Dear timetablers,
The major improvements in this release are listed below:
Manage timetables efficiently
Timetables can be filtered by modified date, tags and published/deleted status. By default, when you click the open icon, only recently modified timetables are displayed. If you have deleted timetables by mistake, you have 30 days left to undelete them.
Stay organized using tags
Filter activities and resources by previously assigned tags. That way, you can create an English teachers meeting or copy constraints to 5th graders without having to select them one by one.
Exclude from generator and statistics
Non-teaching activities like teacher meeting, preparation, duty and lunch shouldn't affect teacher/class load. Use the new options to exclude subjects from the generator/notifications and/or statistics.
Integration with other school software
While importing data you can import custom ids for all resources from SIS/MIS software and these ids will also be used when exporting timetable into a CSV file. Moreover, you can import/merge any property for a resource, which enables quick update of specific constraints for more resources at once.
Resize periods based on duration
By default, all periods appear to have the same size in the view regardless of their actual duration. Check 'Resize periods based on duration' in the options for a more realistic timetable look both in the master and individual views and when printing/publishing a timetable.
Other improvements
- Filter activities/statistics by tags and export all individual statistics at once, include the 'Students' column if needed
- Selecting classes/groups is similar to selecting any other resources, additionally, you can filter resources by tags, make a selection and reorder it using keyboard, also both lists can be enlarged by resizing the selector window
- Import clips along with activities and import any column order
- Unscheduled cards are grouped by subject and sorted descending by length
- Add 'Notes' for all resources
- Copy subject difficulty to others
- Accordion-like expanders are added throughout the app to simplify forms
- Dates are displayed with respect to your browser's settings
- Latest bug fixes
Dear timetablers,
Thanks to your generous feedback there are 400 ideas implemented in online user voice. The major improvements in this release are listed below.
Manage students
Each student has a name, short name and unique groups it belongs to. By adding activities for groups, students belonging to these groups will be assigned to these activities as well. The view can be filtered by a specific student so each student has their own timetable. For instance, here is a timetable for a student named Donna Gordon.
Create your own view
Now you can display only some resources, e.g. 5th graders or English teachers and optionally exclude days and periods. Created views can be used for publishing, exporting, customizing and printing. Watch video on how to manage views.
Match your school's branding
Take a look at United States International and United States examples which are already customized with the most common changes: custom school logo, font/size, colors and styles.
Export to PowerSchool, iSAMS and more
Choose desired format, customize columns and export timetable to a file which can be imported to other software, such as SIS and MIS.
Other improvements
- User guide is completely revised to include 150+ helpful How-to's
- Set any text you want to be displayed inside the cards
- Instead of default periods you can show custom periods in the specific individual views
- Days and periods can be imported or merged
- Import activities using short names (codes)
- Optionally show marks on the published web page
- Freeze the first column when using horizontal zoom
- Help in the menu shows the embedded User guide and introductory videos
- Choose 'Help > About' to view release notes and check whether the app is up-to-date. Here, you can also suggest an idea for improvement or report an issue.
5/7/2020
release,
students,
export,
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powerschool,
isams,
timetable,
schedule,
school,
timetabling,
scheduling,
software
Dear timetablers,
Following our goal to make timetabling easier for anyone, we have created 10+ video tutorials packed with tons of helpful info so you can be more productive with your scheduling tasks. As always, based on your feedback the app is constantly being improved. Listed below you will find the changes related to the latest Prime Timetable release and these are:
Generator works better in modern browsers
Automatic generation has been additionally optimized to give you the best results when working on challenging timetables. Thanks to the latest and ever advancing web technologies automatic generator works equally well in any modern browser: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge or Opera.
GDPR Rights for Data Portability and Erasure
New Privacy Policy clarifies what information we collect and how we use it but there are also some new features. For example, you can now download your personal data archive or delete your school account in a more automated way.
Undo any change using the new History
Explore different timetable solutions and safely revert changes at any time using the new History panel. Customize the number of remembered states in the options. By default, the last 100 states are remembered.
Easier integration with other apps
Timetables are stored in the new 2.0 format and the app consumes new RESTful APIs enabling a much easier integration with other apps. Old timetables can still be imported by choosing Owl > Open > Open from File.
Other improvements
- The term "activity" is now used instead of "lesson". Subjects, teachers, classes/groups and rooms are displayed using full names in the activities grid (switch to short names by clicking "Total" in the statistics above the grid). Similar activities are not longer grouped together which allows organizing activities any way you like.
- Group sets and groups are redesigned to appear more grid-like so you can control the order of group sets and their groups using up and down arrows in the bottom right corner of the grid or copy group sets to other classes using Copy button.
