The purpose of this chapter is to streamline the master schedule process for school sites with simple master schedules. Quick Master Schedules may be right for schools that fit one of the following descriptions:
- Students stay with the same teacher all day
- Students may change teachers, but they stay in the same cohort of students all day (i.e. the entire class goes to music and P.E. as group)
- Course Requests are not used to place students. Students are scheduled on-the-fly based on individual needs (Often seen in a credit recovery or summer school setting)
- Sections are needed for gradebook/reporting purposes only; the class does not meet on a regular schedule (Often seen in an independent study or credit recovery school)
Quick Master Schedules does not make use of the Course Tally, Master Schedule Builder, or the Schedule Students tools. The Quick Master Schedule guide assumes that the site will be loading all students into sections by hand.
Step 1: Prerequisite System Setup
Rollover and Prerequisites will be the same for all users. See Phase 1: Prerequisite System Setup and return to this page when complete.
If this is your first time setting up a Quick Master Schedule in Illuminate, preview Step 4 & Step 5 to see how courses, sections and timeblocks interact. This may help make decisions during the system setup process.
Step 2: Logging into the Correct Year/Site
1. You must be logged in under the school year and site for which you are impacting scheduling. Note (in the upper-right corner of your screen) that you are now logged in under the upcoming school year, i.e. if you are working on schedules for the 2017-18 school year, you must be logged into a date that falls in that school year. Many people choose to log into the first day of school for the upcoming school year. If you are working on schedules for summer school, you must be logged in to the summer session.
2. To login to the correct date, use Change Student Set/Site in the upper corner of your screen to log in under the upcoming school year.
Step 3: Create a New Draft Schedule
For more information about Draft Schedules, check out Draft vs. Live Schedules.
1.Click the Scheduling tab near the top of your screen.
2. Then under Draft Schedule Mgmt, click Draft Overview.
The Draft Overview is 'home base' to all scheduling steps.
Create a New Draft Schedule
To create a new draft schedule:
Click Draft Options (1), click New Draft (2), then enter the name for the new draft schedule in the pop up box when prompted and click OK (3).
Complete descriptive naming conventions that include the date the draft was created as part of the name is helpful later in the scheduling process.
Quick Nav
From the Quick Nav, select the Draft Board. At this time the board will be blank.
Step 4: Creating Sections
Create the sections needed for the master schedule. Users using the Quick Master Schedules guide have already determined the schedule and need an efficient way to enter the schedule into Illuminate.
Click Place Sections (1), click Create a section (2).
Fill in the information (3) to create the section, then click Save (4). Repeat this process until all sections are created.
Troubleshooting Tips While Creating Sections
If any of the required field drop downs are not populated, that indicates that there is a problem with site setup.
The following are errors you may come across while creating a sections:
- No Rooms is asking that you add rooms to Room Management
- No Courses means it is trying to verify that courses have been affiliated to sites and grade levels within Course Details
- No Teachers means it is trying to verify that teachers have User Affiliations for the correct academic year
- No Timeblocks means it is trying to verify that Timeblock Management has timeblocks and occurances
You will be asked if you would like to reload the board after each section is being created. Click Yes (5) to view the board with the new section. After you get the hang of it, you can click No (6) to quickly create your next section without viewing The Board each time.
Step 5: Placing Students into Sections
Click on a section number (1) to schedule students, then click to Edit Section (2).
Click Place Students (3) and confirm the following:
Students requesting the course? (4), select No.
Student with a schedule opening? (5), select Yes.
Select Find Students (6) to find students according to these preferences above.
Sort by grade level (1) and select the students to be scheduled (8). You can select one by one using the checkboxes available or check all.
Click Schedule Students (9) to continue.
Use the grade level sort to sort by grade level and schedule the lowest grades first, as students will be removed from the list of available students once they have been scheduled to a timeblock.
The above confirmation message will appear confirming students were successfully scheduled to the section. Continue with the process until all students have been scheduled.
Option to Copy Students from One Section to Another
If students are scheduled as a cohort you can easily copy all students from one section, such as Homeroom section, to all other sections needed.
A common mistake is putting all sections in the same timeblock. Students can only be scheduled in one section per timeblock. If you’re having trouble copying students into additional sections, make sure that the sections exist in different timeblocks.
Hover over the section (1) that contains the roster to be copied, then select Copy Students (2).
Select all of the sections (3) that the original selected roster should should be copied to. Click Copy Students (4).
Continue with the above process until all students are scheduled.
A common mistake is putting conflicting sections in the same timeblock. Students can only be scheduled in one section per timeblock. If you’re having trouble copying students into additional sections, make sure that the sections aren’t in the same timeblock.
Most school sites organize their timeblocks by timeslots (1st period, 2nd period, etc.), however, some small schools with complex bell schedules choose to organize their timeblocks by subject matter (Math, ELA, Science, PE, etc.). The latter can simplify scheduling, but renders the locator function in Illuminate unusable. If your site is struggling with timeblocks, reach out to your ISI Implementation Manager.
Step 5b: Alternate Option for Elementary Only
The Elementary Scheduling tool is an alternate way to complete steps 4 and 5 on one screen. This alternate workflow only works for traditional elementary schedules where students are enrolled to a single teacher for their entire day.
- Click Scheduling.
- Under Draft Schedule Management, select Elementary Scheduling.
- Use the drop-down menu and select the Grade Level of students you wish to view.
- Click Filter to generate a list of students.
- Select the students that you would like to schedule using the check box to the left of their name.
- Select the teacher that will be assigned to these students using the Assign Student User drop-down menu.
- Select the Course that the student will be taking using the Course drop-down menu.
- Click Save.
Repeat this process for every student in each grade level.
Grade level lists of students will shrink as they are added to teachers' rosters.
Step 6: Publish the Schedule and Live Schedule
Publish the schedule after the draft schedule is student-ready. Common practice for most sites is to publish 1-2 days before the first day of school. All future changes will be done in Live Schedule. Schedule adjustments are easier to do in draft mode, but wait until the schedule is set and student-ready before publishing.
From the Draft Overview select Draft Options and select, Publish.
From this point you will access the board and make changes in the Live Schedule. All students will now have a schedule in Schedule 2.0 and attendance can be taken by the teacher(s).
All schedule changes must be made in Live Schedule, any changes to the draft will not be reflected in the Live Schedule.
Schedules cannot be un-published. It is possible to re-publish a draft schedule over a previously published schedule, however this should be done with extreme caution:
- Any changes made in the live schedule will be lost
- A re-publish has major impacts on gradebooks and attendance records. Under no conditions should a re-publish be attempted after there are attendance records (On or after the first day of school).
Next Steps
Ready to start building? Let's get started! Take a look at THE NEXT CHAPTER and LESSON.
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