The Timetable module in EasyEdmin helps institutes plan, manage, and monitor the distribution of teaching periods across classes, subjects, teachers, schedules, and learning resources.
It brings together the information required to create a practical timetable while helping users identify teacher availability, workload, scheduling constraints, and potential conflicts. EasyEdmin also provides Auto Plan to automatically prepare most of the timetable and Manual Timetable Planning for making or adjusting individual allocations.
What Does the Timetable Module Manage? #
The Timetable module brings together several elements required for timetable planning:
- Classes — Classes for which the timetable is to be prepared.
- Subjects — Subjects assigned to each class. Subject assignment is maintained in Class Management and is automatically retrieved by Timetable.
- Teachers — Teachers who are available to teach the subjects assigned to classes.
- Schedules & Periods — Day-wise schedules and the individual teaching periods within those schedules.
- Learning Resources / Places — Locations or resources required for a period, such as classrooms, computer labs, science labs, playgrounds, or other venues.
- Subject Allocations — Assignment of teachers and other required resources to specific periods.
- Split Subjects — Subjects that are divided among multiple teachers or specific subject components.
- Elective Subjects — Subjects that need coordinated scheduling so that students, teachers, and required resources can be accommodated appropriately.
- Class Teacher — Assignment of the class teacher for each class.
- Planning Preferences & Constraints — Rules and preferences that help guide timetable planning.
- Priority and Fixed Allocations — Periods that need to be allocated and protected before automatic planning.
- Timetable Locks — Controls that prevent unintended changes to a timetable or to a particular class during planning.
How Timetable Planning Works #
Timetable planning starts with the information already maintained in EasyEdmin.
Subjects assigned to a class are maintained through Class Management. When the class is added to a timetable, EasyEdmin automatically retrieves its assigned subjects.
The timetable can then be configured with the relevant:
Classes → Subjects → Teachers → Schedules & Periods → Learning Resources / Places → Allocations
Users can specify teaching requirements, teacher availability, workload limits, planning preferences, resource requirements, and other constraints. Priority allocations can be fixed before running Auto Plan, allowing EasyEdmin to prepare the remaining timetable around those requirements.
Once the timetable is prepared, users can review it, make manual adjustments where required, and monitor its completion.
Auto Plan and Manual Planning #
EasyEdmin provides two approaches for preparing a timetable:
Auto Plan #
Auto Plan automatically allocates available periods based on the information, preferences, constraints, and fixed allocations defined in the timetable.
It can prepare a substantial portion of the timetable automatically, reducing the amount of manual planning required.
Manual Timetable Planning #
Users can also allocate or adjust periods manually. EasyEdmin provides validations and intelligent inputs during manual planning to help users make valid allocations and identify scheduling issues.
These two approaches can be used together. Typically, important or high-priority allocations are handled first, followed by Auto Plan, with manual adjustments used where necessary.
Timetable Activation and Publishing #
EasyEdmin provides two independent controls for making a timetable available to different users.
Active #
An Active timetable makes its allocations available to institute users, including teachers. Related subject-level rights are also provided based on the teacher allocations in the timetable.
Multiple timetables can be Active at the same time, allowing the institute to maintain which timetables are currently in effect.
Deactivating a timetable removes its allocations from teachers’ schedules and withdraws the related subject-level rights.
Published #
A Published timetable is made available in the Student/Parent App.
A timetable must be Active before it can be Published.
Multiple timetables can be Published at the same time. Publishing and unpublishing are independent of teacher access:
- Publishing makes the timetable available in the Student/Parent App.
- Unpublishing removes the timetable from the Student/Parent App.
- Unpublishing does not withdraw teacher rights.
An Active or Published timetable can be edited. Changes are reflected in the respective teacher schedules and Student/Parent App, as applicable.
Managing Timetable Access #
Timetable management can be assigned to multiple staff members. However, only one staff member can manage a timetable at a time.
A staff member must acquire the Timetable Management Lock before making changes to the timetable. This prevents multiple users from managing the same timetable simultaneously.
Timetable rights can also be assigned directly from the timetable. Based on the subjects and teachers allocated in the timetable, EasyEdmin can provide the respective subject-level rights to the teachers concerned.
For example, a teacher assigned to teach a particular subject in a class can receive the relevant subject-level rights, while access to subjects not assigned to that teacher is not provided through the timetable.
Creating Timetables from Existing Timetables #
A new timetable can be created by copying an existing timetable.
Copying a timetable copies all of its data. This can be particularly useful when preparing a timetable for a new academic session, where the existing timetable structure can be reused and the required classes or other information can then be modified.
Timetable Monitoring #
EasyEdmin provides tools to monitor timetable preparation and review the resulting allocations.
Users can:
- View timetable completion percentage for individual classes and overall.
- Lock a completed class timetable so that Auto Plan does not modify it.
- View the complete timetable across classes and days from a consolidated overview.
- Highlight allocations belonging to selected teachers.
- Review teacher availability and workload.
- Replace a teacher when required.
- Swap allocations through drag-and-drop during timetable management.
- Generate timetable prints and reports for classes, teachers, and learning resources.
Prerequisites #
Before preparing a timetable, the following information should be available in EasyEdmin:
- Classes
- Subjects assigned to the classes
- Staff Members / Teachers
