Timetabling Solutions
Everything You Need To Timetable Your School
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Won whole of state tender to supply South Australian Government schools 1999 – 2014
Won whole of state tender to supply Tasmanian Government schools 2006 – 2016
Supplier to Brisbane Catholic Education schools 2007 – 2016
Used by over 60% of independent schools in Australia
Used in NZ, China, UK, Malaysia, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and more
Exports data to popular administration systems, reporting packages and eLearning packages (your system
can be added for free)
Our products are supported by (22) staff who understand the market and their clients, backed by sophisticated,
professional and thorough processes.
Timetabling Solutions is 100% Australian Owned
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Table of Contents
Timetabling Software ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
Student Options Module................................................................................................................................................... 4
Timetable Development Module ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Daily Organiser Module .................................................................................................................................................... 8
General Access Module..................................................................................................................................................... 9
TimetableFind Module (alternative to General Access for those schools with Apple machines) ..................................................... 10
Web Preferences®(students submit subject selections online) .................................................................................................. 11
Importing and Exporting Data......................................................................................................................................... 12
Exporting Data to Popular Systems................................................................................................................................. 13
System Requirements and Limits.................................................................................................................................... 14
12 Month Software Maintenance Agreement................................................................................................................ 15
Professional Services....................................................................................................................................................... 16
Traning and Support ....................................................................................................................................................... 17
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Timetabling Software
Version 9 is a sophisticated software program for constructing, managing and publishing your timetable.
It is developed and supported by professional timetablers and used by over 60% of independent schools in Australia.
The program is designed in modular format to enable schools to tailor the installation and use of the program to suit
their needs. Different modules make it easier for the user to see the logic behind the timetabling process.
Student Options Module
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Define the Student Options parameters
Enter/import Student Options information
Define grid constraints
Create the grid
Print class lists and summaries
Import grid into the timetable
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Define timetable parameters
If required, import grid lines
Enter/import Timetable Development information
Perform checks
Construct timetable automatically or interactively
Publish to General Access, iClassmate, TimetableFind (Macs) and
Student Administration systems
Timetable Development Module
Daily Organiser Module
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Connect Daily Organiser with timetable file
Define structure of Daily Organisation
Enter staff and class absences
Assign replacements
Publish to General Access, and TimetableFind (Macs)
General Access Module
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Read only access for staff, students and administrators
Installed easily on your network in 2 minutes
Print, view or send to MS Excel
All timetables and class lists with or without photos
One license provides unlimited installations per site
Web Preferences®
 Fully hosted web application that allows students to submit subject
selections online
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Everything you need to timetable your school
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Student Options Module
The Student Options module enables students to be offered a choice in their course of study and you assign options
to students based on their nominated preferences. This module then creates the best grids to satisfy student,
curriculum and resource requirements. This module can also be used just to enter student details to obtain class
lists, individual student timetables, etc.
The student options file (*.sof9) stores information
about students, including:
You can have more than one student file. You can
organise your files to include students in:
• Student Details and Preferences
• Options
• Grid lines
• Classes
• Curriculum rules to check what the students have
chosen
• The whole school
• Two or more Roll Classes
• A Year Level
• A Roll Class
Generally, a student options file will consist of students
who select from the same choice of options, usually this
is the same year level. However, you can easily change
your file structure later to cater for acceleration and
other curriculum requirements. Using the Import
facility you can combine year levels into one file or
separate a file into different groups.
Our data files are easily transportable and are
approximately 1MB per 750 students.
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Timetabling Solutions’ automatic line generation algorithms will create your subject blocks to quickly and effortlessly
produce the best solution.
Once student subject preference information has been entered, the sophisticated tools in Student Options can
instantly create a clash matrix and automatically calculate the number of sets required to meet student requests. To
create the subject blocks, simply specify the number of desired lines or blocks then use either automatic or manual
functions (or a mixture of both) to create subject blocks.
Powerful tools are available to guide the creation of the blocks. These include the ability to group different subjects
together in the blocks using functions such as Join or Exclusively Join. In addition it is possible to ensure that groups
of subjects are spread across different lines using resource tools.
Once the blocks are created it is a simple process to assign students to classes and to move assigned students
between classes. Rules can also be created to ensure that student allocations conform to pre-determined
curriculum requirements (for example, each student must take at least one of…).
