Timetable · Substitutions
Timetable management software that cannot double-book a teacher
Period grids built against teacher load, room capacity and subject requirements, with clashes refused rather than warned about — and same-day substitutions that reach the right phone.
No card required · Free migration · Live in a week
Works with
CBSE
ICSE
State boards
IB & Cambridge
Multi-campus groups
What ships in timetable
Counted from the software, not the brochure.0
Clashes possible — a double-booking is refused, not flagged
3
Constraints checked on every assignment: teacher, room, subject
1
Minute to arrange a substitution when a teacher calls in sick
4
Views of the same grid: class, teacher, room and student
Building the grid
The constraints are the feature
Any software can draw a grid. What makes a timetable usable is that it refuses to let you make the mistakes that take a fortnight to find: the same teacher in two rooms at once, a physics practical in a room with no lab, or a teacher carrying thirty-eight periods a week while a colleague carries twelve. Those checks run on every assignment, not in a validation pass at the end.
- 01 A teacher cannot be in two places Assigning an already-busy teacher to a period is refused with the conflicting class named. Not a warning you can click past.
- 02 Rooms have capacity and type A lab period needs a lab. A section of fifty does not fit a room for thirty. Both are checked at assignment.
- 03 Weekly load per teacher, visible while you build The running period count per teacher is on the screen, so an unbalanced allocation is obvious before it is published rather than in week three.
- 04 Subject requirements per class Set how many periods a week each subject needs; the grid shows what is still unallocated instead of letting you publish a class short of two maths periods.
Substitutions
The 8:40am problem
A teacher calls in sick at twenty to nine. Somebody has to find five free teachers, write it on a board, and hope everyone reads it. This is the most frequent timetable task in any school and the one most software ignores entirely. Here you mark the absence and the system lists who is genuinely free for each of that teacher’s periods, ordered by who has the lightest load this week.
- 01 Free teachers, not all teachers The list for each period excludes anyone already teaching, on leave, or over their weekly cap. It is a shortlist you choose from, not a staff directory.
- 02 Load-aware ordering Suggestions are ordered by lightest current load, so substitutions do not always land on the same obliging person.
- 03 Notified to the phone, not the noticeboard The substitute gets a notification with the class, period and room. The students’ timetable view updates for that day too.
- 04 Recorded, so it can be counted Substitutions accumulate against a teacher, which is the figure to look at when somebody says the load is unfair.
Publishing & views
One grid, four ways of looking at it
A timetable is not one document. The class needs its week, the teacher needs theirs, the lab in-charge needs the room’s, and a student wants today on a phone between periods. All four are the same data, so a substitution or a room change appears in every view at once instead of in one printed copy and not the other three.
- 01 Class, teacher, room and student views Generated from the same grid. Printable for the staff room, and live in the app.
- 02 Today on a phone Students and teachers see the current day with the next period highlighted, including any substitution made this morning.
- 03 Period-wise attendance reads it Attendance marked per period uses the timetable, including substitutions, so the register credits the right teacher.
- 04 Versioned when you republish A revised timetable supersedes the previous one with a date, so “which version are we on” has an answer.
Capabilities
Everything in the timetable module
Period grids
Per class and section, with your own day structure, break periods and Saturday pattern.
Teacher load
Weekly period caps and a live count while you build, so allocation is balanced before publication.
Rooms & labs
Capacity and room type checked on assignment. A practical cannot land in a classroom.
Clash prevention
Teacher, room and section conflicts are refused with the conflicting entry named.
Subject requirements
Periods-per-week targets per subject, with the shortfall visible until it is filled.
Substitutions
Mark an absence, pick from genuinely free teachers ordered by load, notify the phone.
Notifications
Substitutes and affected classes are told. The noticeboard becomes optional.
Printable views
Class, teacher and room timetables for the staff room and the file copy.
Feeds attendance
Period-wise marking reads the timetable including today’s substitutions.
Versions
Republishing supersedes with a date rather than silently replacing.
Free-period finder
Who is free now, for a meeting, an invigilation or an unplanned session.
Per-campus timetables
Each campus builds its own; a teacher shared between campuses cannot be double-booked across them.
