For over 15 years, Human Edge has been providing quality software tools for the difficult and time consuming task of producing school timetables. First Class has now become synonymous with timetabling excellence.

First Class will take you through every step of the timetabling cycle, from entering student subject choices to the printing of your timetables, even publishing them to a web page! We've taken great care with our user interface to ensure that you are presented with relevant data that can be efficiently maintained, and provide tree views, drag-and-drop functionality and context sensitive menus to make your job quicker and easier. Through First Class Messaging you can even send emails and SMS messages.

While First Class provides maintenance screens that allow you to enter all your standard data, it can also import data provided by other systems. Whether it is student details from your administration system or details from other timetable packages, the import options will save valuable time that you would normally spend re-keying these details. Once your timetable is complete we have a number of generic and custom exports for interfacing back to your third party applications. Our Developer Toolkit gives you direct, read-only access to the database. You can write your own exports, or use it to interface between First Class and these, and many other applications.

Blocking and Timetable Modules
At the heart of First Class are the powerful Blocking and Timetabling modules. For student elective subjects, which could be entered using a barcode reader scanning customized selection sheets, blocking grids can be generated to decide which classes should run together to minimise clashes, before assigning students to classes. First Class will create the best fit for you with minimum input, or allow you to add constraints such as fixing subjects to a particular line on the grid. Another great feature is the option to run a trial swap of subjects on the grid to determine whether a better solution can be found without losing your original grid.

As with the blocking grid generation, First Class can do all the decision making for you when it comes to generating the timetable. You can have minimal input or, alternatively you can add your own constraints by fixing subjects or blocks to the timetable (such as a sport on a Tuesday afternoon). First Class timetable generation goes further than other packages by generating the whole timetable, taking into account teacher allocations, cycle details and other constraints such as unavailabilities. It will identify for you any clashes that could not be automatically resolved so you can remedy them quickly.

Daily Maintenance
Daily maintenance by the timetabler or daily organiser is a breeze.

Permanent changes can be made easily and the extras module allows you to mark teachers or student groups as absent and cover them in seconds, using either internal teachers (extras) or outside relief teachers. First Class even takes into account under allotted teachers and in-lieu's created by camps and excursions.

Printing Options
First Class options for printing are almost endless. As a standard, First Class allows you to use any font installed on your computer at any size for timetable print-outs.

Individual captions can be placed onto timetables. Blocking Grids and Timetables can be exported to Excel. You can also publish timetables as PDF files for distribution to students/teachers, or create static HTML versions that can be incorporated into your intranet/internet sites.

Publishing to the Web
First Class Web Timetable Viewer provides schools with access to the latest student and teacher timetables through a web browser, for example Internet Explorer. The "live" version also has an Explorer for quickly locating students and staff.

Here is a sample of a "live" timetable for First Class Web. Use the "Show Report" or "Export PDF" button at the bottom of the timetable to view the timetable either as a printable report, or a PDF file for printing.

Select the search type and type a student's name, or select a teacher from the list, and a day/period combination in First Class Explorer, and you can locate them at any time. Leave the day and/or period blank for multiple period location.

First Class Web. Why not try it?
Just send us an email to info@humanedge.biz and we'll give you the login details to access a working example of First Class Web.

To look at a timetable, open the "Timetable Viewer" either by clicking on the icon, or selecting it from the "First Class Explorer" menu. Explore the many types of timetables by using the filters provided. Note that the same options are available here as in the timetable viewer in First Class.

Open "Finder", either by clicking on the icon, or selecting it from the "First Class Explorer" menu. Leave the "Search Type" on "Normal Search" to locate a teacher, or change it to "Student Search" to locate a student. Use just the drop-down combo boxes for the "Normal" search or type in the first few characters from student's names (first or last), for the student search. Use other filters to narrow the search. By clicking the button next to the Teacher, Room and Form filters you can open the displayed item's timetable in "Timetable Viewer".'

For those with more advanced skills in using MS Access, there is the possibility of writing your own scripts using the current data in conjunction with the Developer Toolkit. The toolkit gives you direct, read-only access to your First Class database.

Whether you are an experienced timetabler or new to the process, First Class provides the appropriate tools to develop your school timetable quickly and efficiently.