This page gives further details about using TimeTabler:
TimeTabler
is
a reliable and proven computer timetabling program that can schedule your timetable
for you.
|
If you
have not already read the introduction
to TimeTabler, you will find it helpful
to read that first. This page gives further details about using TimeTabler: |
1 |
Entering
the Basic Data about your school ie. the number of days in the week, the names of your subjects and rooms, the names of your classes and teachers. On the Tutorial Disc, all this data has been entered for you. Pages 10 & 11 of the Tutorial Booklet give you more detail. |
2 |
Entering
the Data you want to timetable this year eg. 7AB DS EF GH simply means that you want to timetable: - two classes in parallel (7A and 7B) - for a Double period (D) and a Single period (S) - with teachers EF and GH. It's as straightforward as that ! You can enter the data in batches (eg. a year-group at a time) or you can enter the whole school at one go. On the Tutorial
Disc, all this data has been entered for you. |
3 |
Scheduling
your timetable You can do this: either Interactively or Automatically. These two
methods are outlined below, and explained in the Tutorial. |
4 |
Printing
& Publishing - and Exporting - your timetable
At any time
during the scheduling, as well as at the end, TimeTabler
will print out neat, clear timetables in a huge variety
of formats. And you
can print them as: And you can produce all of these as Web-pages for your school web-site, at a click of your mouse. |
Whenever you choose this interactive method, TimeTabler does all the donkey-work (more than a million times faster than you could) and finds for you the ‘top ten’ activities that, at this point in the timetable, are the most important to fit.
For each of the ‘top ten’ activities the screen shows, in a clear visual display:
-
the times of the week where you can fit the activity,
-
the reasons why the activity can't fit at other times of the week,
-
a recommended time of the week
(as calculated by the program using a variety of
methods and the ‘Principle of Compatibility’),
-
the consequence of choosing any of these times in the effect on the spread of
lessons.
You can then choose
if you want to fit one of the displayed lessons, and where to fit it.
You can accept the program’s recommendation, or you can ignore it entirely.
The machine does all the hard work while you remain in
control. Marvellous !
The machine works at high speed on all the facts that
it ‘knows’ : you make careful judgements based on all that
you know about the school, its resources, its classes and its personalities.
The machine aims for a complete solution while you aim
for quality.
This symbiotic partnership of human timetabler and machine is an extremely
powerful one.
TimeTabler
has
an even more powerful feature:
if at any time during the scheduling you come up against a problem lesson
that will not fit in, then you can use the FIT
command.
The machine will then search for ‘musical chairs’
moves on the timetable that will allow your problem lesson to fit in. (Some
of these ‘musical chairs’ moves are described in Keith Johnson's book ‘Timetabling’
pages 122-4.)
The program initially
searches for 2-step solutions and prints out for you any that it finds.
If you are not satisfied with the quality of any of those solutions you can
tell it to search for 3-step solutions, or 4-step solutions, etc.
Wonderful !
In fact, if you want, you can go up to 16-step ‘musical chairs’
moves until you find one with the desired quality !
From the list you choose the solution you want and the
machine then fits it instantly. The free Tutorial
gives more details of this very powerful feature. This can ensure success
and save you hours.
Whenever you choose
this automatic method, TimeTabler repeatedly
finds, and fits, the top of the ‘top ten’
tightest activities.
It does this by repeatedly making an enormous number of
fast calculations on your timetable data, entirely automatically. You
can go and teach a class if you wish - and then come back and see the result !
You will decide what the machine should do if it comes up against a problem lesson that will not fit in.
The choices are:
Of course in this
automatic scheduling the machine cannot ‘know’ anything about the
personalities of your staff - it is only ‘number-crunching’ at high
speed. But it means that TimeTabler does
allow you for the first time to do several trial ‘what if’
timetables to see the effect of modifying your timetable data.
Changing just one teacher in one of your Maths Sets can sometimes have a dramatic
effect on the rest of the timetable.
Now, with TimeTabler, you can fine-tune
your data before you make the final run.
You can move backwards and forwards between Interactive and Automatic timetabling as often as you wish, so you can have the best of both worlds.
The free Tutorial version of TimeTabler allows you to practise all these features, and more.
The speed of TimeTabler
allows you to try many ‘what if . . . ’ scenarios before
making a decision.
What if . . . you are considering changing to a 5-period day . . . or to a 2-week
timetable . . . or to Maths sets in Year 7 . . . or . . . ? With TimeTabler
you can try it first. Quickly !
From
the download page you can download,
free :
the
Tutorial Booklet (as a .pdf file for reading in
the free Acrobat Reader), and
the TimeTabler
Tutorial program,
with the demonstration data to save you time.
TimeTabler : this is the screen for entering details of Subjects.
Every screen has a Help button, to explain what each part does.
You can see more examples of the Windows screens by clicking
here.
Users’
comments.
Click here to see what Users
have said about TimeTabler, and Options
and StaffCover.
FAQs
- Frequently Asked Questions.
Click here to see the Answers, or make
an Order.
Introduction.
Click here to move to the first
page, for an introduction to TimeTabler.
© Chris & Keith Johnson