School scheduling/timetabling software
School scheduling/timetabling software
Online and offline timetabling
Apr 5th
When Prime Timetable 1.0 was released back in June 2009, one of the first feedbacks we’ve received was from a school which doesn’t have full-time Internet access, requesting offline version of our software. Ironical, isn’t it? We thought that we live in an online world where Internet connection is always accessible so we have built the world’s first online school timetable software as a service. But we were wrong. After some time, we’ve received similar feedback from other schools which don’t like reliable Internet connection requirement, too.
Therefore, we are very happy to announce that from this day on we will support both online and offline school timetabling for our customers. Even if your Internet connection is dropped or you are only occasionally connected you can still continue working on your timetables. When Internet connection is back your local changes will be synchronized with our server so that you can share your timetable with others.
For our premium customers we’ve made one step further in enabling offline timetabling work. Just go to Help -> Options and click Install Prime Timetable button which will install Prime Timetable on your computer. You will get the newly installed program in Program Files and a new desktop icon. Starting Prime Timetable from your desktop allows you to access your timetables whenever you want with or without Internet connection and thus avoid going to Prime Timetable web site and signing in.
And now, please forgive me, I need to finish some timetabling work while I’m offline. Disconnecting, good bye.
Browsing timetables using back and forward
Apr 5th
Prime Timetable is an online school timetable service that works in your browser of choice. It is quite common that you will want to use the browser’s back and forward button to browse through previously opened timetables. This has been possible since the beginning, but we have made some improvements that we would like to share with you:
- Clicking back or forward button will not refresh the web page, meaning previous or next timetable will be opened and its cards will immediately fly into existing timetable view.
- If current view is single entity view, then default timetable view (specified in options) will show up instead.
- You can click on back or forward button while timetable setup window is open and all grids and view will be refreshed as well. The browser’s URL will be changed and you can copy/paste timetable link.
- Browsing through previously opened timetables is a lot faster now, almost instant, because we are caching opened timetables on your computer. However, in the background we will check if some other user has made changes in the meantime and load them.
Clicking back button in browser will show previously open timetable
These are all small improvements, but we think that it will make browsing timetables a lot faster and better. Happy timetable browsing!
Lesson statistics and filtering
Apr 4th
A timetabler needs to enter lots of data in order to create a timetable, such as subjects, rooms, teachers, classes and groups and most importantly: lessons.
To go directly on lesson tab click owl and select “Manage lessons”. In the left pane, there is a lesson filter displayed as a tree view with items such as: Teachers, Classes, Subjects and Rooms. When one of them is clicked global statistics for teachers, classes, subjects or rooms and all lessons will be displayed. For instance, when Classes is clicked, total number of lessons as well as number of entered classes are displayed at the top of the lesson’s data grid.
Global lesson statistics for classes
Expanding top items in the left pane and selecting single entity will display single timetable statistics for selected teacher, class (or group), subject or room as well as lessons count. For instance, selected class 101 has 25 lessons in this screenshot below:
Single lesson statistics for selected class
This way the timetabler can easily validate that number of entered teachers, classes, subjects, rooms and lessons is correct.
Request a timetabling feature or vote for existing ones
Sep 13th
Your feedback is crucial and therefore we have just started Prime Timetable user voice. The general idea is that you can shape Prime Timetable to suite your needs by entering a new idea or voting for existing ones. So, how does user voice work?
Entering a new idea
If you have an idea how to improve Prime Timetable, visit Prime Timetable user voice and write down your idea. If a similar idea doesn’t already exist, click on “Create new idea” button.
Vote for existing idea
Every visitor has 10 votes. Use them to vote for features/ideas that are most important for you. The more votes a specific feature has, the more likely it will be implemented first. When a feature is implemented you will get a notification and your votes back.
How long do I have to wait for a specific feature?
Since Prime Timetable is an online school timetable software as a service, we regularly publish updates on daily and weekly basis. Therefore you can expect the most voted feature(s) to appear within a month or sooner.
Fake teacher and class in Prime Timetable
Sep 12th
In order to enter a lesson the following questions need to be answered: who, what and where? But what if there isn’t a class for a lesson (e.g. teacher meetings), or a teacher for a particular activity isn’t needed (e.g. school recess, lunch), or there is neither teacher nor class (e.g. sports events)? In Prime Timetable, these non-existing teachers and classes are referred to as “fake“.
It is recommended that fake teachers and classes are entered prior to entering a lesson. For instance, add a fake class and subject called “Teacher meeting” and then add a lesson by selecting teachers who attend that meeting and a fake class “Teacher meeting”. Another example: add a teacher and subject called “School recess” and then add a lesson by selecting classes that have a recess and a teacher called “School recess”.
