Why is the exam scheduled for the wrong time?

This article explains how to ensure that examination timetables display the correct start times for exams by checking the Centre Setup for default sitting times and assigning students to exam rooms. It highlights the importance of correct morning, afternoon, and evening start times, and the need to assign students to rooms for accurate timetable displays.

To ensure examination timetables display the correct start times for exams, there are two things to check.

Step 1 - Check your Centre Setup

The first step is to check you've set your default times correctly.

Please note: if you change your default sitting times after the exams are added to Arbor, the timings on the exams won't be updated. You'll need to do this manually through the assessable. For this reason, we recommend setting your Default Sitting Times as soon as possible.

1. Go to Students > Examinations > Administration > Centre Setup.

Make sure that for your Default Sitting Times:

• Your Morning start time is the same as or before your All Day start time.
• Your Evening start time is after your Afternoon start time.

If they are not, your exams will show the incorrect time on timetables. For example, my Morning time is 9am and my All Day time is 8am. This means for exams that include information in the Basedata that it is a morning exam, the start time will be shown as 8am rather than 9am, and the system will think it should last all day.

To get your exams to show the right duration, you just need to amend your Default Sitting Times.

Step 2 - Check you've assigned students to rooms

If you've checked your Default Sitting Times and they are correct, the next step is to check whether you've assigned your candidates to their exam rooms.

Until you follow these instructions to add students to rooms, the Students > Examinations > Scheduling > School Timetable page will show the sitting times (such as 8-11 for morning), rather than the specific times for the assessable. This is because the times in the School Timetable are taken from your centre Default Sitting Times and the duration from the exam's Basedata.

However, the individual student timetables will show the correct time.

This is because the times here are taken from the Assessable Instance, which you can find by selecting the exam from Students > Examinations > Qualifications > EDI.

Once you add students to the exam room, all timetables will show the correct times and durations, and you'll be able to check for and resolve clashes.