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Create FlexTime Periods

How to create and manage Flex periods for your school semester

Minga FlexTime periods are the calendar blocks where your school's activities and student registrations occur. This article explains how to set up these periods, manage registration deadlines, and use cloning tools to build your semester schedule quickly.

Permission level: Owner | Manager

In this article

Creating FlexTime periods

You must create a period before teachers or staff can add activities available for students or students can be registered or assigned to an activity. This section shows you how to define the date, time, and permissions for a new flex block.

Step-by-step guide to creating FlexTime Periods

  1. Select FlexTime > Periods

  2. Decide when and how often your school's FlexTime periods will occur.

  3. Click Create Period

  4. Input 'Title', 'Date', and 'Time'

  5. Toggle on Allow teachers/staff to add activities if you'd like to allow teachers and staff to add activities to this period.

  6. Toggle on Allow teachers/staff to register or unregister students to give teachers and staff the freedom to remove or or add students to this flex period.

  7. Toggle on Enable deadline to prevent teachers and staff from making any changes before or after the activity begins.

  8. Decide whether students should be allowed to self-register for activities during this period by toggling Allow students to self-register.

Cloning FlexTime periods

You can duplicate an existing period to quickly build out your weekly or monthly Flex schedule. This process copies the period settings and can optionally include all activities and even registered students.

Plus and Premium Subscription Workflow

Step-by-step guide to multi day flex period cloning (Plus and Premium Only)

  1. Start by selecting the 'Periods' tab to view or manage your FlexTime sessions.

  2. Quickly duplicate a period with all its included settings using the Clone function.

  3. The cloning menu then confirms the settings of the original, as these settings will be applied to all of the cloned periods. Note: the future clones may still be manually edited later.

  4. Choose which days of the week this period should appear. For this tutorial, choose Thursday or Friday.

  5. Select your cloning start date for the first replication of the period.

  6. Set the end date for when your recurring periods should finish.

  7. Enable 'Clone activities' to include every activity attached to this period. Note: activities can be manually added or removed manually in each cloned period.

  8. Additionally, you can choose to keep the same student registrations and assignments when cloning a period, which can be manually changed later.

  9. Select 'Clone' to instantly generate your scheduled periods with all chosen settings. The number indicates how many new periods you will be creating.

🛑 Note: Multi-day cloning does not clone enrolled students. Every cloned period is created with its activities and settings intact, but with no students registered or assigned. Register or assign students to each cloned period separately, or use the FlexTime Unregistered Report to place students in bulk after cloning. See Find and Register/Assign Unregistered Students for FlexTime Periods.

Basic Subscription Workflow

Note: Multi Day FlexTime cloning is only available for Plus and Premium subscriptions. To clone multiple Flex Periods with the Basic subscription, you will need to clone each period individually.

Step-by-step guide to cloning flex periods (Basic subscription)

  1. Within FlexTime, navigate to the Periods tab.

  2. Click the Copy icon to quickly duplicate an existing period.

  3. Rename the cloned period with an recognizable name.

  4. Choose your preferred date for the new period using the calendar picker.

  5. Select your desired date to set when this FlexTime period will occur.

  6. Under Permission settings, enable or disable the following:
    • Allow teachers/staff to add activities
    • Allow teachers/staff to manage student registrations
    • Enable deadline
    • Allow students to self register

  7. Under Clone settings, enable or disable the following:
    • Clone registered students
    • Clone assigned students

  8. Select Create to clone the FlexTime period.

💎 Tip: Build your source period completely, activities, settings, and permissions, before you clone it. Any change you make to the source period after cloning does not apply retroactively to periods you already created.

Deleting FlexTime periods

You can delete one or more FlexTime periods at once from the Periods tab. This is the fastest way to correct a scheduling mistake, such as a batch of periods cloned to the wrong dates, or to clear a block of periods for a snow day or calendar change.

Step-by-step guide to deleting FlexTime Periods

  1. Select FlexTime from the main menu.

  2. Click on Periods tab.

  3. Select the desired date range on the date selector.

  4. Click on the box next to the period. To remove multiple periods at once, select all relevant periods.
    • A Number selected counter appears at the top of the list, confirming how many periods are currently selected.

  5. Click Delete.

  6. A confirmation pop up will appear for confirmation.

  7. Select Delete.

💎 Tip: If you cloned a recurring schedule to the wrong dates or with the wrong settings, use the Date filter at the top of the Periods page to narrow the list down to the affected dates. Select all the incorrect periods and delete them in one action instead of removing them one at a time.

Troubleshooting

Students cannot see a period to register for activities

If students cannot see a period, verify that the Allow students to self-register toggle is enabled in the period settings. If the current time is past the registration deadline, the period will also be hidden from student self-registration.

I don't see the multi-day cloning option in the Periods tab

If the multi-day cloning option does not appear in FlexTime > Periods, confirm that your school is on the Plus or Premium plan. Multi-day cloning is not available on other plans. Contact your Minga account manager to check or change your plan.

FAQs

Can I limit when teachers stop adding activities?

You can limit when teachers stop adding activities by enabling the Registration Deadline and setting a specific time for staff. Once this time passes, teachers can no longer add activities or change student registration or assignments for that period.

Does multi-day cloning copy my registered or assigned students to the new dates?

Multi-day cloning does not copy registered or assigned students to the new dates. Cloned periods carry over the source period's activities and settings only. You will need to register or assign students to each new period separately after cloning.

Which Minga plans include multi-day cloning?

Multi-day cloning is available to Plus and Premium plan customers. If you do not see the Clone option produce a date-range menu in FlexTime > Periods contact your Minga account manager to confirm your current plan.

Resources

  • FlexTime Video Series A series to provide instruction from setup through to launch of FlexTime at a school.

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