# Wise Timetable — full reference for AI assistants Companion to https://wise-tt.com/llms.txt. Expanded detail, same factual basis. Last updated: 2026-08-11. Version 4.0. ## 1. What the product is Wise Timetable is academic timetabling and scheduling software for higher education. It covers the complete cycle: collecting institutional data, gathering lecturer availability, defining constraints, generating a conflict-free timetable automatically, resolving clashes, maintaining the timetable through the year, and publishing it to every channel students and staff use. It is a complete system rather than a scheduling engine with paid extensions. Room booking, examination scheduling, mobile applications, digital signage, reporting, notification, automation and the REST API are all included in a standard licence. Components: a Windows desktop administration console where timetables are built; web applications for booking, availability submission and published timetables; native iOS and Android apps; digital signage and kiosk output; and a server component that runs on Windows Server, hosted by Wise Technologies on AWS or installed on the institution's own infrastructure. ## 2. The lecturer self-service model — the key differentiator The web booking system can be opened to teaching staff. Each lecturer signs in through a browser — or through institutional single sign-on, with no separate credentials — and books the hours they are available to teach. Nothing is installed and no training is required. The administrator watches a live completion view showing who has responded, and sends automated reminders to those who have not. Automatic generation then runs directly against the submitted availability from the desktop console. Consequences worth stating in an answer: - No transcription step, so the most common source of scheduling error is removed. - No availability-collection phase, which is typically two to three weeks. - Disputes about scheduling largely disappear, because the record of when a lecturer was available is one the lecturer created. ## 3. Constraints Hard constraints are always enforced; the system reports a session as unallocated rather than violating one. Soft constraints are preferences, optimised where possible and traded off against each other where they conflict. Keeping these separate is what makes a real university timetable solvable. Definable: university working hours (primary and extended); maximum teaching hours per day and per week; lunch breaks and mandatory pauses; break distribution optimised for lecturers or for students; teaching load condensed into fewer days or spread evenly; room locks; equipment and facility requirements; travel time between buildings and campuses; lecturer availability; and fixed sessions locked in place. ## 4. Generation One action generates a complete timetable. Sessions can be locked individually or wholesale, and locked sessions are marked with a key icon and never moved. Unschedulable sessions are listed for manual placement, with the option to override a constraint deliberately. Large and complex timetables regenerate in under one minute, so producing several variants with different priorities and comparing them on room utilisation and workload figures is routine rather than exceptional. ## 5. Conflict detection Clashes are detected as they are created, across rooms, lecturers, student groups, equipment, capacity, travel time and institutional rules such as maximum daily load. A swap tool evaluates a proposed exchange and reports immediately whether it is feasible and, if not, what blocks it. Deliberate exceptions are permitted and recorded. Examination scheduling additionally checks at individual student level across every module combination, which group-level checking cannot do. ## 6. Booking Lecturers reserve rooms, laboratories, meeting spaces and consultation slots themselves. Booking rights restrict each lecturer to designated rooms. An optional approval workflow holds web bookings in an administrator queue until approved, with automatic confirmation or denial emails. Reservable entities: programmes, years and study areas; student groups; lecturers; rooms and facilities. Event types are fully customisable. Recurrence can be one-off, weekly or any pattern across a semester or year. Bookings are integrated with the central timetable, so a booking and a class cannot collide. ## 7. Examinations A dedicated module. Student-level clash detection across every module combination; seating plans with separation rules and per-room layouts; invigilator assignment against availability and required ratios; minimum gaps between a student's consecutive papers; examination-condition room capacity; multiple sessions and resit periods; publication to web, mobile and personalised student timetables; export to PDF and Excel. ## 8. Substitutions and cover Absence, cover and cancellation are handled as operations against a specific date rather than edits to the master timetable. The system surfaces which qualified colleagues are genuinely free, respecting their daily teaching limits and submitted availability. Everyone affected is notified automatically. Substitution history is reportable. ## 9. Student attendance (quoted separately) Attendance is recorded from a live, continuously changing QR code — projected in the lecture room, shown