Timetable Structures and Calendar Generation
Timetables are one of the most complex parts of managing a school. Each timetable structure has a number of complex parts, all of which have to be set up and managed correctly in order for the overall timetable system to work correctly. Let's start by looking at the component parts of a Posi Ed timetable structure.
In Posi Ed a timetable structure is defined by creating a record in the timetable structure object. This record has just a few parameters:
academic year of the timetable
educational institution that the timetable structure is associated with
whether the timetable structure is active or not
number of weeks in the timetable cycle, e.g. most primary schools have a single week structure, but many high schools have a two week recurring structure
number of days in the timetable week e.g. most schools will only have five days in their timetable week, however some schools might also include Saturdays or even Saturdays and Sundays. In this case they would have values of six or seven days per week.
Each timetable structure then links to a number of other objects. Here is a section of the ERD.
Each one of these objects controls a part of the overall timetable structure process and each must be set up correctly for an overall timetable to work correctly.
Date maps
The date map object allows you to define for each day in your school calendar the nature of that day for each of your Year levels. Let's look at a single date map record.
The date signifies the date for which this record applies. Note that you can have multiple Date Map Records for a single date but you should only have one record per date and grade level combination. (more on this in a minute)
Grade levels
This is a list of each of the grade levels that this particular date map entry applies for. In this example all grade levels from year one through to year 12 are included in this single date map entry. If for example, you had a normal school day for years 1-10 but had a student free day for year 11 and 12, you would create two date map entries; one that included grade levels year one to year 10 and another that included just year 11 and 12.
Day type
This field specifies the type of day this is for the respective grade levels. For example in this example day type is 1 meaning it is day, usually the first Monday. Other options include things like weekend, sports day, holiday pupil, free exam. This list can be modified to suit the school's requirements , however it must match up with the date type values in other areas, such as the cohort schedule for the timetable structure to work
Week type
For most primary schools week type can be left with the value of a. However for schools that alternate between a week A and week B timetable you should specify the week type as A or B, depending upon the week type on this particular date.
Week number
This is a value that indicates the weak number in the term or semester. This value is not critical for timetable creation, but it can be used to assist staff members in their planning. The easiest way to create date Map Records for a timetable structure is to use a spreadsheet to create all relevant data and then use an importing tool to import into date map.
It should be noted that omitting any days from the date map or getting certain details incorrect may result in sessions not being created for the impacted days.
Timetable terms
The primary purpose of prime of timetable term records is to provide start and end dates for each term. Terms are hierarchical in nature, for example a term of type academic year will likely have two terms of type semester. Underneath it, each of these are likely to have two terms of type term underneath them.
- create a diagram showing this hierarchy
In the timetable structure context, the most important thing to remember is that all cohorts related to a timetable structure will have a timetable term they are linked to and this will provide the default start and end date range for that cohort. For example if a cohort is a full year class, then it should be linked to the academic year term. If it is a cohort that only runs for a single semester then it should be linked to that semester’s term record.
Bell times
Bell times are records that define the parameters for each period in a school day in the timetable cycle. How many Bell Time records you require will be defined by the complexity of your timetable structure and cycle.
For example a primary school that only has a morning, middle and afternoon class and operates only on a 5 day week cycle that does not wish to include Before school, lunch time or after school periods might only have 15 Bell time records, I.e. three per day across 5 days.
Another school might have say 8 class periods each day plus 2 before school periods, a recess period, two lunch time periods, and two after school periods per day. And this is repeated each day of the two week cycle. While this sounds complex, once the bell time definitions have been established Posi Ed will look after most of the work for you and create sophisticated calendars around these bell times.
A Bell Time record looks like this.
The bell time name fields can have any value, however it is best to structure your bell time names so that they are clearly understood by those reading Bell time record names. In this example this record is for Monday on week A Period one.
Week specifies whether this record is for a day in week A or B.
Day specifies which day in the week this record is for, generally day one is a Monday. The day numbers depend on the number of days in the TT days per week field in the timetable structure, for example, if you specified TT days per week equals 5 and weeks in TT cycle equals 2, then day values will range from 1-10. If on the other hand you had six days per week then they will range from 1-12.
Period specifies the period for which this bell time entry applies. In this case period one.
Start time and end time
These values define the start and end times of the period. These will be used to calculate the start and end time of the associated sessions and therefore the Calendar events for all participants in a session.
Mark roll
This field is used to define the default state of the Mark Roll status fields if the school is using Bell times to define the default Mark Roll statuses. Please see the section on Mark roll defaults for further information.
Bell Time Records provide a range of options when you are defining a timetable structure. For example Monday period one in week A might start at 8:45 but on Week B start at 9:00 AM. Or Friday timetables might start 30 minutes after other timetables and maybe they have one less period. As long as the data is set up consistently you will be able to extract a great degree of flexibility with regards to bell time structures.
- We need to add additional information on this field using the LISS documentation – refer to data dictionary for reference.
Note that if you are using timetabling software such as Edval or Edval Daily, the Bell Times structure is generally populated for you via the publish Bell Times process.
Timetable periods
The timetable periods object allows us to define a variety of characteristics of specific periods to certain functions and components within Posi Ed. These include defining the following:
periods included in the timetable components
periods included in the mark roll previous periods component
where to store Mark roll history in the day attendance object.
The timetable period table looks something like this:
And here is an example of a single timetable period record
Timetable period entries must be defined for each period that interacts with the timetable component or Mark roll processes.
Period
This is the period this particular timetable period record refers to. The period list is controlled through a global period pick list which can be modified to suit your organisations particular needs.
Order
Order is a numerical field that is used to define the order of periods. Since Posi Ed cannot simply use numerical or alphabetical orders to understand. For example that period 3 comes after recess etc.
You can use any set of numbering system that you wish, provided the result is that all periods are ordered in the order that is required by your school.
Day attendance session
This is a pointer to the session fields in the day attendance object. The value in this example of session 1 means that any mark roll process for any session in period 1 will end up updating the session one fields in the mark roll object.
For further information, refer to the documentation on the Day attendance object.
Display in Timetable component
This check box indicates that this period will be included in the timetable component that shows the timetable for each student account. Refer to the timetable component section in the documentation for further details.
Display in Mark roll periods
This check box indicates that this period should be included in the previous period's list in the mark roll interface. Refer to the mark roll documentation for further details.