School scheduling/timetabling software
Posts tagged timetabling
Merging school timetables
Sep 24th
Timetablers working in campus school face unique timetabling challenges, e.g. they need to create a timetable for elementary and middle school and at the same time some teachers and classrooms may be shared in both schools! One option is to create a single combined timetable for all schools, but it has some obvious drawbacks: e.g. how to print separate timetables or share such combined timetable with students and teachers. It seems that a better option is to work on two separate timetables and then merge them in order to find out if there are any conflicts with shared teachers or classrooms.
Merging two timetables in Prime Timetable is easy:
- Open base timetable
- Choose Owl > Import > Merge with other timetable
- Select the other timetable and click Merge.
Correct elementary and middle school timetable before merging
What will happen in the merging process? If there is already a teacher, room, class or subject with the same name in the base timetable, it will be used as it is; otherwise, it will be added. Periods and days are also going to be merged based on the same name. If a period doesn’t have a specified name then it will be merged based on what’s displayed on the screen; e.g. period interval or period number. Furthermore, all lessons from the second timetable will be added to the base timetable.
Merged school timetable with displayed conflicts for shared teacher and room
After merging, conflicts for shared teachers and classrooms can be easily spotted in the teacher and room views, so that the timetabler can fix them. This is where instant timetable validation helps tremendously.
Hey, that’s all for now! Let us know if merging timetables suit your needs. Request for merging timetables as well as 50+ others have been implemented based on Prime Timetable online feedback. So, thank you all for your suggestions and ideas (keep them coming!) and happy merging.
Timetable collaboration in real-time
Jul 2nd
All school timetable softwares (apart from one 
) are desktop applications which don’t allow multiple user access, e.g. you only get one license per computer, so only one user can run the application. Contrary to traditional timetable software, Prime Timetable is an innovative and modern online school timetable software that can be accessed from anywhere via Internet connection. That means that you can access it from your school, home computer or mobile. But, that’s not all: you can share your timetable with other teachers and collaborate simultaneously with all of them! Frankly, we were a bit taken by surprise that timetable collaboration has already been widely used among timetablers. We have seen scenarios where timetablers collaborate on the same timetable (!) from different countries (vacation, business trip, etc.). But how does it work?
To simulate multi-user collaboration just sign-in and open the same timetable in two tabs or browsers as illustrated in the screenshot below.
Simulating collaboration on the same timetable at the same time with two browsers side by side
Notice that the first user has 2 more teachers added and the second has just updated Teacher 1 into “Teacher 1 – updated”. What is going to happen when the first user clicks save and then the second one does the same?
Timetable changes are successfully synchronized when user clicks save
No need to bother, all changes will be properly saved and the last saved user will be synchronized with the latest changes (the owl will hoot what’s happened behind the scene). The first user will be synchronized upon the next save or open.
On the technical side, Prime Timetable uses “last save wins” concurrency model which we found suitable for timetablers. Individual entity properties are not going to be merged; instead, Prime Timetable will respect what the last timetabler had in mind, e.g. if the first timetabler set time request and at the same time the other one changed that time request along with other settings for the same teacher, all teacher’s settings would be updated as the last user saved them.
Overall, rest assured that you can freely collaborate even on the same school timetable, because all changes will be properly synchronized. Happy timetable collaboration!
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.
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
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.
Using Pin tool in Prime Timetable
Aug 8th
Pin tool is used to pin/unpin card(s) on a specific position. Pin tool is located in the bottom right corner of the board.
Using pin tool is simple, just click pin tool to select it and then click card(s) you want to pin/unpin.
Pinned cards can’t be moved by drag & drop and won’t be relocated while generating or improving timetable.
When to use pin tool?
Pin tool is useful when you are satisfied with card(s) position and you want to assure that those cards won’t be moved by starting the generator or by improving the existing timetable.
How to pin/unpin faster?
With pin tool selected click on day or period (in timetable header) to pin/unpin the whole day or period or click on a timetable row (first column) to pin/unpin 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 pin tool, e.g. click on pin tool with Shift key pressed and all timetable cards will be pinned.
To drop 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.