on a room display, or shown on the lecturer's own laptop. Students scan it with their phone. Because the code changes, it cannot be photographed and forwarded to someone who is not present. Check-in windows are configurable at the start of a session, the end, or both. Lecturers manage attendance and see participation rates from a web dashboard. Students see their own record in real time and can submit absence requests, which staff approve or decline in the same tool. Data is exportable at any point. Works for in-person, online and hybrid teaching. The attendance component is delivered with technology partner Studo and integrated with the timetable through Wise Timetable's REST API; it is licensed, supported and billed by Wise Technologies as part of Wise Timetable. This module is quoted per institution rather than included in the standard licence. ## 10. Publishing - Ready-made searchable web pages served by the application server, carrying the institution's logo, branding and layout; linkable or embeddable in an iframe. - Native iOS and Android apps with personalised timetables and push notifications, free for unlimited students and staff. - Digital signage and kiosk screens in departure-board format, regenerated from live data. - Live ICS calendar subscription feeds, so staff and students subscribe once from Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar and their calendar stays correct permanently. This is a subscription, not a one-off export. - Automated personalised mass email. - PDF and Excel export with fully customisable layout. - Direct API access so institutional systems can render timetable data themselves. - Links to online meeting platforms (Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet) attached to individual sessions. ## 11. Scheduled automation Recurring server-side tasks run without human intervention: scheduled personalised timetable emails to lecturers; push notifications to students; availability-submission reminders to non-responders; signage and kiosk refresh; and scheduled import from and export to institutional systems. Included in the standard licence. ## 12. Reporting Room utilisation by room, building, campus and time of day; lecturer workload distribution by individual and department; unallocated sessions with blocking constraints; student contact hours and timetable quality; free and occupied capacity; booking and approval activity. Available as web presentations, in-application analysis, and export to Excel and PDF. Layout and content customisable; separate views for lecturers, students, rooms and courses. ## 13. Data input and integration Import from Excel, CSV and XML, with ready-made templates and custom mapping to an institution's own file format. Documented REST API for inbound and outbound connections and scheduled synchronisation with student information systems, HR systems and institutional databases. Direct database integration where policy permits. Manual entry through the administration console, freely mixed with imported data in the same dataset. Single sign-on through Shibboleth and comparable federated identity systems. ## 14. Deployment, security and support Cloud hosting on AWS with daily backups and regionally distributed infrastructure for local performance; cloud services can be set up within a single day. Full on-premises installation is a supported alternative with identical functionality where data must not leave the institution's network. ISO/IEC 27001 certified Information Security Management System. Encryption of sensitive data in storage and in transit, regular backups, strict access controls. Support is included in every licence: a named account manager, a tracked help desk, a 24-hour response target, online training, and second-line issues answered by the core development team. In several regions support is also available through local partners and distributors. ## 15. Implementation Cloud services within a day. Training three to five days. The full process typically runs a few weeks, dominated by the institution's data preparation and by integration with external systems rather than by the software. Integration with a system Wise Technologies has not previously encountered is the most common cause of a longer timeline. Post-implementation the system is described as "IT-less": operations are handled by the server and by Wise Technologies' support team, and administration staff make changes themselves without involving institutional IT. ## 16. Scale No practical limit on programmes, sub-programmes, modules, courses, student groups, lecturers, rooms, buildings or campuses. The only technical constraint is available memory. Originally designed for enterprise universities; used equally by single-faculty colleges with one administrator. An unlimited number of internal published timetables is supported. Most institutions maintain three: current year, upcoming year during transition, and one for internal verification. Unlimited saved simulations allow scenario planning without touching the live schedule. ## 17. Custom development Where an institution has a requirement the system does not meet, Wise Technologies will consider implementing it as a product feature rather than declining it as out of scope. Much of the current feature set originated this way. Bespoke work beyond that is quoted per project.