School scheduling/timetabling software
Posts tagged school schedule software
Share timetable – publish to the Web
Jun 9th
So, you’ve created your timetable and would like others to see it. Prime Timetable makes sharing easy: just choose ‘Share -> Publish to the Web’ and click Publish to the Web button, and voila! Your timetable will be visible to anyone you’ve shared the link with. 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.
To configure the published page, set a default view and whether visitor can switch timetable view. Now you can copy the provided link or visit the published web page.
You needn’t worry about any subsequent changes to the published timetable. The published web page will be automatically updated when the timetable is saved. Furthermore, the published web page will refresh every 20 minutes to make sure the latest timetable version is delivered to all.
If you want to stop publishing timetable, just click Unpublish button and your timetable will not be visible to others.
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. When printing, the header and rounding corners will be hidden, so that the timetable expands as much as possible on the paper.
Screenshot of online timetable – Example 1
Screenshot of published timetable for class 5-A
Screenshot of published timetable for teacher BronteShare timetable with teachers, publish it for students, receive feedback… the possibilities are endless. And yes, publishing is available in both free and comercial Prime Timetable editions. So, happy timetable sharing and share your feedback with us 
.
Introducing 3D school timetable
May 28th
The problem that bothers all timetablers around the world is about resolving lesson conflicts. But 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.
Our school timetable software will automatically rotate all conflicted cards in the current timetable view. Each conflicted card is slightly rotated by 30° to the left and right respectively. Also, each card has its own Z-order on Z-axis, thus creating a 3D timetable. But wait, there is more.
Screenshot of school timetable with lots of conflicted cards
All conflicted cards are smartly arranged for you. Larger and pinned cards are always at the bottom so as to avoid rotating and the active card is placed on the top. Clicking a card at the bottom brings it to the front, while other cards automatically rearrange. To emphasize 3D even more, shadow of a card being dragged is darker when dragged over the conflicted cards and lighter when there are no cards below. As always, to bring you the best timetabling experience all rearranging, rotating and moving is smoothly animated.
Screenshot of school timetable with several rotated cards
Screenshot of correct school timetable with all conflicts resolved
In the first screenshot there are conflicted cards for 7-D class and for teachers Plutarch and Darwin which are positioned above other non-conflicted surrounding cards. On the last screenshot conflicts are resolved using automatic timetable generator without a single card being rotated.
To sum things up: now you can even visually spot card conflicts without starting timetable validation. Just make sure that there are no rotated cards in the class, teacher or room view (extra views can help too). And if for some reason you don’t want it, uncheck “Rotate conflicted cards” in Help -> Options.
Although playing with smoothly animated cards can be a game-like experience to pass the time 
, we sincerely wish you happy 3D timetabling with no conflicts!
Extra school timetable views
May 25th
Sometimes you want to adjust certain lessons/cards using only drag & drop (also known as manual timetabling). And just when you have found the perfect lesson position in teacher view, you switch to room view only to find that the card is in conflict with an already scheduled lesson in the same room, or you switch to the class view and see the current class already has a lesson in that period. And then you end up constantly switching views (and trying to memorize them!?) in order to find a suitable card position, which is rather annoying, you will agree. Guess what? Not anymore.
We have added a new timetabling feature to improve your efficiency: the possibility to add extra timetable view(s). 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. and 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 position and size of extra view which best fits your screen, and by clicking the first column you can navigate to single extra view.
In the screenshot below there is a class view, room view and two single teacher views all on one screen (!), so you can easily find the perfect position for a specific lesson. 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 allow you to track drop position, e.g. check that drop position is not already scheduled in another view.
Main view with 3 extra views added
Feel free to use your imagination and creativity in organizing extra views and see where it gets you . We are excited to see how you are going to use this unique timetabling feature in your school timetables.
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 .
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