Timez is an automatic timetabling tool for secondary schools, sixth forms and further education colleges. You give it your students, staff, rooms, subjects, enrolments and staff availability. It builds a weekly timetable with no clashes, then shows you how well that timetable uses your rooms and staff, and how many gaps it leaves in students' days.
The Problem: Thousands of Interlocking Constraints
Every timetable has to satisfy rules that pull against each other. Each teacher, room and student can only be in one place at a time. Each class needs a qualified teacher and a room big enough to hold it. Some staff are only in on certain days. Option blocks have to line up so that every student can take the combination of subjects they chose. Part-time learners need their hours packed into the days they actually attend, and specialist rooms such as labs and workshops are always in short supply.
Change one of those, whether it's a new member of staff, a room taken out of use or a different lunch arrangement, and the effects ripple through the whole week. That's why a timetable built by hand is so hard to revise, and why it's rarely possible to try out alternatives before committing to one.
How It Works
- Upload your data. Six CSV files exported from your management information system (MIS): students, teachers, rooms, subjects, student enrolments and staff availability.
- Set your rules. The length of the school day, lesson length, maximum class size, lunch arrangements and the number of days per week students attend.
- Generate. Choose a time limit for the run, from 10 seconds to 5 minutes, and Timez builds the timetable.
- Review and refine. Check the analytics, look at any individual student's or teacher's week, and rerun with different settings.
Hard Rules and Soft Goals
Timez separates what must be true from what would be nice. The hard rules are never broken:
- No teacher, room or student double-booked
- Every class taught by a qualified teacher
- Every class fits the room it's in
- Staff unavailability respected
If your data makes that impossible, for example because there aren't enough qualified teachers available for a subject, Timez tells you so rather than handing back a timetable that quietly breaks a rule.
Within those rules, Timez works towards soft goals: fewer stranded free periods for students, tighter days for teachers, compact weeks for part-time learners, and staggered lunch breaks.
Analytics and Scenarios
A timetable that is merely valid isn't necessarily a good one. Every run comes with analytics on room and teacher utilisation and the average gaps in students' days, plus colour-coded weekly views for any student or teacher that you can export as PDFs.
Projects keep their own data and settings, so you can set up several scenarios and compare them side by side, such as a different maximum class size, a new lunch arrangement or next year's staffing plan, before you commit to one.
Why Anteam Builds Timetables
Anteam builds industrial AI and optimisation systems for logistics, energy and manufacturing. A timetable is the same kind of problem as a delivery round: placing many items into a limited set of slots so that hard constraints are always met and the result is as efficient as possible. In vRouted the items are stops and the constraints are van capacity, delivery windows and driver hours. In Timez they are lessons, teachers, rooms and students.
Frequently Asked Questions
What data does Timez need?
Six CSV files exported from your MIS: students, teachers, rooms, subjects, student enrolments and staff availability. You then set the school day, lesson length, maximum class size, lunch arrangements and the days per week students attend.
How long does Timez take to build a timetable?
You choose a time limit from 10 seconds to 5 minutes for each run. Most timetables are ready within a minute or two.
What happens if a clash-free timetable isn't possible?
Timez never breaks its hard rules: no double-booked teachers, rooms or students, a qualified teacher for every class, rooms that fit the class, and staff unavailability respected. If your data makes that impossible, Timez tells you rather than handing back an invalid timetable.
Who is Timez for?
Secondary schools, sixth forms and further education colleges, especially those timetabling option blocks, part-time learners and specialist rooms.
Find Out More
If you're planning next year's timetable, request information on timez.ai and we'll be in touch. You can also see how Timez works step by step.
Related reading: vRouted applies the same constraint-based planning to multi-drop delivery rounds, and Why Anteam explains how we approach optimisation problems.