GTI3 Features

Intuitive Graphical Interface (with drag and drop editing)

Just drag and drop - the software will show green lines where an event can be moved to or placed. Easy peasy.

It is the intuitive graphical interface of GTI3 that makes it different from other timetable planning software. Input through forms is not always the best approach (although our software does give you that option). In many situations, drag and drop editing is far more intuitive.

Control

You can set which rooms have certain facilities, what capacity they have, which staff can teach which subjects, and shed loads of other checking criteria that are used to determine when booking can take place. However, you maintain control. We all know that sometimes the rules need to be bent a little - for example you may on occasion want to squeeze 32 people into a room designed to take 30 - easily done in GTI3 because you keep control of which checking levels are applied to any particular booking.

Flexibility

It would be nice if an event booked for a range of weeks stayed the same throughout its course, but in reality we know that is often not the case. For example, you might need to change the member of staff teaching a lesson for a number of weeks because of illness. Charts that allow you to look at events across the year let you easily make such changes on a day-to-day basis if needed.

As you can see from the screen shot you can easily take account of term times, class attendance times, bank holidays etc. The dark grey lines show unavailability. Availability for staff, classes and rooms is determined separately for flexibility, but all are taken into account in any bookings that are made. This ensures that a member of staff is not timetabled for an event when they are not in.

The other good bit is that GTI3 is time-based not period-based. You don't have to fit your events into pre-defined timeslots (for example 09:00-10:15, 11:00-12:15 etc). You can set the time grid to 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 60 minute intervals - whichever suits your institution best. For example, setting a 5 minute grid allows you to create an event that runs from 11:55-12:25 (then you can beat the queues for lunch).

Data output and analysis

Many charts and printable reports are available to assist with data analysis and administration tasks. For example, charts that show staff contractual hours against timetabled hours. In fact, over 40 standard types of report are available and many of them are available in multiple formats, e.g. Word. All this allows you to present your timetable data in a clear and professional manner. Have a look at the example below of a weekly staff report in MS Word format.

If that were not enough, GTI3 has a flexible export facility that allows you to export most data fields of the database. You can have any order you want and choose from a number of different formats, thus allowing you to create your own customised reports. For example, you can export data in comma delimited format for use within Microsoft Excel. You can also publish your timetables on the internet or your intranet.

Linking to other software

A number of colleges are using interfaces we have supplied to other Register software products. These interfaces allow for varying degrees of automated data exchange between GTI3 and the other software. If you are interested in linking to other software that you regularly use, please speak to us about your requirements and we will let you know what we currently have available. One of the things we have observed about our customers needs in this area, is that even those using the same register system have differing requirements. We are currently working on development of our software in areas that will make linking with other software much easier - we will keep you updated through our News page.

We have shown a few of the powerful features of our software but we invite you to take a closer look for yourself. Our demonstration software has full functionality and an on-board tutorial to help you learn how to use it. If you are interested in a networked version of our software to try, then this too can be arranged on a time-expiry basis. Contact Plansoft for a free demonstration today!