Floor plans and desk seating

Why this exists

Working out who sits where before each session is slow, and tutors and students lose time finding a free desk. As an admin, you draw each campus once with its rooms, desks and useful places, and the portal then seats every lesson at the centre for you. Students tend to keep the same desk week to week, and wall screens show everyone where to go.

A floor plan is a drawing of a campus: its rooms, the desks in them, and useful places such as bathrooms and the first aid kit. Once desks are drawn, the portal seats each lesson at the centre automatically.

Before you start

You need the rooms.edit permission to open Scheduling > Floor plans and wall screens. An admin limited to some campuses can only draw those campuses.

Draw a plan

1. Go to Scheduling > Floor plans and wall screens and choose the campus and floor.
2. Press Draw a room, then drag to place it. Resize it by its corners and press Turn a quarter to rotate it. Everything snaps to the grid.
3. Add desks inside the room, as student desks or a tutor desk. Give each a short label (1, 2, A3) so it reads from across the room.
4. Press Place a marker for water, bathrooms, kitchen, printer, first aid, fire exit, Wi-Fi, quiet area or reception. Add instructions and a photo if it helps. Turn off Show on wall screens for anything only staff should see, such as a Wi-Fi password.
5. Save. Ctrl Z undoes, Ctrl D duplicates and the arrow keys nudge.

On a phone you can see the plan and make small changes. Use a larger screen for drawing.

How seating works

• Drawn student desks become the room's capacity.
• Each lesson's students are seated automatically: the desk they had last week for the same slot if it is free, else the desk they use most in that room, else a free desk near the tutor.
• No desk is ever held by two lessons at once. If a room is full, the rest are listed as not seated.
• Seats are filled in when a lesson is booked or moved, and each night for the next week.

Moving someone

Open the seating sheet for a lesson (Room occupancy > Floor plan), then drag a person to another desk or pick one from their list. If the desk is taken, the two swap. A move you make is kept as Chosen by staff.

Good to know

• Only lessons at the centre are seated. Online and home lessons never get a desk.
• If someone else saved the plan while you had it open, you are told rather than overwriting their work.

Related

• Wall screens and the notice board
• Rooms, shared rooms and room occupancy