The module gives a large number of reports based on fields such as roll class, house, home group, year level and
gender.
Student Options is connected to the Timetable Development module to give individual timetables for each student,
from within both modules.
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Timetable Development Module
This module is the keystone of Timetabling Solutions’ suite of timetabling software. Its numerous exclusive features
assist you in the preparation, planning and construction of your timetable. Once your timetable has been completed
it produces a wide range of printed and electronic reports and seamlessly sends your information to other systems
within your school.
The Timetable Development module allows you to address any curriculum specific constraints and easily manages
multi-campuses. This module is designed to allow you to accurately and efficiently set up different curriculum
structures to be used in different parts of your school.
The user-friendly design has been created to support timetablers in the craft of creating their school timetable,
regardless of their experience.
The timetable file (*.tdf9) is easily transportable
and stores information about the timetable
including:
• Teachers, Rooms, Courses & Schedule of Classes
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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When you define your timetable parameters, you define:
Timetable structure, periods and days, doubles, triples and
quadruple periods, teacher movement between sites,
loading of periods, home group period, yard duty areas,
yard duty sessions, yard duty time names.
As well as being easy to use, the Timetable Development module contains powerful tools and algorithms that will
enhance the process of creating school timetables. This unique set of tools can identify potential problems and then
suggest possible solutions giving you full control of the process. Features such as Blocking Patterns, Clash Matrices,
Look Ahead Tests, Autostaffing, Teacher and Room on-off listings, Teacher Faculties (pools/groups) and Room Usage
Records (RURs) give the timetabler the tools to schedule the most difficult and challenging school curriculum
structures.
Editing tools allow you to make changes easily, including features to show teacher, room and seating availability.
In addition, this module manages yard duty allocations automatically (or manually if you prefer) and allows user
defined load weightings to one decimal place. Non-timetabled time allowances and the ability to schedule meetings
are also available.
The Timetable Development module allows a
range of modes for scheduling classes,
teachers and meetings:
• Blocking Pattern and Allocations
• Class Allocations
• Interactively, using the Lookahead Test
• Automatically, using the Auto Allocate function
• Auto staffing tools solve teacher clashes
• Automatically Create Yard duty rosters
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Once the timetable is complete there is a
wide range of tools available:
• Master Timetable Reports
• Individual Teacher Timetables
• Individual Student Timetables
• Yard Duty Rosters
• Class Lists
• Exporting to School Information Management
Systems (MIS)
Daily Organiser Module
The Daily Organiser module is designed to assist in the management of daily administrative tasks such as selecting
replacement teachers to cover teacher absences, lesson cancellations, student absences, student excursions and
changes to student attendance at lessons. The daily amendments can be viewed through the school network using
the General Access module.
The Daily Organiser module can be set up to handle
three different types of replacements from within your
own staff: “Under allotted”, “In lieu of” and “Extras”.
The “Under allotted” have less than a full teaching
load/duties. These people can be given uncounted
replacements before anyone else. “In lieu of”
replacements can be given to staff who have lost a class
today for example, where students are attending an
excursion.
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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These teachers need to be used on the day that they
have lost the class. “Extras” can be used for the
remaining staff. Often schools have industrial
regulations governing this type of replacement e.g. no
more than 18 extras per year, or no more than 1 extra
over a 10 day cycle. The Daily Organiser module can
also handle short term or casual replacement teachers
that are termed “Emergency Teachers.”
General Access Module
The General Access module provides network access to individual teacher, room and student timetables, student
lists, student activities and school bulletins. Students’ and teachers’ photos can also be displayed.
The General Access module is included in the purchase price of Version 9.
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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TimetableFind Module
Provides an alternative to General Access for those schools requiring an Apple Mac application
TimetableFind is a native Mac OS X application that can be run on all Macintosh computers on your school network
and no additional licenses are required. TimetableFind reads the same data as General Access, from the same folder
that contains the General Access data.
Version upgrades of TimetableFind are supplied to schools whilst on a Software Maintenance Agreement.
