Choosing the right timetable type: weekly, cyclic, calendar

Automatic generation by the solver is available for all three types; the advantages and limitations specific to each type are described below.

In one sentence

Weekly — the standard case

This is the default mode. It suits any school whose lessons follow a recurring model week, with or without A/B alternation.

Advantages:

• Simple logic: you enter a model week, then choose the weeks where it applies.
• Holidays removed automatically.

Limitations:

• Not suited to institutions where every week is different (one-off lessons, alternating external instructors).
• Lessons that take place only once (a conference, an exam on a specific date) must be added as one-off changes or through a separate timetable.

Cyclic — for non-weekly cycles

The cyclic mode suits institutions that organize lessons on an N-day cycle (typically 6 or 8) different from the 5- or 7-day week — common in North American systems and in some international schools.

It works much like the weekly mode, with a cycle of N numbered days (Day 1, Day 2…). The cycle ↔ weekday mapping is built dynamically from the publication of the timetable, that is, when choosing the weeks where the cycle applies.

Calendar — for higher education and continuing education

The calendar mode differs significantly from the other two: each lesson is positioned on a specific date, with no recurrence.

It is the preferred mode of:

• higher education (business schools, engineering schools, universities),
• continuing education,
• training centers where lessons do not recur every week.

Compared with a classic agenda or an ERP/school administration software, you then benefit from the features typical of higher education (see calendar mode for details):

• Very complete entry assistance — real-time conflicts, room filters, consolidated availability…
• Consolidated availability in real time — changes in instructors' availability are immediately reflected as potential or actual conflicts.
• Binary publication — the timetable is either published or not, with no choice of ranges.

Current limitation — semi-recurrence: some schools have weeks that are broadly similar but punctuated with irregularities (lessons that end before the others, public holidays, occasional instructors…). Buttons let you manually duplicate a lesson over a recurring pattern, but the solver does not yet handle this case; automatic generation remains fully available on calendars with no underlying recurring pattern, or conversely, for fully recurring (weekly) timetables.

Partial generation — automatic generation can be restricted to a subset of the scope through the options panel. Three filters are available:

• Classes: selecting the classes to generate.
• Subjects: selecting the subjects to generate.
• Date range: specific to the Calendar mode. Lets you handle one period at a time (for example, the next term).

This is particularly useful in Calendar mode: you can build the timetable through successive iterations — one term, then the next; one program, then the others; and so on.

Choosing your mode: a quick guide

Converting a timetable to another type

If you want to switch an existing timetable from one type to another, you can duplicate it while converting it using the Duplicate action in the timetable list, in the Timetable management module. All six conversions are supported: Weekly ↔ Cyclic, Weekly ↔ Calendar, Cyclic ↔ Calendar.

Depending on the target type, an additional parameter is requested:

• Calendar: the date range (start / end) over which to roll out the lessons. The dialog suggests by default the first and last weeks of the school year.
• Cyclic: the cycle length, in days (12 by default).
• Weekly: no additional parameter.

What gets remapped during the conversion:

• Lesson positions — each position is translated from the source system to the target system (weekday ↔ cycle number ↔ date).
• Weekly → Calendar: each lesson is multiplied across all matching dates of the target range, and the subjects' hourly volumes are multiplied by the number of weeks to preserve the total. The A/B alternation is applied automatically to each materialized date.
• Time availability: kept and migrated only from a Weekly source. A Cyclic or Calendar source drops it — dated or cycle-numbered availability does not reproject cleanly onto a model week or another cycle.

The result is a standalone timetable, independent of the original — you can rework it separately, publish it alone or alongside the original version.

Combining modes

You can publish several timetables of different types simultaneously over the same weeks.

Typical cases:

• Recurring common core + one-off events: a weekly timetable for the regular lessons + a calendar timetable for masterclasses, conferences or dated exams.
• Different rhythms for the same classes: a weekly timetable for the mornings (very regular core subjects) + a calendar timetable for the afternoons (sports, clubs, workshops that change from week to week).
• Different operation depending on the class: a weekly integrated preparatory cycle, vs a non-recurring graduate cycle with many external instructors teaching the same course to the same students several days in a row.

If several published timetables share a teacher or a room, Omniscol dynamically merges the views on the consultation side. When editing a timetable while another timetable is already published, Omniscol takes into account, by default, the teachers, rooms and classes occupied by that published timetable (this feature can be disabled).