The Electives page

Quick start

1. Click + Elective and give it a name.
2. Pick a template: it defines the days and periods the elective can use, and which grades can attend.
3. Choose the grades whose students attend.
4. Add the teachers who run it.
5. Optionally select the slots when it runs, then click Create.

Creating an elective

When the page is empty you'll see Click the button "+ Elective" to create your first one. Everything an elective needs is asked for up front, one step at a time; it exists only once you finish the last step.

1. Click + Elective at the top of the page. The Create Elective dialog opens (once you've named it, the name shows next to the title), and a row across its top tracks the five steps: Name, Template, Grades, Teachers, Slots.
2. Name: type a name (for example, "Art Class"). It must be 2 to 20 characters; Next stays disabled until it's valid.
3. Template: pick the template that supplies the day and time grid you'll choose from later. Next stays disabled until you pick one.
4. Grades: tick the grades whose students attend; ticking a level takes all of its grades at once. Only the grades that belong to the template you chose are offered. Next stays disabled until you tick at least one.
5. Teachers: tick the teachers who run it. Next stays disabled until you tick at least one.
6. Slots: click the slots when the elective runs. Only the slots free for the grades and teachers you chose are offered. This step is optional: you can create the elective without slots and pick them later from its card.

A blue card at the top of each step explains why it's asked for. Back returns to an earlier step and Cancel discards the whole draft. If you go back and change the template, the grades and slots you had picked are cleared. They belonged to the old template's grid.

The electives list at a glance

Each elective is a card showing its name, how many teachers take part, and how many slots it occupies. There is no separate detail page: click a card to expand it and edit everything in place.

1. Click the card's header (or its chevron) to expand or collapse it.
2. Click the name to rename it in place, the same 2 to 20 characters.
3. Click the trash to delete it (you'll be asked to confirm).

Expanded, a card holds five sections, in this order: Choose a template, Choose days and times, Choose participating teachers, Show in a grade as a class, and Notes. Every change saves as you make it. There's no save button.

Choosing a template

An elective's template provides the daily time slots you pick from. You set it when creating the elective, and can change it afterwards in the Choose a template section, but only while no time slots are selected.

Once slots are chosen the template locks: Template cannot be changed once slots are selected. Clear slots to choose another template.

Choosing days and times

In Choose days and times you set when the elective runs: Click on class slots to select when this elective occurs.

1. Read the grid. The left Time column lists the periods from the template, and each other column is a block from your multi-week rotation (its 1x count shows how many times that block repeats in the cycle).
2. Click a slot to select it; a running total shows e.g. 3 slots selected.
3. Click a selected slot again to clear it.

A slot that's already taken shows as Conflict (a chosen teacher is busy) or Busy (a chosen grade has a class) and can't be picked. Its tooltip tells you which teachers or grades are busy then, and with what.

Choosing participating teachers

In Choose participating teachers, add the teachers who run the elective. Teachers added here are marked busy and won't be scheduled for classes while this elective runs.

1. Click Select teachers... and tick the ones taking part.
2. They appear as badges; click a badge's close button to remove a teacher.

Keep at least one: Without one, this elective won't block any teacher's time or appear on any schedule.

The grades that attend

The Show in a grade as a class section holds the grades whose students attend. This is what makes an elective an elective: for each grade you tick, its sessions appear on that grade's classroom schedule and count against its study plan. A meeting has no such section at all.

1. Click Add grades... and tick the grades that attend (ticking a level selects its grades).
2. With grades chosen, the status reads Shown as a class on N grades' classroom schedules.
3. Untick a grade to drop it. Its students stop seeing the elective on their schedule.

An elective without grades isn't an elective. If a staff-only event is what you meant, create it on the Meetings page instead.

Notes

The Notes section at the bottom of an expanded card is a free text box (Add notes about this elective...) for anything you want to remember. Like every other change here, what you type is saved as you go.

How electives connect to the rest

An elective ties several parts of the app together:

1. Its template and your multi-week rotation define the day/time grid you pick slots from.
2. The teachers you add are marked busy while the elective runs, so the solver won't double-book them.
3. For each grade you include, the elective's sessions are reflected in the Study Plan, where they show up as read-only rows counting against that grade's weekly sessions.
4. Meetings hold the same teachers' time. A slot already taken by one can't be used here, even though meetings aren't listed on this page.

Because of that, set up your templates, multi-week rotation, study plan, and teachers first. An elective draws on all of them.

If a change you make would collide with a schedule the solver has already built, a Remove Assignments dialog lists what must go (To save this change, the following assignments must be removed:) and the change is only saved if you choose Continue.

Deleting an elective

1. On the electives list, click the trash button on the elective's card.
2. Confirm when asked.

Warnings you may see here

When something needs attention, a warning badge appears on the Electives step in the navigation bar; click it to see the details (how the badges work is explained in The warning triangles on the Summary page). Electives and meetings share these warnings, so the same badge shows on both steps, and the name in the message tells you which one to open. The warnings this page can raise: