School scheduling/timetabling software
Posts tagged tips & tricks
Quick timetabling guide
Aug 28th
So, you have been tasked to create a timetable for your school and are looking for a timetabling guide, manual or something that can assist you on the way. Well, we have created just that: a quick guide for easier introduction to Prime Timetable. It might take you 10-15 minutes, but it’s still far less than reading online help or manual. Without further ado, let’s start with timetabling terms.
Timetabling terms
There are many different educational institutions which use different terms. In short:
- timetable = schedule
- class = grade
- subject = course or activity, and
- lessons = sections.
Feeling confused? Check basic timetabling terms.
Creating a free account
If you haven’t created a free account so far, go to our plans page and choose a free plan. Registration is easy and it only takes a minute. After the registration, Prime Timetable will be loaded and an empty timetable will show up:
Empty school timetable
We suggest that you get familiar with the interface by clicking Quick Guide or clicking Open icon 
to browse through other timetable examples, which can be a great resource for learning and understanding. Obviously, there is no data so you need to enter some to enable timetabling tools.
to browse through other timetable examples, which can be a great resource for learning and understanding. Obviously, there is no data so you need to enter some to enable timetabling tools.Days and periods
In order to manage days and periods, mouse-over the owl and choose Manage > Days and Periods from the menu.
First you need to decide how many (working) days there will be in the cycle. For a 2-week timetable it may be 10, and for a 1-week timetable it may be 5.
Next, you need to decide how many periods are there in a day. This might be tricky, because one day there might be 8 periods and other days up to 10 periods. The general rule of the thumb is to choose the maximum period number; in this case that would be 10.
The number of periods is directly related to the number of lessons/activities per day, so you might optionally add lunch, break and similar activities and count them as a period. Many schools have different period intervals on different days and in that case you can add custom periods.
Manage days and periods
Subjects, rooms, teachers and classes
Before entering data, you should know that there are various importing options. For instance you can import data from Microsoft Office (Word, Excel) or from Google Docs simply by using copy/paste. Otherwise, you can enter data manually:
Choose Manage > Subjects to add subjects/courses, e.g. Math, History, etc. Lunch, break and other school activities can also be subjects.
Choose Manage > Room to add rooms/cabinets, e.g. Biology room, History room, Gym, dining room, reception hall, etc.
Choose Manage > Teachers to add teachers.
Choose Manage > Classes to add classes/grades. Choose a class from the grid and click Divisions to manage class divisions and groups, e.g. you can create English and French groups.
Manage classes/grades in the timetable
Manage lessons
Choose Manage > Lessons to add lessons/sections. Select teacher(s), subject, classes (and/or its groups). Select how many lessons there are in a week and whether the lesson is single, double, triple… Lastly, you can select desired room(s) where a lesson can occur and/or alternative room(s).
When lessons are entered, related cards are added in the awaiting panel of the timetable view in adequate row.
Add lesson dialog
Saving changes and history
Click save icon 
to save changes. Use undo 
and redo 
to undo/redo latest changes.
to save changes. Use undo and redo to undo/redo latest changes.Master view
Click view indicator 
to change the current master timetable view, so you can see classes, teachers, rooms or subjects master view.
to change the current master timetable view, so you can see classes, teachers, rooms or subjects master view.Extra view
Instead of switching views it might be useful to see more than one view on the screen, in which case you should use extra views.
Fully interactive class and teacher view on one screen
Individual view
To choose individual class, teacher, room or subject view click on the desired first column in the timetable.
Individual class/grade view
Automatic generation
If you have finished entering your school data it’s time to start automatic timetable generation by clicking play icon 
. The owl will warn you if there is a problem with your data, e.g. you can add 50 lessons for one teacher by mistake, where there is only 5 days with 8 periods, 5 * 8 = maximum 40 lessons, so you should consider removing some lessons, organizing lessons differently or just ignore some cards.