- Collaboration is further improved so the timetablers can simultaneously work on the same resource within a timetable and all saved changes will be seamlessly synced and merged across any device you or your colleagues might be using.
- Custom periods can be reordered by moving them from one default period to another using up and down arrows in the bottom right corner of the grid.
- Merge two timetables will additionally merge custom periods, groups and forbidden, unwanted and mandatory positions.
- Grid sort will immediately refresh the view. Use the new History panel to undo sort.
- Some windows, e.g. manage data or customize cards are non-modal now, so you can drag cards, switch views and similar without having to close them.
- Subject difficulty is set to medium by default.
- Check for the same short name is removed when importing activities.
- When you click the open icon multi-select in the grid is enabled so you can delete more timetables at once.
- Newly added cards have scheduled room(s) if desired room(s) are set.
- Experienced timetablers might want to uncheck "Show tips" option which is checked by default.
- Software is built using the latest web standards and therefore the old plugin app and support for Internet Explorer 9 and 10 has been removed. Although Internet Explorer 11 is still partially supported, consider installing a more modern browser instead.
- Lots of bug fixes, such as pinned unscheduled cards which can now be used in combination with clipped cards without causing any issues.
We hope you will enjoy new improvements and wish you happy scheduling!
Experience state-of-the-art scheduling software, with a blazing fast automatic generator, real-time notifications and extra views, revamped design, efficient managing of lessons/cards, teacher substitute, 10 skins to choose from, share to social networks, export to Excel/Sheets, plus more. A brand new Prime Timetable is a perfect match for schedule challenges, making you more more productive on any device you choose.
Add personal touch to your schedules
Head into Owl > Options and choose your favorite blue, green, red, violet, orange, pink, cyan, brown, gray or dark skin. Additionally, you can choose any color you want for the card background.
Manage lessons efficiently
Adding lessons to classes on the same grade level or same subject teachers can be cumbersome. Instead you can add lessons for only one class and then copy/edit cards for other related classes or leave the desired room empty and assign teachers to their homeroom later to speed up the process.
Easily substitute teachers
Select any number of cards and edit all of them at once to substitute teachers or any other resources.
Share to Facebook, Twitter and Google+
Easily share master or individual schedule to Facebook, Twitter and Google+ by choosing Share > Social Networks. Additionally, choose Share > Embed Timetable to generate necessary Html code to insert the schedule into your school's website or blog.
Export to Excel/Sheets
Once the schedule is finished choose Save as > Html Spreadsheet(s) to export master or individual schedule(s) as a table to Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets in case you need additional tweaks for your schedule.
Tons of improvements based on your generous feedback
- A new set of outline icons looking great on modern devices plus simplified owl
- Read and search user guide without leaving the app
- Importing lessons via Excel/Sheets is improved
- Copy selected cards to another resource
- Thanks to better text wrapping cards display more content on phones
- New option for sharing currently opened individual view
- Redesigned horizontal and vertical zoom
- Specific optimizations for various devices: iPad, iPhone, Android
Add your ideas to online user voice or give us a feedback by sending email. We wish you happy scheduling!
5/9/2016
release,
timetable,
schedule,
school,
timetabling,
scheduling,
software,
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substitute,
excel,
export,
share
Dear timetablers,
Thank you for incredible feedback you've been sending us. As a result of your generous support, we bring you the ultimate scheduling experience and much more productive timetabling on any device in the newest Prime Timetable.
Blazing fast automatic generation
We have optimized automatic generator specifically for Chrome browser that majority of timetablers are already using and the results are astonishing: generation is now 2 times faster than in the plugin app and at least several times faster than in any other modern browser. We highly recommend you give Chrome a try (if you haven't already) and reward yourself with blazingly fast automatic generation.
Clip cards so they are scheduled together
The most requested feature in our online user voice is here. Clipped cards have a little clip icon in the top left corner and will be scheduled and dragged all together, which is essential for block scheduling.
Easily resolve conflicts by merging cards
Although you may hide error notifications by pinning conflicted/rotated cards, the recommended approach is to merge cards instead, and create one out of two or more cards by combining all classes/groups/students and teachers into one lesson.
Drag multiple cards
In a single move you can drag multiple cards simply by drawing rectangle selection around them using the mouse. In order to select the whole day/period/resource or specific range, use Ctrl/Cmd and/or Shift key. When dragging a selected card, the other(s) will follow. Pretty neat, huh?
Web app is now set as preferred
Web app works on Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, Chromebooks, Linux and countless other devices. No installation needed. You can set your preference by choosing Help > Options > Preferred App.
