Planifica: an optimization engine for school timetables
Planifica is the school timetabling software published by DigiFinance. This case study shows how we built it: modelling a school, the constraint optimization engine, the cloud architecture and the security choices. These are the skills we bring to your projects.
The challenge
Building a timetable means placing every session of the curriculum in a weekly grid while respecting teachers' availability, rooms and the subjects they can host, each grade's hours and the school's teaching rules. In many schools this is still done by hand, every new school year, over several days.
The number of combinations explodes as soon as a school has a few dozen classes: a spreadsheet no longer copes, and one late change can undo everything. The goal had three parts: produce a valid timetable automatically, explain what blocks when not every session can be placed, and let the school make the final adjustments.
Our approach
Modelling the school
Grades and groups, subjects, each grade's curriculum, teachers with their availability and workload, rooms with their capacity: every element becomes structured data. The model follows Morocco's 6-3-3 structure (primary, middle and high school) and checks that the data is complete before any run starts.
Optimizing under constraints
At the core of Planifica is a constraint optimizer: among all possible combinations, it searches for a timetable that respects every rule of the school. The school chooses what matters most: honouring preferences, more compact days or lower teaching cost. Runs execute as background jobs, within a time limit set in advance.
Explaining and adjusting
When not every session can be placed, Planifica shows the coverage rate, what blocked it and which constraints could be relaxed. The result is then applied to an editable calendar, and several versions can be saved and compared.
Extending to school transport
The same foundation plans pick-up routes: a route optimizer accounts for vehicle capacity and time windows. During a run, the vehicle's location serves as evidence of each stop, and the alerts a parent receives concern only their own child.
A secure cloud architecture
The web application exposes no secret to the browser: sensitive calls go through the server. A multi-tenant API isolates each organization's data. The services are hosted in the cloud and deployed through automated delivery pipelines, and the optimization service is continuously monitored.
In short
- Timetables computed automatically, within a run time bounded and set in advance.
- Three optimization goals to choose from: preferences, compact days or cost.
- A coverage diagnosis when the problem has no complete solution, rather than a bare failure.
- An interface in French, English and Arabic.
- A documented partner API to integrate Planifica with other software.
What this means for your project
Planifica brings together the skills we offer Moroccan companies: modelling a complex business, optimizing it with proven AI techniques and delivering a secure cloud platform. If you face a planning, resource-allocation or business-automation problem, let's talk.
See our servicesAll of Planifica's features
This page tells how Planifica was built. To discover the product and all of its features, visit its own site.
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