Help & FAQ

Install from the Google Workspace Marketplace, accept the one-time consent screen, reload your spreadsheet, then open Extensions > Timetable Genie > Open Timetable Genie. The wizard opens with your daily tools first (Timetable generator, viewer, Reports, Cover, Exam planner) and the Setup sections below. Fill each Setup section and press Save to sheet. Just exploring? The Dashboard shows a Load sample school card while your setup is empty: one click loads a full 24-class demo school so you can generate a timetable immediately, with a confirmation popup once it's ready, and Clear all data resets it.

No. Open Subject registry and press + Load sample subjects. A ready-made set of 16 common subjects (English, Hindi, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, Computer, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Art, Music, PE, and more) appears with codes, colours, and lab needs pre-filled. Remove what you do not need, edit anything, then Save. Subjects you already added are never overwritten.

Everything stays inside your own Google Sheet: your setup lives in structured data tabs the add-on manages, and every generated timetable is stored in the spreadsheet too. Nothing is kept on our servers. Uninstall anytime; your sheet and everything in it stay yours.

Before you generate, the Dashboard reads your whole setup and lists anything that would block or bend the timetable: missing assignments, overloaded teachers, impossible demands, and informational warnings. Errors must be fixed; warnings explain trade-offs, for example a subject that needs 8 periods on a 6-day week must repeat within a day for those classes.

Both work. The wizard is the fastest way to enter and edit data, and it now includes a built-in timetable viewer, reports, cover planning, and exam planning, so most work never leaves it. The sheet tabs remain the print and PDF surface, and advanced users can edit the data tabs directly, then press Set up or repair data tabs under Maintenance if anything looks off.

Yes. Open Teacher registry > Import teachers from a file, upload a CSV or Excel file, and match its columns to the fields; the mapping is guessed from your headers automatically. Preview the first rows, then add them to the list and press Save to sheet. Only Name is required; Teacher IDs are created automatically, duplicates are skipped safely, and a Download blank template button gives you a ready-made format with example rows.

Open Timetable Genie opens the wizard. Generate timetable opens the wizard on the Timetable generator so you can generate and watch the result. Refresh timetable view redraws the sheet views. Reports and Substitute planner jump straight to those sections. Maintenance holds Check my setup, tab repair, show or hide data tabs, and Clear all data.

Once the readiness check is clear, press Generate timetable on the Dashboard, in the Timetable generator section, or from the menu. A real constraint solver searches the possibilities and returns a complete week with zero clashes: no teacher in two places, no class double-booked, no lab oversubscribed, every rule enforced.

No. The generated timetable is stored permanently in your spreadsheet the moment it is built. The viewer, reports, and cover planner all read the stored copy. Regenerate only after you change your data: classes, subjects, teachers, curriculum, rooms, or rules.

Yes, elective bands are a headline feature. Give both subjects the same Elective Band label in Class allocations and they run in the same periods with different teachers, so the class splits into groups. If students from two sections sit together with one teacher, assign that same teacher in both classes: the engine detects it and books one combined lesson in one room.

It is a cap, not a ban. When a subject's weekly periods fit within your working days, it is spread one per day. When a subject needs more periods than there are days (say 8 periods on a 6-day week), it must repeat on some days, and the rule keeps that repetition to the minimum. The readiness check tells you exactly which subjects and classes this affects.

Fixed slots pin an activity to a class at an exact day and period, for example Assembly every Monday P1; the solver schedules around them. Teacher unavailability blocks a teacher's periods with a reason, for example Admin duty every Tuesday; the engine never schedules over it, the reason prints on their grid, and the cover planner knows they are not free.

Yes. In School setup > Different periods on some days, tick the day and give it its own periods, with its own start and end times, shorter or longer than the default pattern. The generator places lessons only in periods that exist on each day, every view blanks out the missing periods, and cover planning knows the day's real shape.

Most schools solve in seconds with the built-in engine. Very large setups (roughly 15+ classes or a very heavy curriculum) are routed automatically to a more powerful cloud solving engine for a few seconds and come back solved. There is nothing to set up or choose; if the engine is ever unreachable, generation quietly falls back to the built-in solver.

Timetable Genie tells you honestly instead of handing you a broken grid. The message points at the tightest constraint, for example one teacher assigned more periods than they can teach, so you can make the smallest fix and generate again.

Yes. Open Timetable viewer in the sidebar. Pick a Class, Teacher, or Room, choose the whole week or a single day, and the colour-coded grid renders instantly, including fixed slots, duties, and any assigned substitute cover markings. Switching views needs no reloading.

Timetable View is the interactive tab: change the View and Show dropdowns and the grid redraws, with Week, Day, and Month layouts. Timetable is the clean print copy, laid out for paper and PDF. Reports each get their own tab as you build them.

Yes. In Timetable generator > Layout for printing and sharing, tick or untick Show teacher names, Show room numbers, and Use full subject names, then press Apply layout. The sheet views and the in-wizard viewer redraw immediately, no re-generate needed. Handy for a student copy without teacher names or a compact print without rooms.

Open the Timetable tab (or any report tab) and use Google Sheets' own File > Download for PDF or Excel, or File > Print. Every printed layout carries your institution name and colour-coded periods.

A calendar of the current month with each working day's schedule summary, and every saved holiday or festival greyed out with its name, so a coordinator sees the real teaching month at a glance.

Press Refresh timetable view in the menu to redraw from the stored timetable. If you changed the underlying data (teachers, curriculum, rules), generate again so the timetable itself reflects the change.