Lots of other improvements
- Saving timetable as local file is available without internet connection
- Easily perform bulk actions on selected cards using context menu: pin/unpin, merge/split, clip/unclip, copy/paste to specific day or period, remove and delete.
- Context menu also added for days, periods and resources in the view
- iOS (iPad and iPhone) and Android specific optimizations and improvements
- Help updates: generator tips, generator priority levels and many more...
We hope you will enjoy new improvements and wish you happy scheduling!
6/6/2015
release,
timetable,
schedule,
generator,
solver,
school,
timetabling,
scheduling,
software,
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multi-select,
iOS,
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Android,
Chromebook
Dear timetablers,
Ow(l)ing to your generous feedback and support, we have added tons of timetabling features ready for you to use as of today! New Prime Timetable enables even more timetabling scenarios and performance improvements that you can enjoy on any device you might be using: Mac, PC, tablet or smartphone. No plugins, no installation, it just works! Sounds interesting? Read on.
Automatic generation is 3 times faster than before
By utilizing the power of the latest modern browsers we have been able to drastically improve automatic generation performances. Just click play icon and enjoy automated scheduling at its best. Use Firefox, Chrome or Safari for superior experience. If automatic improvements have no progress after a minute or so, it's time to revise your data or constraints. Feel free to get in touch with our customer support at any time by choosing Help > Contact us.
Get notified upon any timetable change
The newly redesigned notification system will instantly warn you upon any change with updated notification number appearing in the top right corner. Clicking the bell icon will open a current list of all errors and warnings.
If needed, some notifications can be ignored by pinning related cards.
Subjects can be automatically scheduled more than once per day
If the new option Allow subject to be taught more than once per day is checked, you won't be notified if the subject is scheduled more than once a day.
Maximum number of lessons in a row
When you set desired maximum number of lessons in a row for a teacher, the automatic generator will try to resolve this requirement and a notification will warn you if some of your staff is teaching more than allowed number of consecutive lessons.
Organizing rooms by room capacity, tags and names of buildings
In order to better organize and group rooms, you can now specify room capacity, room tags, e.g. "1st floor, lab", and building name. That way, when adding alternative rooms for the lesson, you can easily select all rooms on the 1st floor or all rooms with specific capacity/tag.
Minimize moves between buildings
After entering building names for rooms, set Allowed daily number of moves between buildings to minimize moves for staff members and let the generator do the magic. Additionally, the software can ignore teacher moves after the window.
Lots of other improvements
- Displaying large timetables is 3 times faster.
- Pinned cards have pin icon in the top right corner.
- Awaiting cards are displayed in several rows in the individual view and when an awaiting card is dragged into the timetable, others are automatically reordered.
- Saving changes while there is no internet connection is supported.
- Better multi-touch support
- Lots of smaller fixes and updates for iPad, iPhone and Android devices.
If you are currently using our plugin app and want to try new features, just select web app by choosing: Help > Options > Preferred App.
Hope you like the new improvements, and don't forget to give us a feedback, send us email or add your ideas to our online user voice. Happy scheduling!
Dear timetablers,
Surprise your students and colleagues with all-new Prime Timetable, reimagined and rebuilt from ground up to work on any device. Beautifully optimized schedules are now just a tap away on your tablets and smartphones. No installation, no setup. It just works. Visit primetimetable.com to create a free account (if you haven't already), log in and enjoy scheduling like never before. Prime Timetable is still the only app in the global market fully accessible both online and offline, and now we have taken a giant leap forward by making it accessible wherever, whenever!
Schedule the whole school on a pocket size phone
Seeing is believing. Therefore, we have made a video showing automatic generation, instant validation, manual adjustments, dragging cards with just a touch of your finger and sharing schedules online. And all this on a pocket size phone! Watch the video.
Teachers and students have direct access to their individual schedules
When you tap/click the class or teacher's name in the master schedule, an individual schedule is opened. Anyone can bookmark that page to the home screen of iPhone/iPad or Android smartphone/tablet, or pin that page to the start menu on Windows Phone, or create a web shortcut on Mac OS X, or just put it in the browser's bookmark/favorites for easier access. Whatever you or your colleagues/students prefer.
No Wi-Fi? No problem. Schedules are available even offline
Once a colleague or a student has visited the published timetable they will be able to see it again any time they want and without internet connection! The master and all individual schedules are accessible offline. Even if you are stuck in the traffic without Wi-Fi, your schedule is always there. Again, no installation, no setup. It just works.
Choose your preferred app: web or plugin
Choose Help > Options > Preferred App and pick the app that best fits you. The web app works everywhere and will be automatically opened if you visit primetimetable.com using tablet or smartphone. The plugin app is available even offline as a desktop app and is up to 3 times faster when it comes to generating complex school schedules.
