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Hi there!

I’m thinking of migrating our data from excel to Airtable.


I collect data from a sign up form, which I then timetable a schedule for the classes.


We have multiple teachers, all at the same time slots, so 4:00-4:30, 4:30-5:00, 5:00-5:30 and so on.

I was thinking a table with all the sign up data, a table for the teachers and a table for the time slots, BUT, a student could have a lesson with one teacher at one time slot and with a different teacher at a different time slot, so that complicates things.


Do I have a table that has Teacher Bob 4:00-4:30, Teacher Bob 4:30-5:00 etc? That doesn’t seem elegant.


I love tinkering with airtable and would love to have a good excuse to use it for work!

The other thing that excel can do, that I’m not sure if Airtable can, is make a pretty timetable for the teachers, but I could always do that manually, it’s not such a big deal.


Any thoughts welcome, I see people using it for schools, but not so much timetabling.


EDIT: Oh, here’s another thought. We have multiple venues also. That’s probably the least of my worries as no student goes to more than one venue, so views can simply be filtered by venue.


But I was thinking of something like a ‘Courses’ table in the course scheduling template, where I the first column is the tutors name plus start time of class, but that would be the same in each of the venues. Oh dear.


Yeah…in terms of data entry it feels like it’d be the simplest though. I’m assuming we’d also have to record some sort of date range right? i.e. a student would sign up for 12 weeks of classes or something? If so, I do think it’d be the best way to handle that


To actually view the timetable, I reckon I’d make a table with each column representing a time slot, and each record representing a teacher. I’d link the each teacher record to the appropriate time slot record mentioned in the previous record, and use lookups to display whether that time slot was used up. I could then refer to that timetable to figure out when teachers were free, does that make sense?


Yeah…in terms of data entry it feels like it’d be the simplest though. I’m assuming we’d also have to record some sort of date range right? i.e. a student would sign up for 12 weeks of classes or something? If so, I do think it’d be the best way to handle that


To actually view the timetable, I reckon I’d make a table with each column representing a time slot, and each record representing a teacher. I’d link the each teacher record to the appropriate time slot record mentioned in the previous record, and use lookups to display whether that time slot was used up. I could then refer to that timetable to figure out when teachers were free, does that make sense?



Thanks for the reply. No date range needed. I forgot to mention that it’s group classes, but I don’t see that being an issue. Is there a better way to handle it that you can think of, knowing now there is no date range needed? Essentially all students sign up for the entire term.



So I already would have a table for the teachers, and a table for the time slots, and I would create (or have created as a test), a third table with the primary record being the conjunction of name, time slot, venue, to create a unique record for each class as such.


I’m not entirely sure I follow. I get stuck when thinking about a table with ‘each record representing a teacher’ as wouldn’t that be having two records for each teacher, which doesn’t seem right. Perhaps it would be a view within the teacher table? One for each venue, and each timeslot column being a lookup linked to the specific class record, listing which students had been allocated to the specific class record. Does that sound like we’re talking about roughly the same thing?


Still not sure if I could make that pretty, maybe with an extension, but that’s secondary to actually making the data lookup easy. Doing it on excel was dreadful, especially as we had to use the online version and the views would randomly change, and we had multiple people working on it which made it even harder as views would affect each other.


Thanks for the reply. No date range needed. I forgot to mention that it’s group classes, but I don’t see that being an issue. Is there a better way to handle it that you can think of, knowing now there is no date range needed? Essentially all students sign up for the entire term.



So I already would have a table for the teachers, and a table for the time slots, and I would create (or have created as a test), a third table with the primary record being the conjunction of name, time slot, venue, to create a unique record for each class as such.


I’m not entirely sure I follow. I get stuck when thinking about a table with ‘each record representing a teacher’ as wouldn’t that be having two records for each teacher, which doesn’t seem right. Perhaps it would be a view within the teacher table? One for each venue, and each timeslot column being a lookup linked to the specific class record, listing which students had been allocated to the specific class record. Does that sound like we’re talking about roughly the same thing?


Still not sure if I could make that pretty, maybe with an extension, but that’s secondary to actually making the data lookup easy. Doing it on excel was dreadful, especially as we had to use the online version and the views would randomly change, and we had multiple people working on it which made it even harder as views would affect each other.


Hmm, would you happen to have an example of an end product? I’m wondering whether it’d be simpler if you could show an example of what you’d eventually like and I could tell you whether or not I thought that was possible, and if it was possible how I might get there?


I was rereading your post and also just realized that you want a timetable for your students, not for your teachers. So sorry about that

Hmm, would you happen to have an example of an end product? I’m wondering whether it’d be simpler if you could show an example of what you’d eventually like and I could tell you whether or not I thought that was possible, and if it was possible how I might get there?


I was rereading your post and also just realized that you want a timetable for your students, not for your teachers. So sorry about that


You were right the first time, it’s a timetable for the teachers. In fairness, you’ve already helped, the important and difficult part is the workflow in getting the students into groups, rather than the pretty timetable at the end, which in reality, could also be presented in a list format.


Nonetheless, here’s a screenshot of the sample redacted timetable:


I think you’re suggested opposite axis might work better for airtable.


You were right the first time, it’s a timetable for the teachers. In fairness, you’ve already helped, the important and difficult part is the workflow in getting the students into groups, rather than the pretty timetable at the end, which in reality, could also be presented in a list format.


Nonetheless, here’s a screenshot of the sample redacted timetable:


I think you’re suggested opposite axis might work better for airtable.



Interesting!


In this screenshot, each redacted name is a student’s name? What does the number in brackets represent?

Interesting!


In this screenshot, each redacted name is a student’s name? What does the number in brackets represent?


Yes, redacted name is student name, number is age. PM’d you there.

Yes, redacted name is student name, number is age. PM’d you there.


Got it. I’ve thrown something together here that I think would get you that screenshot you shared



Form


Changes need to be made for the workflow of course, you’d probably want to allow users to select the instrument and then only display classes for that instrument and such, but broadly it’s there

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