Open Substitute planner, pick the date, and tick everyone who is away or on other duty: sick leave, survey teams, exam duty, anything. Press Find cover. For every affected period you get the full ranked list of free teachers, with the fairest pick pre-selected: same-subject teachers first, then the lightest day, then the fewest cover duties already given.

Yes, every period has its own dropdown with all eligible teachers, each tagged same subject, cover, or over daily max. Different periods can go to different substitutes, and you can leave a period uncovered deliberately. The planner blocks picking one teacher for two classes in the same period.

Yes. Press view day beside the dropdown to see that teacher's full timetable for the cover date: what they teach, when they are free, existing duties, and any cover already assigned to them, so you never overload someone by accident.

The confirmed plan is written to a printable Cover Duty sheet, logged in the Cover Log for history reports, and marked on the timetable itself: the class grid, the absent teacher's grid, and each substitute's grid all show a cover note with the date and name.

Yes. The Existing substitutions list in the Cover pane shows every saved plan, newest first, filterable by teacher (as the absent teacher or the substitute). Edit reopens a plan with your saved picks loaded so you can change any period and assign again; the date's plan is replaced everywhere. Remove clears a plan, its log rows, and its timetable markings.

The period is flagged Needs attention in red. You can still assign the rest of the plan, and the uncovered period is clearly marked on the duty sheet so the office can arrange it manually, for example by merging classes.

In School setup > Holidays and festivals: use + Add holiday for single closed days and + Add vacation for longer breaks with a from and to date, like Summer Vacation or Winter Break. Press Save holidays. The Month view greys every covered date, the exam planner never places a paper on them, the Dashboard's working-day totals subtract them, and they travel with your backup file.

Open Exam planner and name the exam. For each grade, set its own exam start and end time, tick its papers, and they appear as an ordered list where every paper has its own date. Use Auto-fill dates (first date plus a default gap, counted in working days or calendar days) to fill them in one go, then drag papers to reorder or change any single date for uneven gaps, say 1 study day before one paper and 4 before another. Press Build date sheet: the combined schedule appears inline and a print-ready Exam Date Sheet tab is written with each grade's exam time in its column header.

Only your working days from School setup; every saved holiday and vacation day is refused with the reason named. A grade never has two papers on one date. Each grade runs on its own dates and times: primary classes can start later, sit shorter papers, and finish days earlier than seniors. An exam can also cover just some grades, for example a preboard for Grades 10 and 12 only; grades with no ticked papers are simply left out.

Yes, building again replaces the previous date sheet and its tab. The last saved plan is shown in the Exam planner so you always know what is current.

Save a date sheet first, then press Seating beside it in the Exam planner. Tick which rooms to use and their order, choose whether sections may mix in one room, and press Build seating. Every exam day is filled room by room, roll numbers are auto-ranged 1 to the section's strength (no student names anywhere in the app), and two print-ready tabs are written: Exam Room Chart and Exam Class Notice.

One invigilator is assigned to every occupied room for every exam day, chosen automatically while skipping, by default, any teacher who teaches a seated class or has that day's paper subject. Each duty has its own dropdown of eligible teachers in the Seating panel; change any single one and press Save invigilator changes. The Room Chart and Class Notice reprint with your change.

Names, dates, and room details are read live from your current setup every time seating is opened or reprinted, so a class rename or a date change shows up automatically. If you add or remove exam days or grades, reopen Seating and press Build seating again to extend or refit the room fill.

Yes. Delete seating in the Seating panel removes only the room fill and invigilator duties for that exam; the date sheet itself, and the Exam Date Sheet tab, are untouched. The Room Chart and Class Notice tabs are reprinted from whatever other exams still have seating.

One JSON file, named with your institution and today's date, holding your entire setup: school details, periods, rules, classes, subjects, teachers, rooms, curriculum, assignments, fixed slots, unavailability, and holidays. The generated timetable itself is not included, because it is rebuilt in seconds with Generate.

Export from the old sheet, install Timetable Genie on the new sheet, open Backup & transfer, pick the file, and confirm the import. Update whatever changed for the new session, then Generate.

Yes. Send them your exported file; they import it into their own sheet with the same add-on and get your complete setup, ready to adjust and generate. Handy for sister branches and for handing over the timetable duty.

Importing replaces everything saved in that sheet, which is why the button asks you to confirm twice. If you might need the current data, export it first. Files not made by Timetable Genie are rejected safely.

Reload the spreadsheet (Ctrl+R / Cmd+R); the Timetable Genie menu builds when the sheet opens. If it is still missing, check Extensions > Add-ons > Manage add-ons and confirm it is enabled for this document.

Close and reopen the wizard; most one-off glitches clear. If the same message repeats, note the exact text shown in the pane and send it to dmg@dynamicmindsgroup.com; it identifies the problem precisely.

Run Maintenance > Set up or repair data tabs. It rebuilds headers, dropdown lists, and validation without touching your data. If a whole tab was deleted, the repair recreates it empty; re-enter that section in the wizard or restore from a backup file.

Maintenance > Clear all data wipes every data tab, stored setting, and generated timetable, then rebuilds clean empty tabs. Export a backup first if there is any chance you will want the old setup back.

Read the message: it names the tightest constraint. The usual culprits are one teacher assigned more weekly periods than their maximum, a class whose curriculum demands more periods than the week holds, or a special room needed by more classes than it has slots. Fix the named item and generate again.

Large schools are routed automatically to the advanced cloud solving engine and usually return well under a minute. If a run feels stuck, close the wizard, reopen, and generate again; the readiness check on the Dashboard will flag anything in your data that makes the search unusually hard, such as a teacher loaded beyond their limits.