing.SolidBrush(Color.LightGreen)
'app.SelectedStyle.Brush = New MindFusion.Drawing.SolidBrush(Color.Red)
app.Id = "1234"

Dim theResource As New MindFusion.Scheduling.Resource
theResource.Id = "900009"
theResource.Name = "Labeling Line"
theResource.Tag = "900009"
app.Resources.Add(theResource)
calendar.Schedule.Items.Add(app)
calendar.Schedule.Resources.Add(theResource)

Dim app2 As New Appointment()
app2.HeaderText = "Appt with no resouce"
app2.DescriptionText = "This is a sample appointment without a resource assigned."
'app.StartTime = New DateTime(2006, 1, 10, 14, 0, 0)
'app.EndTime = New DateTime(2006, 1, 10, 16, 30, 0)
Dim startTime2 As Date = DateAdd(DateInterval.Minute, 300, startTime)
Dim endTime2 As Date = DateAdd(DateInterval.Minute, 20, startTime2)
app2.StartTime = startTime2
app2.EndTime = DateAdd(DateInterval.Minute, 210, startTime2)
'app.Style.Brush = New MindFusion.Drawing.SolidBrush(Color.LightGreen)
'app.SelectedStyle.Brush = New MindFusion.Drawing.SolidBrush(Color.Red)
app2.Id = "5678"
calendar.Schedule.Items.Add(app2)

calendar.Schedule.Items("1234").Style.Brush = New MindFusion.Drawing.SolidBrush(Color.Green)
calendar.Schedule.Items("1234").SelectedStyle.Brush = New MindFusion.Drawing.SolidBrush(Color.CadetBlue)

calendar.TimetableSettings.VisibleColumns = 3

calendar.EndInit()

End Sub

Private Sub btnGetNextAll_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnGetNextAll.Click
Dim theInterval As New TimeSpan(0, 40, 0, 0)
Dim startTime As Date = CDate(Format(Now, "MM/dd/yyyy") & " 01:00")
Dim endTime As Date = DateAdd(DateInterval.Day, 5, startTime)
MessageBox.Show(Me.calendar.Schedule.GetFreePeriod(startTime, endTime, theInterval))
End Sub

Private Sub btnGetNextResource_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnGetNextResource.Click
Dim theResources As New MindFusion.Scheduling.ResourceCollection
Dim theResource As New MindFusion.Scheduling.Resource
theResource.Id = "900009"
theResource.Name = "Labeling Line"
theResource.Tag = "900009"
theResources.Add(theResource)
Dim theInterval As New TimeSpan(0, 40, 0, 0)
Dim startTime As Date = CDate(Format(Now, "MM/dd/yyyy") & " 01:00")
Dim endTime As Date = DateAdd(DateInterval.Day, 5, startTime)
MessageBox.Show(Me.calendar.Schedule.GetFreePeriod(startTime, endTime, theInterval, theResources))
End Sub

Thanks Meppy,
That worked great! You know what...we need a "MindFusion For Dummies" book LOL.

John

Hi John,

Probably make 3 separate calls of the GetFreePeriod method for each of the machines individually. Then use the earliest of the three returned intervals. Or perhaps make consecutive calls for each of the machines until you find a suitable free period - that is, if the first machine finds a free period, you schedule the activity on this machine. If not, you attempt to schedule the activity on the next machine etc. Of course using the consecutive approach does not guarantee that the activity will be scheduled as early as possible.

Will that work?

Regards,
Meppy

Can't you then just call GetFreePeriod passing a reference to the machine of interest (the one that is processing the product you are scheduling)?

Regards,
Meppy