When you enter a lesson without specifying a teacher or a class, Prime Timetable will create a “Fake teacher” or “Fake class” for you.
Every resource that has short name set to “-” (minus sign) is considered fake. Fake lessons is any lesson that contains fake resource and can be excluded from automatic timetable generator in Help > Options.
You can be very creative in creating fake teachers and classes so that every school lesson/activity is displayed in all timetable views as a card available for manual adjusting, e.g. drag & drop. Additionally, fake teachers and classes can have their time request specified which automatic timetable generator can also take into account.
In a nutshell, sometimes fake can genuinely improve your timetable 
.
Single class, teacher, room and subject timetable view
Sep 5th
Master timetable view shows all classes, teachers, rooms or subjects in one place. Individual or single timetable view shows only one class, teacher, room or subject. To switch to single timetable view, you need to select a view (class, teacher, room or subject) by clicking view indicator icon 
and then click on the first column in the desired timetable row.
To revert to entire timetable view, press Esc key or select entire view by clicking view indicator icon.
Once you are in single timetable view you can still use all functionalities just like in entire view. That means you can drag & drop (undo/redo), use pin to pin/unpin, sponge to remove cards, or use zoom in and zoom out. In order to select other (single) timetable views, use the following keyboard shortcuts:
- Switch to previous/next entire or single view - [Ctrl + Alt + Up/Down arrow]
- Switch to first/last entire or single view – [Ctrl + Alt + Home/End]
To print single timetable view use browser’s print button or select Print in main menu. Also, you can export single timetable view to Html or Jpeg document by choosing “Owl > Save as“.
Below is a screenshot of single class timetable view:
individual class/grade timetable screenshot
Prime Timetable – school timetable software as a service
Aug 15th
We are proud to bring you the world’s first school timetable software offered as a web service – Prime Timetable. Software as a service (SaaS) also referred to as “software on demand” provides the following advantages:
- Access from virtually anywhere in the world via Internet browser
- Freemium business model – use it for free, pay for advanced options
- Timetabling on more platforms: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
- Cloud computing – receive email when your timetable is done
- Lower subscription price for licensed customers (check our prices)
- Allows multiple user online collaboration on a single timetable
- Our instant support while working on your timetable
- Frequent application updates on monthly, weekly or even daily basis (all updates are free of charge)
- Storing timetables on our secure servers with regular daily backups (even if you delete your timetable by mistake, we can restore it for you)
While Prime Timetable is rapidly improving with every new update, we still provide backward compatibility on customer demand. For instance, although the new Prime Timetable 2.0 is available, the previous version can be used upon request.
With all these advantages over traditional school timetable software we are hoping you will enjoy timetabling more.
Preview new version of Prime Timetable
Aug 10th
In the recent version of Prime Timetable we have added “Preview new version” option in main menu. Clicking it your current timetable will be opened in the upcoming Prime Timetable 2.0.
Here is the short list of what’s new in Prime Timetable 2.0:
- Instead of ribbon, there is only a school board with instantly available tools on board frame leaving more space for your timetables.
- There is a new optimized menu when you click the owl in the top left corner.
- New interactive board tools: Pin, Sponge and Zoom which make timetabling more fun.
- New Help -> Options where you can configure application as best suits your needs.
- User interface is redesigned and more natural with curved lines and nature associations (e.g. form background looks like a piece of paper).
- There are lots of animations which make application smoother.
- Performances are increased. For instance, timetable view is rendered much faster in larger timetables.
All these changes make timetabling faster, easier and more fun. Here is the screenshot of our new school timetable software:
School timetable software screenshot
Using sponge tool in Prime Timetable
Aug 9th
Sponge tool 
is located in the bottom right corner of the board and is used to remove cards from timetable.
Using sponge tool is simple; just click sponge tool (or press [Ctrl + Backspace] key) to select it and then click card(s) you want to remove. Hold mouse left button to remove more cards.
How to remove the whole timetable or specific day?
With sponge tool selected, click on day or period (in timetable header) to remove the whole day/period or click on the first column in the timetable row to remove the whole row.
There are also keyboard shortcuts: Shift key affects the whole timetable, Control key affects the row and Alt key affects the current column. You can do the same even without using sponge tool, e.g. click on sponge tool with Shift key pressed and all timetable cards will be removed.
To drop sponge tool just click tool once again or click on an empty timetable period or use Esc key.
As always, undo 
and redo 
can be used to revert or to redo the last timetable change.