This article outlines the steps to take before importing a timetable from TimeTabler into Arbor mid-year. It includes guidance on making timetable changes, ending the old timetable, checking for deletions, and importing the new timetable, with specific instructions based on whether a previous import has occurred or not.
Before importing your file, please read the guidance below to ensure you're completing the process correctly depending on when you're importing the file.
Registration form sessions
If you have registration form sessions and will not be making any changes to these, we recommend not ending these sessions.
This is because these are scheduled in Arbor (seen in part 1 of Step 6 in the New School Year Setup: Set up registration form registers), and this scheduling can only be done once.
We imported our last timetable from TimeTabler
The steps below should be used if either:
- This is the first TimeTabler import you're doing this year, but you imported from TimeTabler during the New School Year Setup process
- You've previously made imports from TimeTabler into Arbor during this academic year
Step 1 - Make your timetable changes
Make the changes you want in TimeTabler. Make sure that:
- within TimeTabler you've amended the 'Day & Period Labels' to take account of lessons that will be scheduled in Arbor, such as morning registration slots
- when preparing your timetable data for export in TimeTabler you select to 'Use Period Labels instead'
- the first day of your timetable file is the day after the last date the slots will run to in Arbor
- all start and end dates are correct in the TimeTabler export - there can be no overlap of dates
- the days of the week and period times are defined in the TimeTabler files
Step 2 - End your old timetable in Arbor
Because you shouldn't edit the times of your timetable slots as this can impact your school’s statutory attendance, and you can't delete slots if you’ve begun to take attendance, you’ll need to end your current timetable slots.
- Go to Timetable > Timetable Administration > Timetable Slots. Click the boxes next to the slots you want to end or select all the slots.
- Click the Bulk action button to select Bulk End Timetable Slots.
- In the slide over, set the End Date to the last day the lessons should run at that time, then confirm the changes and save them.
Please note that when a timetable is ended, sessions are deleted. This means that any functionality based on these sessions that no longer exist will be wiped, and you will need to set these again:
Step 3 - Check the timetable has been ended
Once the timetable slots have been deleted, wait at least 30 minutes. This is so all future lessons in the background will have been deleted. Check there are no lessons scheduled after the end date for a few example courses from School > Programmes > Courses.
Step 4 - Import your new timetable
Once you have checked that your old timetable has been removed, you can then import the new timetable.
We did not import our last timetable from TimeTabler
If you did not import your timetable from TimeTabler during step 6 of the New School Year Setup process (article here on step 6 for primary and secondary schools), follow the steps below:
If you go to School > Programmes > Courses and change the drop-down menu to show this academic year, you'll see your courses. They'll look like one of two structures. Check whether you have the same structure in Arbor and in TimeTabler.
Our course structure in Arbor and TimeTabler match
When importing your timetable, during the Courses and Classes step, first map your subjects directly. Then map your TimeTabler teaching groups to Arbor courses.
The next time you import from TimeTabler into Arbor (such as if you do a mid-year import next term), the mappings from your last import will be used and you won't need to map your subjects and teaching groups again.
New imported courses will either:
- be imported as a new course within the existing structure if mapped to an Arbor top-level course.
For example, if English already exists in Arbor and you imported a new Year 7 Teaching Group (7EngAB), this would automatically be placed under English > Year 7 > 7EngAB - be imported with the Subject > Year Group > Teaching Group structure into Arbor if connected to an imported Subject in the TimeTabler file.
For example, Latin doesn't exist yet in Arbor and you import Latin as a new subject using your TimeTabler file.
You import 12LatX as a new teaching group from the TimeTabler file using your TimeTabler file, and this will then appear in Arbor under Latin > Year 12 > 12LatX.
Our course structure in Arbor and TimeTabler don't match
This scenario can occur if you've recently moved to Arbor and TimeTabler. You'll likely have all of your classes for each year group under the same top-level subject in TimeTabler, but split into two KS3 and KS4 top-level subjects in Arbor.
When importing your timetable, during the Courses and Classes step, you can skip the mapping. For example, in the scenario shown below, select the No direct mapping available option.
On the next step, map or import your teaching groups to Arbor bottom level courses as usual.
If you imported any teaching groups as new bottom-level courses in Arbor, you’ll then have an additional step to map bottom level courses to top level courses.
You can choose to create a new top-level course by selecting 'Skip', or you can map to an existing top-level course. The bottom-level courses in Arbor will them be moved under the top-level course, and your course structure in TimeTabler and Arbor should then be the same.
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