Overview
Hand-building a timetable for ten sections that share teachers takes days, and one moved period ripples everywhere. The generator does the placing. You describe the week and what each batch needs; it produces a week where no batch, teacher or room is in two places, looks at it the way you would, and lets you apply it to the Batch Timetable in one step, and undo it just as easily.
A plan is saved, so you can come back, change a teacher and generate again next term.
1. The week
- Tick the days classes run.
- List the periods of the day with start and end times. The gaps between periods are your breaks.
- Fill the periods from a bell schedule is the quick way: first period, minutes each, how many, and the break after which period and for how long.
The page shows how many periods a week that gives each batch, for example 6 days × 8 periods = 48.
2. What each batch needs
Add each batch in the plan, then its subjects, one row each: the subject, periods a week, the teacher, and the room if it isn't the batch's home room. The chip beside each batch shows its total against the week (42 of 48 periods) and turns red if it asks for more than the week has.
Copy subjects from fills a batch from another, handy for parallel sections where only the teachers differ.
Most a day and doubles
- Most a day caps a subject per day. Left on auto, it is the weekly count spread over the days: a 7-a-week subject over 6 days may have two on one day, a 5-a-week subject one a day.
- Double places the subject in back-to-back pairs, for labs and practicals. A double never straddles a break.
Teachers and rooms
Teachers are you, the teachers assigned to your batches, and (for institutions) teachers on your staff roster, including those without a tuition.in account. Rooms are the rooms you set up under Operations.
3. When teachers can't teach
Choose a teacher and tap the periods they aren't available: a part-timer's other job, a standing duty, a weekly meeting. Blocked periods are never given to them.
Generating
Press Generate. In a second or two you see:
- whether every period was placed;
- the week as a grid, by batch or by teacher, each subject in its own colour;
- how many periods it worked around because they were booked outside the plan, and whether any subject falls twice in a row.
Not keen on the result? Try another week gives a different arrangement that follows the same rules.
When some periods can't be placed
Some plans can't fit. The simplest cases are caught before anything is tried, with a plain reason: Class 6 A needs 49 periods a week, but the week has only 48, or on the day Chemistry lab falls, it would need 5 periods, but a day has 4. Otherwise you get the best week found, with what's left over and why: the teacher is busy or blocked whenever the batch is free, the room is taken, or the per-day limit is reached. Try another week, unblock a period, raise most a day, or add a period. You can also apply it and place the rest by hand.
Applying and undo
Apply to Batch Timetable (confirm once) makes the generated week each batch's live timetable. Each batch's current timetable is switched off, not deleted. Teachers with accounts and rooms are bound to the periods, so the Batch Timetable's clash check sees them from then on; teachers without an account are written in by name.
Undo removes the generated timetables and switches the old ones back on. A plan that is applied has to be undone before it can be edited or deleted.
The rules it follows
Never broken: a batch, a teacher or a room in two places at once; a teacher in a period you blocked; anything booked outside the plan; a subject over its per-day limit; a double across a break.
Weighed against each other, as a good timetabler would: spread each subject across the week; avoid the same subject twice in a row (unless it is a double); give each teacher an even day; keep days compact from the first period; vary the period each subject falls in.
Questions
Does it use my teachers' leave? Leave is day-to-day and handled with cover on the Operations board. The generator is for the standing weekly timetable.
Can I fix one period and let it place the rest? Not yet. Block the teacher's other periods instead, or apply and move that one period by hand on the Batch Timetable.
How big can a plan be? Up to 40 batches with 20 subjects each. A six-section school with shared teachers generates in under a second.