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
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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!
It takes only about half an hour to watch 10 free videos packed with tons of helpful info so you can be more productive with your scheduling tasks. Watch getting started videos now and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest video tutorials for free.
Video tutorials: Introduction
Videos are only a couple of minutes long and cover basics as well as some tips & tricks.
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
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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
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Chromebook
All modern browsers are perfectly suitable for everyday use, but when it comes to web apps and especially intensive calculations like automatic timetable generation, they give drastically different results.
Our statistics show that Chrome is by far the most popular browser among Prime Timetable users and therefore we did some extra optimizations for this browser in order to achieve maximum performance. The results are astonishing:
Desktop application performance on the web
It turns out that by using Chrome, the performance of automatic generator is 2-100 times faster than in any other modern browser, fully reaching desktop application performance on the web! If you don't already use Chrome for your timetabling work, we recommend that you give it a try.
The generator will work considerably faster in Chrome than in our plugin app, a couple of times faster than in Firefox and sometimes even 100+ times faster than in Internet Explorer 11.
Use Chrome and enjoy timetabling to the max
When it comes to performance, we have a clear winner: Chrome. The second best is Firefox and then comes Safari. If you are using Internet Explorer, we highly recommend that you avoid using it for any kind of complex school scheduling (although we do have high hopes for Microsoft's new browser called Edge). Please note that all browsers are still supported, even the 14-year-old Internet Explorer 6 via the plugin app. However, if you want the best performance, use Chrome and reward yourself with blazingly fast automatic generation!