School scheduling/timetabling software
Posts tagged release
Prime Timetable 5.0 + summer discount
Jun 30th
Dear timetablers,
In just 1 year we have released 3.0, 4.0, and now 5.0 release. We would like to thank you all for your support, and especially for spreading the word. Ever since the beginning of our journey, we’ve been promoting the concept of “enjoyable timetabling” and today Prime Timetable is used in more than 110 countries around the world! Here is what’s new in the latest 5.0 release:
Custom period intervals
The most requested feature is here. You can enter any period interval for any day/period (and class/teacher/room/subject), and appropriate cards will be resized and repositioned accordingly. Custom periods are logically and smartly grouped in the grid and can be easily filtered. Furthermore, you can add custom intervals inside the card by checking Help > Options > Show period intervals instead of numbers.
Special summer offer, up to 50% discount
It’s prime time to buy Prime Timetable for as low as $14/month in US and €14/month in Europe (prices are based on 5 years plan). Are we serious? You bet! Many have already taken advantage of this offer, so hurry up! Until August 1st, we are offering up to 50% discount for 2 or more years purchase. Use the slider on the plans and pricing page to choose your billing term and special discount. If you are an existing user and looking for upgrade, just choose Help > Purchase/Update.
New web server
Having an ever increasing number of schools using our services, we had to make sure that all teachers and students get their timetables timely and efficiently. The new web server means faster, more reliable, secure and efficient timetabling and so much more. And yes, you can download and start Prime Timetable in just 1 second now.
Desktop application
Desktop application is now available for both Basic and Premium plans. Choose Help > Options > Install Prime Timetable and the software will be installed on your computer, so when you start the application by clicking desktop icon it will automatically do the log in for you. Desktop version is available for both Mac OS X and Windows and we especially recommend using it on school computers with a slower Internet connection.
Web site redesign and other improvements
More than 20 new timetable examples are added from various countries around the world. There are lots of minor improvements and fixes that you have suggested, such as: setting 1 minute interval on the period form, the ability to print conflicts, the new context menu (use right mouse click on the card to edit lesson, access card designer, pin/unpin and clear), etc. Our help and manual has been updated to reflect the latest changes.
The web site has been redesigned in order to present our services more clearly and user friendly. If you are satisfied with our product, please share http://primetimetable.com link with other teachers, principals, principal assistants, and others. You can also use the new “Spread the word” section in the footer of every web page to like us on Facebook, share a link on Twitter, Google Plus or LinkedIn. Your help is much appreciated!
Enjoy the new release and use online user voice to suggest a feature or add new ideas that you would like to see in the Prime Timetable. Happy summer timetabling!
Brand new Prime Timetable 4.0
Dec 18th
“Dear timetablers,
Hoot, hoot, a brand new Prime Timetable 4.0 is here! A unique school timetable software for Mac and Windows just got better with over 100 new features that you have requested! We hope you will enjoy using it as much as we enjoy making it. There are some really awesome and exciting features that we are eager to share.”
Print what you see
What you see on the screen is what is going to be printed. It’s simple as that. You can easily print and customize both master and individual timetable view(s). The software will automatically do the paging when printing master timetable, and print timetable on a separate page when printing individual timetables.
Card designer
Use right mouse click on a timetable card to access card designer and customize style and appearance in any master or individual timetable view. You can customize background color, displayed text and border style and it will affect what is displayed on the screen, published web page, and how the timetable is going to be printed. All settings are saved inside a timetable document so you don’t have to tweak it anymore.
Sharing timetable with others
Use Owl > Share > Share with others to share school account with other teachers, colleagues, etc. You can specify any of the following privileges for newly created users: owner, creator and viewer. The owner can manage other users, the creator can create and modify timetables and the viewer can only view timetables.
Instant validation & validation markers
Click on validate icon 
to turn on instant validation which provides immediate feedback upon any timetable change! Validation results window lists all timetable imperfections grouped and sorted logically. By selecting a timetable imperfection, adequate markers are displayed in the view. Validation markers are represented by red blinking rectangles appearing in any problematic period or card in the timetable view. Markers are transparent so you can easily spot and drag problematic cards to a better position and get instant validation feedback.
Timetable collaboration in the real time
Ever wondered if it’s possible for two or more users to work on the same timetable at the same time? Well, yes it is! Welcome to the timetabling collaboration platform where you can collaborate both online and offline and let Prime Timetable do all synchronization for you.
Exchange school data with Microsoft Office and Google Docs
Do you already have school data in a Microsoft Office document? Maybe in Google Docs? No problem! Now you can easily exchange school data with Microsoft Office, Google Docs and similar software which will significantly reduce endless typing. Prime Timetable will smartly recognize the format and do the parsing for you.
Custom period labels
In the new version we have enabled adding custom period labels, e.g. “Break”, “Lunch” etc. Also, it is possible to select more working days in a week and more lessons per day, so that you can set up to e.g. 10 days with 25 lessons, or 25 days with 10 lessons each day.
Download performances
In some countries/regions there are still schools which use slower Internet connections. That’s why we have put a lot of effort into optimizing the time needed to download and view timetables. As a result, downloading and viewing timetables is 10x faster than before and is only a fraction of what it takes to open Facebook, Gmail or Hotmail. Wow. Lightning fast!
Merge timetables
If you’re a timetabler working on a campus school, you may face some extraordinary timetabling challenges, e.g. the need to create a timetable for elementary and middle schools with a possibility of some teachers and classrooms being shared in both schools at the same time! In such a case, you can work on two or more separate timetables and then merge them in order to find out if there are any conflicts with shared teachers or classrooms.