The features include:
 Lists of students attending any special activities, for
which timetable changes have been made in the Daily
Organiser module
 Automatically amended lesson lists resulting from
timetable changes made in Daily Organiser
 Can generate general student lists (by roll class,
house, year level, home group, gender or any
combination)
 Ability to sort on codes or names
 Student and teacher photographs appearing on
screen with individual timetable displays if required
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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 Publish information from Timetable Development
and Daily Organiser modules
 Cycle timetables for teachers, rooms and students
 Print all teacher class lists on separate pages
 Daily changes to teacher, room and student
timetables
 Teacher and message bulletins from the Daily
Organiser module
 Lists students attending each lesson
 Lists of students that attend lessons taken by a
certain teacher or in a certain room
Web Preferences®
Web Preferences® is a fully hosted web based application that allows students to submit their subject preferences
online. Two editions are available:
Web Preferences Lite (included with your annual Software Maintenance Agreement)
 Set maximum number of units that students can select
 Create Rich Text Initial instructions, Selection instructions, Receipt instructions and Offline instructions
 Create Student Status Report displaying who has and has not submitted preferences
 Upload and download data with Student Options files
Web Preferences Manager (available for purchase on 12 month subscription, price available on request)
In addition to Web Preferences®, the Manager also has options to;
 Create Preference Groups, allows subjects to be grouped for preference selection. For example, choose at
least 1 Maths subject from this group, choose at least 3 subjects from this group
 Control the minimum number of preferences that a student must enter for a group of subjects and the total
number of subjects/units that a student must select overall
 Enter Reserve (or backup) preferences for a group of subjects that allows a student to enter preferences
plus reserves from the available subjects
 Restrict the subjects a student can select through the use of prerequisites and restrictions
For example, if a student does not have the required prerequisite to study Yr 11 Home Economics then the
subject does not appear for selection
 Create Study Streams that allow students to make selections relevant to a particular Study Stream
 Upload your school logo to be displayed on the student portal
 Generate a wide range of reports showing who has and has not submitted and how many times, including
what they have submitted. Reports on how many students have requested a particular subject and allows
the administrator to view trends in what is popular, in real time. All reports can be scheduled to be emailed
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
iiii
Importing and Exporting Data
These features of Version 9 enable the easy flow of data between your administration system and your timetabling
software. They have been designed to ensure ease of use, flexibility and reliability.
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Importing
Version 9 imports information generated by other programs, using CSV, text files or Excel. Student details, option
details, subject preferences, teachers and rooms can all be imported simply and easily.
Please note: Some administration systems do not have the facility to easily import data from outside their system.
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Exporting
Version 9 can be configured to create export files for any of its data fields in a simple text format, with or without
inverted commas. The delimiter may be comma, tab or pipe. This file can then be manipulated by the user to be read
by any administration system or other software package.
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Exporting Data
Popular administration systems have been added to a drop down list. Additional systems are added upon request.
We currently export to the following systems, please tell us if yours is not there so we can add it in for you at no
cost:
Accelerus, App4 Students, aSchool, CASES21, Catholic Education SA, Civica, DayMap, Daisy e-Planner, Deltalink,
Denbigh, Desire2Learn, eDiary, Edrolo, EDSAS, Edumate, EduPoint, eLockers, eMinerva, GradeXpert, LearningField,
LearningPoint, MarkBook, ManageBac, Masterfile, MAZE, Millennium, MyEDiary, MyExtras, Parent Teacher On-Line,
ParentPaperWork, PASS, PC School, Principal, Quad, ReportCard2.0, ReportCard3, ReportMaker, SACS, SEEMIS,
SchoolPro, SEQTA, Sentral, SIMON, SPA, SM Reports, SWIFT, STAR, StudyTurf, StudyWiz, Synergetic, TASS,
uEducateUs, VASS, Virtuosso, Vivo Miles, Xuno, Yard Duty Records.
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Everything you need to timetable your school
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System Requirements and Limits
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System Requirements
For successful installation and use of Version 9, your system must meet the following requirements:
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Microsoft Windows VISTA, 7, 8, Windows 10 (32 or 64Bit)
2 Gigabyte (GB) of RAM
Minimum screen resolution of 1280 x 1024. We recommend wide screens with 1680 x 1050
A keyboard, mouse or compatible pointing device
Microsoft Office 2003-2016, Excel and Word are recommended for use with many reports. Prior to release, the
program is put through an extensive testing program. The Product Lifecycle page on our website displays our
support policies.