Two apps at the price of one. Up to 50% discount for multi-year purchase
Both web and plugin apps are available at the price of one. Plus, we offer special discounts (up to 50%) for multi-year purchase. Check plans and pricing and choose the plan that suits your school.
Share your experience with Prime Timetable. Owl we need is love
Your invaluable feedback has helped us enormously to improve the application, and so far we have implemented more than 200 ideas that you have requested. We are truly grateful for your generous support and would like to invite you to share your experience with Prime Timetable and spread the word so that others can get their schedules done and have fun!
Visit our brand new website for more info and enjoy scheduling like never before.
Dear timetablers,Based on your generous feedback, we have developed new Prime Timetable 6.0 with lots of features, improvements and latest fixes. Whether you are looking for automated or manual timetabling or both we've got something for you, not to mention special discounts for multi-year purchase up to 50%. But before we dive into any details, first and foremost
Thank you for promoting Prime Timetable!
We can't express enough gratitude to all of you who are promoting Prime Timetable to other principals and schools around. That really means the world to us. BIG HOOT and BIG THANK YOU! Ow(l)ing to your devotion and continuous support we bring you:
The new automatic timetable generator
Our unique automatic timetable generator (the only one in the market that works in your browser of choice on both Mac and PC since 2009) has been rewritten from scratch to serve you better. It has been specially optimized for complex timetables and in some cases we have seen the increase in performance up to 5-10 times than before. In other words, it means that if you have waited for a couple of minutes for automatic generation to finish, you will wait in a matter of seconds, now. Well, just click play icon and let us know how it works for you.
Scheduling multiple rooms
Simply add more than one desired rooms using More... button in Manage > Activities > Add and that lesson will be displayed with equal number of cards in the room view. When dragging a card with several scheduled rooms, all related cards are automatically moved horizontally to a new position. However, only the card being dragged can be moved vertically so you can change its room without affecting other related room cards. You can manually choose any room, even if it is not in the desired or alternative room list.
Draw constraints using markers
You don't want to get bored with your timetabling work, do you? The new markers will prove that previously slow and tedious task of defining constraints can be fun, game-like and yet more productive. Red 
, yellow
and blue markers 
and eraser 
will let you easily draw or erase forbidden, unwanted or mandatory marks directly into any master, individual or extra timetable view. For instance, using red marker you can mark the 6th period as forbidden for a specific resource (class, teacher, room or subject) and the automatic timetable generator will respect your input and try to solve all the constraints for you.
Improvements for custom periods
Based on your feedback we have improved custom periods and now you can define more than one custom periods during the default period. For instance, during the default period of 45 minutes you can add 3 shorter lessons of 15 minutes each. When adding new custom period(s), you will be asked if appropriate cards on default periods should be moved and resized accordingly, so you don't have to do that manually. Positioning and resizing of custom cards is also improved to better support gaps between default periods and different period intervals. As always, when dragging a card, the card shadow indicates where the card will be dropped.
Timetabling history and unlimited undo/redo
Click 
to undo and 
to redo any view changes. Apart from that, a new history icon 
lets you see all previous changes, so you can undo all or some of them with just one mouse click. History list is also helpful because every action has its description, for instance: 1 card dragged, 2 marks erased, 240 cards changed by generator, 1 card cleared, 2 positions marked as mandatory... so you get a clear picture of all previous changes. Both multiple undo and redo are animated, so you can see the cards moving from one position to another. Also, all changes are tracked in the instant validation window, which helps you decide which position better suits you.
Other changes and improvements
There are lots of other subtle changes and improvements, here is just a short list:
- Adding a lesson without teacher or class is improved.
- Days and periods can be repositioned just like other data.
- Teacher's statistics will take custom periods duration into account.
- Black and white (monochrome) printing mode added.
- New "Use 12-hour clock" option added in Help > Options.
- When editing a lesson, previous card positions are remembered.
- Better detection and user experience for iPad and iPhone users.
- Use markers, but if you miss old Marks button we can enabled it for you.
- Old generator is still there just in case, and can be enabled for you.
- Subscription expire date is displayed in Help > About.
Is there anything you would like to have included and it's not there yet? Share your idea in our online user voice. Once again we would like to thank you for your continuous support and we wish you enjoyable timetabling.
Dear timetablers,
In just 1 year we have released 3.0, 4.0, and now 5.0 release. We would like to thank you all for your support, and especially for spreading the word. Here is what's new in the latest 5.0 release:
Custom period intervals
The most requested feature is here. You can enter any period interval for any day/period (and class/teacher/room/subject), and appropriate cards will be resized and repositioned accordingly. Custom periods are logically and smartly grouped in the grid and can be easily filtered. Furthermore, you can add custom intervals inside the card by checking Help > Options > Show period intervals instead of numbers.