In practice
From a blank grid to a running week
STEP 01
Set the frame
Define the day — how many periods, when the breaks fall, what Saturday looks like — then the rooms with their capacity and type, and each teacher’s weekly cap. This is the part that takes an afternoon, once a year.
STEP 02
Allocate
Assign subjects and teachers period by period. Clashes are refused as you go and the unallocated subject count tells you when a class is finished, so there is no validation pass at the end that finds fifty problems.
STEP 03
Publish, then run the week
Publish and every class, teacher and student sees their own view. From then on the daily work is substitutions, which is the task the module is really built around.
Honest limits
What this module does not do
Stated here so it comes up now rather than in month three. If one of these is a hard requirement, tell us on the call and we will say plainly whether it is on the roadmap or not for us.
| You might expect | What we actually do | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Fully automatic generation of an optimal timetable | Constraint checking, load balancing and shortfall tracking while a human allocates. Not a solver that produces the whole grid unattended | By design |
| Teacher preference optimisation (no first periods, free Fridays) | Weekly caps and clash prevention. Individual preference weighting is not modelled | Not yet |
| Exam seating plans and invigilation rosters | The free-period finder helps assign invigilators. Seating plans are not generated | Partly |
| Multi-week rotating cycles | A weekly cycle, with per-day variation. A two-week rotating cycle is not supported today | Not yet |
| Integration with an external timetabling engine | CSV import and export of the grid. No live integration with third-party timetabling software | Not yet |
| Automatically choosing the substitute for you | A ranked shortlist of genuinely free teachers. The choice stays with the person who knows the staff room | Not for us |
Connected
What timetable is wired to
Nothing here is a separate product with an import step. These modules read and write the same student record, which is the entire point.
Attendance
Period-wise marking reads the timetable, substitutions included.
Examinations
Subject allocation decides which teacher may enter which marks.
Student information
Classes, sections and subjects come from here rather than a separate list.
HR & payroll
Teacher leave drives the absence that starts a substitution.
Communication
Substitution notices and timetable changes to the right phones.
Mobile app
Today’s periods for a teacher or a student, with the next one highlighted.
Questions
Timetable — questions we get asked
Something not answered here?
Does it generate the timetable automatically?
No, and that is deliberate. Automatic generators produce a grid that satisfies the constraints you were able to express and violates the dozen you could not — the senior teacher who genuinely should not have the last period, the two subjects that must not be adjacent. What we do instead is make manual allocation fast and impossible to get wrong: every clash is refused as you make it, teacher load is live on the screen, and the unallocated subject count tells you when a class is done.
How does a substitution actually work?
Mark the teacher absent for the day. For each of their periods you get a list of teachers who are genuinely free at that time — not on leave, not teaching, not over their weekly cap — ordered by who is carrying the lightest load this week. Pick one and they are notified with the class, period and room; the students’ timetable for that day updates too.
Can a teacher be shared between two campuses?
Yes, and the clash check spans campuses, so a teacher timetabled at Campus A for period three cannot be allocated at Campus B for the same period. This is a common arrangement in groups and it is exactly the mistake that is hardest to spot by eye.
Do you handle labs and specialist rooms?
Yes. Rooms carry a capacity and a type, and a period that needs a lab will not be assigned to a classroom. A section of fifty will not be assigned to a room for thirty. Both refusals name the conflict.
Can teachers see their timetable on a phone?
Yes, in the staff app — today’s periods with the next one highlighted, including any substitution arranged that morning. Students see the same for their class. This is the version people actually consult, which is why substitutions push to it immediately.
What about a six-day week with a short Saturday?
Supported. The day structure is defined per weekday, so a Saturday with four periods and no games slot is normal configuration rather than a workaround.
Can we print the staff-room copy?
Yes — class, teacher and room views all print. The printed copy is a snapshot, and because republishing supersedes with a date, there is a way to tell whether the one on the wall is current.
How long does a first timetable take to build?
For a school of thirty sections, an afternoon for the frame and a day or two for allocation — which is comparable to doing it on paper, except that it cannot contain a clash and next year starts from a copy of this year rather than from nothing.
Next step
Build one class’s week on the call
Bring your period structure and one class’s subject allocation. Twenty minutes and you will have seen a clash refused and a substitution arranged.
- No card required
- Your data stays yours — export any time
- Setup help included