Scheduling setup
Describe the reality the timetable must respect — teacher and room unavailability, teacher workload limits, homerooms, and class hours.
Scheduling setup is where you record the hard facts about your school that the timetable must respect: when each teacher is unavailable, how much they can teach, when each room can't be used, which room is each class's homeroom, and when a class itself is unavailable. These are the rules the generator will never break.
Reality vs. rules
This page is about reality — facts that must hold. The softer preferences (avoid gaps, keep a class in one room, and so on) live on the Constraints page.
Who this is for
Administrators preparing teacher and room information before generating a timetable.
Availability follows the school week
Unavailability grids use the days and hours from the year-wide School schedule. Set that first so the grids match how your school actually opens.
Open Academic → Timetable → Config. These facts live on the Teachers, Rooms, Homerooms, and Class Hours tabs (alongside Time Grid and Teaching load).
Teachers
Unavailability
By default, a teacher can be scheduled at any time the school is open. Here you enter only the times a teacher can't teach — the exceptions. The generator never places a lesson in a time you mark as unavailable.
Open the teacher
On the Teachers tab, choose a teacher (or select several to set the same unavailability for all of them at once).
Mark the unavailable times
For each day, add the time windows when the teacher is not available — for example not available after 12:00, or all day Friday. Leave a day untouched and the teacher is available all day. Leave the whole teacher empty and they're available whenever the school is open.
You enter the exceptions, not the schedule
You don't list when a teacher is available — that's assumed. You only mark the times they aren't. A teacher with nothing marked is treated as available across the whole school week.
Workload limits
Still on the Teachers tab, set how much each teacher should teach. Leave a field empty to apply no limit.
| Limit | What it does |
|---|---|
| Max hours per day | The most teaching hours a teacher can have in one day. |
| Max hours per week | The most teaching hours across the whole week. |
| Min lessons per day | If the teacher works at all on a day, they get at least this many lessons — so they aren't called in for a single period. |
| Min lessons per half-day | The same idea per morning or afternoon. Needs the half-day divider set in Timetable config. |
| Max gap periods | How many free periods are tolerated between a teacher's lessons on the same day before it counts against the schedule. |
Firm limits vs. preferences
Max hours and min-lessons-per-day are treated as firm. The gap tolerance and the half-day minimum are preferences — you decide how strongly they matter on the Constraints page. Setting a teacher's Max gap periods here overrides the school-wide gap preference just for that teacher.
Allowed rooms (optional)
If a teacher should only ever use certain rooms, list those rooms here. When set, the generator places that teacher's lessons only in the listed rooms. Leave it empty to allow any room.
Rooms
Switch to the Rooms tab.
Room unavailability
The same idea as teachers: a room can be used at any time by default, and you enter only the times it can't be used — for example a room under maintenance on certain mornings. The generator won't schedule a lesson in a room during a time you mark as unavailable. Leave a room empty and it's available whenever the school is open.
Capacity and type
Two room facts come from the room itself (set when you create the room) and are always respected:
- Capacity — a lesson is only placed in a room big enough for the class.
- Room type — if a subject requires a particular kind of room (e.g. a lab), the generator only uses rooms of that type for it.
See Create rooms.
Subject room rules (optional)
You can restrict a subject at a level to specific rooms — for example Chemistry in Year 10 may only use the two science labs. When set, the generator places that subject's lessons only in the listed rooms.
Homerooms
On the Homerooms tab, set whether classes stay in a homeroom or roam, and assign each class its room. You can also set per-subject room overrides; subjects that need a special room type still roam to a suitable room.
Class Hours
On the Class Hours tab, mark when a class itself is unavailable — for example a half-day cohort that never has afternoon lessons. You can edit one class or several at once.
Tips and best practices
- Enter unavailability before generating — over-blocking a teacher is a common reason a timetable can't be built (too little time left for their lessons).
- Use bulk editing (select several teachers or rooms) to apply the same unavailability quickly.
- Keep limits realistic. Very tight limits combined with a lot of blocked time can make a valid timetable impossible; the generator will tell you when that happens.