Overview

Welcome to Timeslotter

Timeslotter helps you organize recurring events — such as classes, training sessions, office hours, or regular meetings. Such an event is called a module here. Each module is divided into several time segments, the timeslots, and to every timeslot you assign participants. You can record absences for both timeslots and participants, and for participants you can additionally record a performance rating. The week plan shows you all upcoming appointments of the week at a glance, and in the notes you capture what was discussed during the sessions.

Everything you enter is synced automatically between your devices via iCloud — so you can enter data on your iPhone and continue working on your iPad or Mac.

This help gives you the overview. On almost every other screen you'll also find its own help button (question mark symbol at the top right of the toolbar) that goes into more detail about the respective area. They are summarized again at the end of this text.

The Home Screen

On the iPhone you see a floating switcher bar at the bottom: on the left you switch to the week plan, right next to it to the modules. On the far right are the Help button (which is showing you this text right now) and the Settings (gear icon).

On the iPad and the Mac the module list stays permanently on the left as a sidebar; the large detail area initially shows the week plan. In the sidebar you'll also find the Week Plan and Help rows, and the gear icon for the settings at the top.

Modules — the Starting Point

A module is the frame for a recurring event. You define on which weekdays it takes place, optionally a date range (from–to), and the repetition — weekly or monthly, each with an interval (for example every other week). From these settings Timeslotter calculates all the individual appointments of the module.

You create a new module with the plus button; in Edit mode you rename or delete it. In the list, a narrow color bar on the left shows the module's color in the week plan, and the number in parentheses is the count of its timeslots. A module that has ended is marked with "(ended)" and its end date. If a module carries module-wide notes, a note icon appears at the right edge of the row, through which you open them directly.

Deleted modules are not lost for good — they go into a trash from where they can be restored to their previous place (undelete). All further settings of a module are explained by the help button in the module details.

The Module Folder Structure

As the number of your modules grows, you create order with folders. Folders can be nested to any depth. The modules themselves remain a shared pool; the folder structure only arranges them for display, so a module can change folders at any time without losing its data.

You create a folder from the module list; a tap expands and collapses it, and a switch expands or collapses all folders at once. You move a module or a subfolder via the context menu (long press on the row, or right-click with the mouse/trackpad) using the Move to… command. You change the order within a level in Edit mode using the handles on the right. When you delete a folder, the contained modules and subfolders simply move up one level — nothing is lost. The folder structure is synced via iCloud as well.

Timeslots — the Time Segments of a Module

Each module divides its session into several timeslots. How many there are is set in the module details. Each timeslot has its own name, its own participant list, its own notes, and its own color. Its start time is calculated by Timeslotter from the module's start and duration, so that the timeslots follow one another over the course of the day. Timeslots can be reordered or rotated; past weeks keep their order from back then, so the past stays correctly documented.

For each timeslot you can record an absence for an appointment and indicate whether it is excused. As absences accumulate, the timeslot changes color from gray through orange to red depending on the configured warning and error thresholds — so you spot problem cases immediately. Timeslot and participant absences are coupled: if you set an entire timeslot absent, its participants count as absent too, and conversely, if all participants are absent, so is the timeslot. This correlation can also be decoupled in the "Rules" settings.

If you enable calendar synchronization in the settings (and the calendar for the individual module), Timeslotter writes the module's appointments into your device's system calendar. That way you also see them in your familiar calendar app. The help button in the timeslot details explains more.

Participants — with Absences and Performance Rating

Participants are the people assigned to a timeslot. You add them one by one or pick them from a stored name list; when needed, you move a participant to another timeslot.

Each participant keeps their own absence list with the date and whether the absence was excused. An entry is automatically assigned to the matching appointment of the module.

In addition, you can give a performance rating per appointment — positive or negative (thumbs up or down). From all ratings across every appointment, Timeslotter calculates an overall performance. This lets you follow a person's engagement and development over time. The help button in the participant details explains the specifics.

How Modules, Timeslots, and Participants Relate

These three levels build on one another. The module is the frame: through weekdays and repetition it determines when appointments take place. The timeslots are the time segments of a module appointment; they inherit the appointments and start times from the module. The participants, finally, belong to exactly one timeslot.

What matters is the relation to the individual appointment: absences, performance ratings, and timeslot notes always hang on a specific appointment, not on the module in general. And because timeslot and participant absences are coupled, both levels always stay consistent. Once you have this structure in mind — module as the frame, timeslots as segments, participants per timeslot, everything anchored to the respective appointment — the rest of the app almost falls into place by itself.

The Week Plan

The week plan presents the current week as a calendar grid. Each upcoming timeslot appears as a colored block, sorted by its start time; the color is the module's or reflects the absence situation. This lets you survey your week at a glance. A tap on a block takes you straight to the corresponding module.

Timeslotter brings your plan to the home screen too: the widget named "Plan filter" shows two things stacked. At the top your plan filter blocks appear as colored tiles — each with its currently evaluated value, the filter's name, and its scope (module or timeslot). Below follows an appointment ticker: the next upcoming timeslot appointments with time or date, name, and their module's color bar — the same appointments the week plan shows.

How much is visible depends on the widget size: the small size shows one block, the medium two, the large up to six tiles together with the appointment ticker. A tap on a tile or an appointment opens Timeslotter right at the matching place.

The widget computes the tile values itself using the respective current date. That way date-dependent filters (such as "due this week") stay correct every day even when you don't open the app at all; after changes in the app the widget refreshes promptly. In the tinted and transparent home-screen appearances it adapts automatically.

You add a widget the usual way: touch and hold the home screen, tap the plus at the top, search for "Timeslotter", and pick the size you want. As long as you haven't created any plan filter blocks yet, the widget points that out with a short hint. How you create named filters and plan filter blocks from them is explained by the help for the note editor and the filter expressions.

Notes

In the notes you document what was discussed. There are two kinds: timeslot notes are tied to a single appointment (one entry per appointment), while module notes concern the whole module and carry their date as the modification date. Notes are written in Markdown and show you a live preview. With hashtags like #done you mark keywords by which you can later filter and evaluate in a targeted way using a powerful filter language — for this there is a dedicated filter line and permanently storable, named filters. The help buttons in the note editor as well as the separate help topic on the filter expressions explain this in detail.

Further Help

Almost every screen has its own help button with the question mark symbol at the top of its toolbar; sometimes it hides in the More menu (three dots). You'll find dedicated help topics for the module details, the timeslot details, the participant details, the note editor, as well as for the filter expressions. Global options — such as calendar synchronization, the thresholds for absences, and iCloud sync — are found in the Settings (gear icon).