TimeTabler NewsLetter  :  September 2009

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Dear Timetabler,
  
We hope you have had a relaxing holiday, and have made a good start to the new term*.

In this issue:
 
TimeTabler:
1.  Dealing with Room changes.
2.  Adding or changing PPA periods.
3.  Finding a departmental Meeting Time.
4.  Modifying your timetable!
5.  Exporting-importing to your MIS.
6.  Getting the right Printouts for each colleague.

StaffCover:
7.  New features, for the 'Rarely Cover' Guidelines.
8.  'End of Year' and loading in a new timetable.

1.  Dealing with Room changes
During the first few weeks of a new timetable you are likely to find that your colleagues have made 'private' Room changes.  
Your first difficulty is to get them to tell you about the changes (!), so that the timetable can be kept up-to-date.  This is needed so that the office staff can always find a pupil; so that Cover teachers are sent to the correct room, etc.
 
To make the Room Changes in TimeTabler, the quickest way is to use the Room Timetable Screen.
For more details, see:
-- Section F19 in your Manual,
-- HelpMovie No. 45   

 
2.  Adding or changing PPA periods
If you need to add (or change) 'PPA' Labels to your Staff Timetables, then do it on the Staff Timetable Screen.  
For more details, see:
-- Section F12 in your Manual,
-- HelpMovies No. 50 and 43 (part 7)    
 
As well as 'PPA' you can use a variety of Labels (eg. 'Meeting', 'Support', 'SMT/SLG', 'Prep', etc.)
 

3.  Finding a Meeting Time
Whilst it is usually dangerous to offer in advance to schedule a Meeting, once the timetable is complete you can look for possible Meeting Times.  Use the Find a Meeting button, which is on the Teachers sub-screen, reached via a button at the bottom of the Staff Timetable Screen.
For more details, see:
-- Section F12 in your Manual,
-- HelpMovie No. 43 (part 9)      

 
4.  Modifying your timetable
If any colleague is ferociously unhappy with the pattern of their lessons or 'free' periods, then your steps to solve the problem are described in FlowChart K9 in your Manual.

 
5.  Exporting - Importing to your MIS
Make sure that you first:
a) Go to the section to download and read the 3 documents that refer to your particular MIS, and
b)  Ensure that you use >Check for Updates to get the very latest version of TimeTabler (it's currently v4.90.44).

 
6.  Getting the right Printouts for each member of staff
This includes Technicians, Heads of Year, Heads of Subject, the Head of Learning Support, the Daily Cover Organiser, the Caretaker/Site Manager, Office Reception staff, etc.  Each has an appropriate format.
 
To see the most appropriate Printout for each person, see Section 11.15 on page 171 in The Timetabler's CookBook  http://www.timetabler.com/book.html

StaffCover
 
7.  The new 2009 version of StaffCover has just been released.  
As usual, it is a 'seamless' Upgrade from the previous version.
It includes new features to help with the new 'Rarely Cover' Guidelines in England & Wales.
And it allows you to specify 'Cover Supervisors' and 'Planned' & 'Unplanned' absences in a flexible way.

8.  Loading in the new timetable
If you or the colleague organising daily Cover have not yet loaded in the new timetable into StaffCover, then the first steps are:
-- Use: CustomizeMenu -> 'End of Year' (see Section J20 in the Handbook),
-- Load in the new schedule from a TimeTabler Backup file (see Section C in the Handbook).

 
Our best wishes for a smooth start to the term,
 
Chris Johnson
Keith Johnson

* PS.  This Newsletter is geared to the start of the new school year in the UK.  Our apologies to our international Users, but we hope that you will save this Newsletter until the appropriate time of year for you.