. The owl will warn you if there is a problem with your data, e.g. you can add 50 lessons for one teacher by mistake, where there is only 5 days with 8 periods, 5 * 8 = maximum 40 lessons, so you should consider removing some lessons, organizing lessons differently or just ignore some cards.If everything is ok, the automatic timetable generator will generate the timetable.
Automatic timetable generation process
Instant validation
You want to make sure your timetable is valid upon any change you make. Click validation icon 
to turn on instant validation. The timetable is valid if there are no validation errors and warnings. Otherwise, the validation window displays all timetable imperfections grouped and sorted logically. If you click the validation warning or error, a specific timetable position where the problem is will be highlighted as red blinking rectangle, so that you can easily spot and fix it.
to turn on instant validation. The timetable is valid if there are no validation errors and warnings. Otherwise, the validation window displays all timetable imperfections grouped and sorted logically. If you click the validation warning or error, a specific timetable position where the problem is will be highlighted as red blinking rectangle, so that you can easily spot and fix it.
Instant validation upon any timetable change
Adding constraints
The generator will position the cards in the timetable considering only default constraints, e.g. the generator will try to avoid gaps/windows for all classes or lots of difficult lessons in one day. You can change these constraints as you wish by editing the entered data, or you can specify additional constraints using markers. Marker draws or erases forbidden 
, unwanted 
or mandatory 
card positions for classes, teachers, rooms and subjects.
, unwanted or mandatory card positions for classes, teachers, rooms and subjects.
Forbidden (red minus), unwanted (yellow exclamation mark) and mandatory (blue plus) marks in the master teacher view
Improving timetable
Click on 
to improve timetable imperfections. Before you do that, you may use the pin 
to fix the cards which are already on desired positions, so that they won’t be moved during the generation process.
to improve timetable imperfections. Before you do that, you may use the pin to fix the cards which are already on desired positions, so that they won’t be moved during the generation process.
Pinned cards (8E, 8D and 7B) have bold unrounded borders
Manual timetabling
Cards can be manually dragged using the mouse or you can use sponge 
to remove them from the timetable.
to remove them from the timetable.Customize cards
Choose Print > Card Designer or use right mouse click on any card to customize text, text positions, colors and borders in both master and individual timetable views as best suits your school needs. The configured template will be used in the newly created timetable and published timetable as well.
Card designer for individual view
Share with colleagues
Need help? Choose Share > Share with Others to share the school account with other teachers and colleagues and assign them privileges. The “owner” can manage other users, the “creator” can create and modify timetables and the “viewer” can only view timetables.
Share school account with colleagues
Publish to the web
With one click you can publish a timetable, so it is visible on the web and students can see it. Just choose Share > Publish to the Web. The published timetable is accessible by any smartphone or tablet and is automatically updated when the timetable is modified.
Published timetable is accessible via smartphone, tablet or any mobile
When you are done with customization, what you see on the screen is what is going to be printed. You can print both master and individual timetable views and Prime Timetable will automatically do the paging. Choose Print > Print Timetable View or Print > Print All Individual Timetables.
The conclusion
This is just a quick timetabling guide to get you started. If you think something is missing, please contact us or leave a comment. Feel free to use our online user voice to add your ideas and suggestions on how we can improve Prime Timetable. Happy scheduling and let us know how you are doing.
Ignoring cards to use automatic timetable generator
Jul 25th
One of the main purposes of school scheduling/timetabling software is to help schools with automatic timetable generation and validation. In order to use automatic generator and validator you should follow the basic timetabling rule which says:
One school resource during one school period can be scheduled in only one lesson. Otherwise, there is a conflict.
In the Prime Timetable, the conflicted cards are rotated so you can easily spot and fix them. There are two common approaches to fixing conflicts:
- Add more than one teacher or class/group in the lesson or remove redundant lessons/cards.
- Just ignore conflicted cards.