We use the Microsoft Access database file structure for our data files. However, we register our data files in
Windows and if a user double clicks one of our data files, the associated module will open and load the data.
Our printing engine provides users with the ability to save any of our reports in PDF (Adobe Acrobat), HTML (able to
display in any web browser), RTF (can be opened by Microsoft Word), as text files or as formatted Excel workbooks.
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Limits
Version 9 can be used to timetable any type of school curriculum structure. There are no limits to the number of
students, teachers, rooms or classes that can be timetabled using Version 9. The only practical limits when using
Version 9 are set by the field sizes of the program’s data model.
These are:
Student Options Module Limits
> Lines on Grid - up to 40
> Number of Sub-Grids - up to 9
> Student Code - up to 15 alphanumeric characters
> Student Name - up to 40 characters
> Subject Code - up to 15 alphanumeric characters
> Subject Name - up to 40 alphanumeric characters
> Number of subjects students can select from per
year level - up to 255
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Timetable Development Module Limits
> Days in cycle - up to 20
> School sites timetabled simultaneously - up to 4
> Number of Periods per day - up to 36
> Teacher Code - up to 15 alphanumeric characters
> Teacher Name - up to 40 characters
> Room Code - up to 15 alphanumeric characters
> Room Name - up to 40 alphanumeric characters
> Class Code - up to 15 alphanumeric characters
> Class Name - up to 40 alphanumeric characters
Software Maintenance Agreement
The following products and services are supplied under your 12 month Software Maintenance Agreement
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Free Version Upgrades
During your 12 months of Software Maintenance, any upgrade that is released is automatically given to you
free of charge.
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Unlimited Installations
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Timetabler Classroom
You may install and activate Version 9 on as many machines as you wish. Software Registrations are
available from www.timetabling.com.au
You are able to access and print all training lessons, access our searchable knowledge base and other
support material for timetablers.
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Free Installation & Tech Support
This includes any installation support occurring outside the guaranteed 60 days of purchasing the program
for computers that meet the System Requirements. All installation support and bug fixes are supplied free.
(Training calls on “how to” use the software are deducted against the 5 hour phone/email support that you
receive with your initial purchase)
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Web Preferences Lite
Fully hosted web based application that allows students to submit their subject preferences online.
Features: opening/closing status, rich text messages, set maximum preferences, set maximum submissions.
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Professional Services
Timetable Construction by Consultation
We can analyse your school's requirements and recommend a curriculum model.
We can analyse your current timetable and make recommendations as to how to
achieve more constraints or use the functions of the program differently to improve
your timetable. We have many clients with more than 1,000 students who have their
timetable constructed by our consultants in five days, 9am to 4pm. Many schools bring their partly completed
timetables and work with a consultant to finish the construction of their timetable.
Bookings are essential. Dates in September, October, and November are generally booked out 12 months in
advance.
Estimate of Time
To construct a usable, clash free draft timetable starting from a clean sheet with firm data entered, checked and
ready to timetable is two days plus one day per 200 students. [e.g. Five days, 9am to 4pm, for a school of 600
students.] This estimate of time assumes the school's representative is working with us. Each day this cannot occur
will increase the estimate by an extra day.
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Training and Support
Training lessons are also available for download in pdf from our website for schools with a current SMA.
We use GoToMeeting.com to provide online training and bespoke support. Clients only require an internet
connection and can use the microphone/speakers on their machine for the audio. No phone call charges apply and
no additional fees apply to use this service with Timetabling Solutions.
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Share my screen function allows participants to change presenters quickly and easily
You decide whether to use a webcam or just your screen
5 hours of “how to” support is provided with your software purchase
Live support is available Monday to Friday 9am – 5:30pm EST. Support outside these days/times is available
on request
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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Timetabling Concepts, Overview and Advanced Training courses are run by Timetabling Solutions Trainers who all
have a background working and timetabling in schools.
All of our Trainers also construct timetables year round for schools with all different types of structures and
curriculum requirements as part of our professional services.
Regular courses are held in Australia (Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth).
Courses are conducted outside Australia on request.
Our training lessons are available for download via our website
TIMETABLING SOLUTIONS
Everything you need to timetable your school
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