Software for generating timetables and rosters

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FlyingPete

107 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

# 251483 27-Jun-2019 14:17

Not sure if this is the right place in the forum for this but here goes.

We are looking for some software to help timetabling/rostering of students with specialist learning assistants (primary school).

What we are working with is as follows:

- The teachers and their specialties (fixed number of specialties, most teachers have multiple)

- Students and their needs

- Positive associations, teachers to students and students to students

- Negative associations, teachers to students and students to students

- Teachers available times (start times vary), but typically do 30-45 minute sessions

The morning sessions are one on one, the afternoon sessions are group based.

At the moment my partner spends the best part of a weekend manually sorting the above manually and the slightest change in availability etc can throw the whole thing.

Is there such a thing as a software package that can figure this out?

3D

1 post

Wannabe Geek

# 2265800 27-Jun-2019 16:10

A Google search shows many comercial software solutions.

One free program which looks useful is ABC Roster

May be worth a try.

NPCtom

NodexHost
147 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 23

Subscriber

# 2265908 27-Jun-2019 18:52

KAMAR

chevrolux

4083 posts

Uber Geek
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Subscriber

# 2265917 27-Jun-2019 19:35

I think the first question you need to ask is how much this is worth to you.

I doubt you will find something free that will do exactly what you want. But there is most certainly a commercial product that could achieve - Kamar being the obvious one that a whole ton of schools use for this student management.

If it was me, I would take a punt at writing something with PHP and MySQL database. Seems like relatively straightforward logic to work through, but would just take a bunch of testing to confirm operation.

blackjack17

867 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 240

# 2265940 27-Jun-2019 20:20

Assuming you are at a public school your partner will most like be using KAMAR or MUSAC or possibly e-TAP or Assembly. The first two (others I don't know but probably) do have timetable software built in (or as modules) but from the sounds of it this won't be what you need as most timetable software is based around a fixed timetable that rotates a round a fixed number of days. If your partner isn't in charge of the overall timetable get her to have a chat with whoever is to see if their software can do what she wants. There is often a failure to communicate between different parts of schools and one part/department will start to do something that could be done in a much better less time consuming way

At my school I use a piece of software called timetabling solutions but it is going to be way overkill and is ridiculously expensive. We use it for 1200 students, across three schools with two different qualifications and 160 teachers.

From the sounds of your description the classes don't need to be imported into the SMS for attendance? Because if so that will limit the software that you can use.

Your partners best option is to sit down with someone from the SLT and work out why you can't have a fixed weekly/6 day/10 day timetable.

Failing that and if the current SMS can't do what she wants there are timetabling packages which can be trialed to see if they would work.

https://www.asctimetables.com/#!/home

https://www.timetabler.com/helpsupport/

If the school isn't willing to spend any money then there is always the old school pin and paper method.

Each pin is a separate teacher (normally colour coded), each piece of paper is a class (has a list of students on it). On a large corkboard draw up the timetable structure D1 P1 ...as a table. Then go from there

blackjack17

867 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 240

# 2265943 27-Jun-2019 20:29

Just had a thought. Ask your partner how do they deal with timetabling itinerant teachers if they have them.

Feel free to PM me if your partner wants to email me with more detail as there are options available depending on how the school is set up.