School year, alternate weeks, holidays

The school year is the time frame within which timetables run. It raises three structuring questions: when the year starts and ends, when the holidays are, and — if the institution uses alternate weeks — how their alternation aligns with this calendar. It is also called the academic calendar.

School year and boundaries

A school year has a start date and an end date. Over this range, the weeks are numbered. Publishing a timetable applies to a subset or all of these weeks. A calendar-type timetable can even be published over a period longer than the school year (typically an 18-month EMBA), but only the dates declared on the school years are taken into account.

Without an active school year, Omniscol does not deploy the daily modules (timetable, dashboard, absences) — it is a prerequisite. See School year and holidays.

School years cannot share dates. Usually, a holiday period separates them, but they can perfectly well run back to back. Some training institutions are not bound to an academic cycle: the school year is then simply the calendar year, from January 1 to December 31.

Holidays

Holidays are inactive date ranges: no lessons, no events, no hour counting. Two sources:

• Common holidays — taken from the country's official calendar (All Saints', Christmas, winter, spring). Omniscol can suggest them based on the configured country; you choose which ones to import.
• Specific holidays — unique to the institution (staff training day, exams, local bridge day). You add them by hand.

Both types combine without distinction. However, holidays are global to the whole institution. If only some classes are concerned, use a class absence, or a class unavailability period (potentially reusable across several classes, for example classes that are abroad).

Alternate weeks (A/B and beyond)

Some schools have courses that run only every other week (or even less often): PE as a double lesson, homeroom on alternate weeks, options. Omniscol handles this by counting the weeks: the weeks of the year are not labeled, they are counted continuously. Each course runs on its own cycle — every other week (A/B), one week in three (A/B/C), and so on. The same time slot then hosts different lessons depending on the week's rank in the cycle, for example one lesson on odd weeks and another on even weeks, on the same day and at the same time. Since the computation is dynamic, A/B courses and A/B/C courses can coexist in the same class.

The activation of alternate weeks and the display format of the alternation (A/B, 1/2…) are set in the general settings. The school year screen is then used to force, on the timeline, the points where the count restarts at week A — for example to resume cleanly after holidays; to stay readable, the timeline only displays the alternation as A/B. To declare alternate lessons on a time slot, see Complex lessons.

Several years in parallel

Omniscol manages several school years in parallel in the same account: for example the current year 2026-2027 and the next year 2027-2028 in preparation. The notion of the current school year determines what users see day to day; the others remain accessible for administrative management / viewing.