Add more than one teacher or class/group
If there is more than one teacher or more than one class/group attending a lesson, you should not create more than one lesson for it. The example is in the screenshot below. Teachers John and Jim are giving lectures for two classes/grades 7A and 7B at the same time.
Screenshot with two conflicted cards instead of one. The owl gives a helpful hint how to resolve the issue.
When adding a new lesson (Manage > Lessons > Add) just add another teacher or class/group to it. Thus, you’ve created only 1 lesson/card and therefore there are no conflicts/rotation and automatic timetable generation and validation will work as expected.
Ignore cards
If for some reason you want to keep the position of conflicted cards and still take advantage of automatic timetable generation and validation, you might want to ignore them.
When there are lots of conflicted cards, it might be easier to just ignore them
In this screenshot there are lots of classes/grades using the Fellowship Hall/Gym at the same time, which creates many conflicts in the room view. Nevertheless, you can create only one lesson and include all those classes or just ignore the Gym.
In order to ignore cards, do the following:
- Set “-” (without quotes) as a short name for any school resource which is part of the lesson/card you want to ignore. For instance, you can set short name to “-” for subject Lunch or for Gym room.
- Check Help > Options > Exclude fake lessons while generating timetable.
- Click Ok.
And that’s all you need to do. Automatic timetable generator will just ignore those cards and treat them as if they are not part of the timetable.
How to set mandatory or unwanted lessons
Mar 12th
UPDATE:
There is a new way of defining constraints using a marker. Below method is deprecated.
The most common use of timetabling software is to mark certain periods as forbidden for teachers, rooms, classes or subjects and let automatic timetable generator schedule lessons properly. In other cases when you want to mark certain periods as unwanted or mandatory for teacher, room, class or subject, just follow the below procedure, e.g. for setting mandatory or unwanted subject position:
- Check Help > Options > Show Marks button in manage grids.
- Choose Manage > Subjects > Select specific subject in grid > Marks.
- Set allowed number of unwanted or mandatory lessons per week and per day.
By setting allowed number of unwanted or mandatory lessons you are sending a directive to automatic timetable generator when to consider a timetable correct. If those numbers are set to “Arbitrary” (which is a default value), unwanted and mandatory settings will be ignored by automatic timetable generator.
Screenshot of setting mandatory (blue plus sign) and unwanted (yellow exclamation sign) lessons for Physics in Example 3
Exchange school data with Microsoft Office and Google Docs
Jul 11th
Prime Timetable makes it easy to exchange school data with other software, whether you need to import or export. In both cases exchanging data reduces needless retyping.
How to import school data from Microsoft Office and Google Docs?
Whenever you open an empty timetable the owl will remind you about all importing options, so you don’t have to remember them.
Empty timetable on the left and copying teachers from Microsoft Excel on the right
Typically, you would want to import, e.g. list of teachers already entered in Microsoft Excel or Word or Google Docs. Make a selection, copy (Ctrl + C) and paste it (Ctrl + V) into the proper (teacher’s) data grid in the Prime Timetable. Our software will smartly recognize the format and do the parsing and importing for you.
Teachers pasted into Prime Timetable via Ctrl + V keyboard shortcut
If your data is stored in CSV (comma separated value) file, just drag that file from your desktop directly into the data grid and that’s it. Again, the software will recognize the format and import all data.
Copy and paste works across all data grids in our software, which means you can copy rows from one timetable and paste them into another one.
How to export school data to Microsoft Office and Google Docs?
You can export any data from Prime Timetable into Microsoft Office and Google Docs. Just select the desired data grid rows, copy (Ctrl + C) and paste them (Ctrl + V) into e.g. Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word. Data grid header will also be included as displayed in the screenshot below.
Teachers exported from Prime Timetable into Microsoft Excel using copy and paste
We believe that exchanging data with widely used software (Microsoft Office, Google Docs and others) will significantly improve your efficiency. Happy data exchanging!
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!
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 
.
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.