What’s on the horizon?
These are just some of the highlighted features and we are already working on some exciting new ones. Since its launch 2.5 years ago, Prime Timetable has been updated on weekly basis (!), so you can expect more goodies very soon! Thank you all for your support and great new ideas. Oh, and if you are satisfied with Prime Timetable and would like others to know about it, please spread the word. Until the next time, we wish you and yours a happy holiday season and happy timetabling!
Prime Timetable 3.0 is here
Jun 24th
“Dear timetablers,
I am proud to announce the release of new Prime Timetable 3.0 which brings the latest innovations in school timetabling at your fingertips and mouse clicks. Thanks to you I have grown much wiser and learned a lot ow(l)ing to your great online feedback and ideas, 90% of which has already been implemented! We are eagerly waiting for your new ideas and in the meantime check out our hot features.”
Mobile timetable
Prime Timetable works natively on both Mac and Windows as well as in any modern browser but this time we have made it accessible on any device with Internet access. In other words, now you can use your mobile phone to sign in and browse through your school timetables. Also, the teachers and students you have shared your timetable with can view it on their mobile phone.
Our software will automatically detect your device and instead of full blown Prime Timetable, a new Mobile Timetable will be shown, which is entirely built using standard web technologies accessible everywhere. Experience all advantages of sharing your school timetable on iPhone, iPad, Android, Nokia, Windows Phone… or any other smartphone or tablet.
3D school timetable
How to spot a lesson conflict in a 2D timetable? How to discover that under a card there is another card or many more? The answer is simple. Prime Timetable will automatically rotate each conflicted card by 30° to the left and right respectively. Also, each card has its own Z-order on Z-axis, thus creating a 3D timetable. To emphasize 3D even more, the shadow of the card being dragged is darker when dragged over the conflicted cards and lighter when there are no cards below. Clicking a card at the bottom brings it to the front, while other cards automatically rearrange. As always, to bring you the best timetabling experience all rearranging, rotating and moving is smoothly animated.
Extra views
Extra views are a great help if you want to adjust cards using only drag & drop (also known as manual timetabling). These views are fully interactive, just like the main view, meaning you can use all timetabling tools as usual, e.g. timetable generator, drag & drop, pin, sponge, undo/redo, etc. Of course, all opened timetable views will be automatically updated.
To open extra timetable view just click on teacher, class, room or subject icon in the bottom left corner when a card is selected. You can easily adjust the position and size of extra view which best fits your screen and display single extra view by clicking the first column.
Currently selected card in one view will be highlighted in all other views. Also, when doing drag & drop, the shadow of the card being dragged will be shown in all opened views, which allows you to track drop position, e.g. check that drop position is not already scheduled in another view.
Share timetable
Prime Timetable makes sharing easy: just choose ‘Share -> Publish to the Web’, click Publish to the Web button and voila! Your timetable will be visible to anyone you’ve shared the link with. The published web page will be accessible by any Internet device, so that people you share with can access the timetable even from their mobile phone.
You needn’t worry about any subsequent changes to the published timetable as it will be automatically updated when the timetable is saved. Furthermore, the published web page will refresh every 20 minutes to ensure the latest timetable version is delivered to all.
Here are some online examples of published timetables: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, Example Brazil, Example Egypt, etc. As always, you can click on the first column to open single timetable view.
Online and offline timetabling
In case your school doesn’t have reliable Internet connection or you would like to use Prime Timetable instantly from your desktop without going to web site and signing in, we now support both online and offline school timetabling.
Even if the Internet connection drops or you are only occasionally connected you can still continue working on your timetable. When the 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 even enabled entirely offline timetabling work. Just go to Help -> Options and click Install Prime Timetable button which will install the software 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.
New design
Instead of Microsoft Office ribbon we have introduced good old wooden board and instead of classical popups we have turned to recycled paper as the background of our forms. Luckily, no trees were harmed or cut down while turning our user interface into more eco-friendly environment 
. We hope you like our new redesign!
Prime Timetable 3.0 screenshot - Mexico example
New timetabling tools and options
Pin 
, sponge 
and zoom 
make timetabling more productive, yet game-like. All timetable view operations such as drag & drop, pin, zoom, print, undo/redo and others are also available in single class, teacher, room and subject view and extra views. To select single view just click on the first column in a timetable row.
The new Help -> Options form allows you to tailor the school timetable to suit your needs, e.g. you can set default timetable view, set save reminder interval, set whether conflicted cards need to rotate, show or hide rooms in single view, show subjects in teacher view, show period intervals instead of numbers, show additional time request settings, exclude fake lessons while generating the timetable and Install Prime Timetable on your desktop.
Other improvements
There are lots of other improvements, such as lesson statistics and filtering, browsing timetables using back and forward, keyboard shortcuts. We have made Prime Timetable Manual in PDF format for download and print for those who don’t want to browse online help,
Timetable view performances are vastly improved so that large schools/colleges with 500 and more subjects/teachers can use our software without interruptions. Furthermore, our software will automatically adjust according to your computer’s performances, e.g. faster computers will display card animations, while slower computers won’t have such smooth experience. Talking about performances, timetable loading, importing and saving is 10x faster now!
What is next?
We have lots of plans for future releases. Since Prime Timetable is an online software as a service, you can expect frequent updates and improvements soon! As always, all our software updates and new versions are free of charge. Since, your feedback is crucial we have created Prime Timetable user voice, where you can shape our product to suite your needs by entering a new idea or voting for existing ones.
This release brings Prime Timetable one step closer to our goal – to give you the best timetabling experience world-wide. Thank you for being part of it.