Special summer offer, up to 50% discount
Until August 1st, we are offering up to 50% discount for 2 or more years purchase. Use the slider on the plans and pricing page to choose your billing term and special discount.
New web server
Having an ever increasing number of schools using our services, we had to make sure that all teachers and students get their timetables timely and efficiently. The new web server means faster, more reliable, secure and efficient timetabling and so much more. And yes, you can download and start Prime Timetable in just 1 second now.
Desktop application
Desktop application is now available for both Basic and Premium plans. Choose Help > Options > Install Prime Timetable and the software will be installed on your computer, so when you start the application by clicking desktop icon it will automatically do the log in for you. Desktop version is available for both Mac OS X and Windows and we especially recommend using it on school computers with a slower Internet connection.
Web site redesign and other improvements
More than 20 new timetable examples are added from various countries around the world. There are lots of minor improvements and fixes that you have suggested, such as the ability to print conflicts, the new context menu (use right mouse click on the card to edit lesson, access card designer, pin/unpin and clear), etc.
The web site has been redesigned in order to present our services more clearly and user friendly. If you are satisfied with our product, please share https://primetimetable.com/ link with other teachers, principals, principal assistants, and others. You can also use the new "Spread the word" section in the footer of every web page to like us on Facebook, share a link on Twitter or LinkedIn. Your help is much appreciated!
Enjoy the new release and use online user voice to suggest a feature or add new ideas that you would like to see in the Prime Timetable. Happy summer timetabling!
"Dear timetablers,
Hoot, hoot, a brand new Prime Timetable 4.0 is here! A unique school timetable software for Mac and Windows just got better with over 100 new features that you have requested! We hope you will enjoy using it as much as we enjoy making it. There are some really awesome and exciting features that we are eager to share."
Print what you see
What you see on the screen is what is going to be printed. It's simple as that. You can easily print and customize both master and individual timetable view(s). The software will automatically do the paging when printing master timetable, and print timetable on a separate page when printing individual timetables.
Card designer
Use right mouse click on a timetable card to access card designer and customize style and appearance in any master or individual timetable view. You can customize background color, displayed text and border style and it will affect what is displayed on the screen, published web page, and how the timetable is going to be printed. All settings are saved inside a timetable document so you don't have to tweak it anymore.
Sharing timetable with others
Use Owl > Share > Share with others to share school account with other teachers, colleagues, etc. You can specify any of the following privileges for newly created users: owner, creator and viewer. The owner can manage other users, the creator can create and modify timetables and the viewer can only view timetables.
Instant validation & validation markers
Click on validate icon 
to turn on instant validation which provides immediate feedback upon any timetable change! Validation results window lists all timetable imperfections grouped and sorted logically. By selecting a timetable imperfection, adequate markers are displayed in the view. Validation markers are represented by red blinking rectangles appearing in any problematic period or card in the timetable view. Markers are transparent so you can easily spot and drag problematic cards to a better position and get instant validation feedback.
Timetable collaboration in the real time
Ever wondered if it's possible for two or more users to work on the same timetable at the same time? Well, yes it is! Welcome to the timetabling collaboration platform where you can collaborate both online and offline and let Prime Timetable do all synchronization for you.
Exchange school data with Microsoft Office and Google Docs
Do you already have school data in a Microsoft Office document? Maybe in Google Docs? No problem! Now you can easily exchange school data with Microsoft Office, Google Docs and similar software which will significantly reduce endless typing. Prime Timetable will smartly recognize the format and do the parsing for you.
Custom period labels
In the new version we have enabled adding custom period labels, e.g. "Break", "Lunch" etc. Also, it is possible to select more working days in a week and more lessons per day, so that you can set up to e.g. 10 days with 25 lessons, or 25 days with 10 lessons each day.
Download performances
In some countries/regions there are still schools which use slower Internet connections. That's why we have put a lot of effort into optimizing the time needed to download and view timetables. As a result, downloading and viewing timetables is 10x faster than before and is only a fraction of what it takes to open Facebook, Gmail or Hotmail.
Merge timetables
If you're a timetabler working on a campus school, you may face some extraordinary timetabling challenges, e.g. the need to create a timetable for elementary and middle schools with a possibility of some teachers and classrooms being shared in both schools at the same time! In such a case, you can work on two or more separate timetables and then merge them in order to find out if there are any conflicts with shared teachers or classrooms.