Year planning and automatic timetables for vocational colleges

Smootables is an AI-powered platform for vocational and technical colleges that joins multi-year program planning and automatic timetable optimization. Plan several academic years ahead, with workshops, work-based learning periods, and individual study paths, then generate optimized timetables straight from the same data.

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Multi-year planning

Timetables on demand

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Eng.08:15–11:30	Workshop08:15–09:45	Networks08:15–09:45	Workshop08:15–11:30	Prog.08:15–09:45
Eng.08:15–11:30	Project10:00–13:15	Eng.10:00–11:30	Workshop08:15–11:30	Networks10:00–11:30
Workshop11:45–13:15	Project10:00–13:15	Prog.11:45–15:00	Project11:45–13:15	Eng.11:45–13:15
Networks13:30–15:00	Eng.13:30–15:00	Prog.11:45–15:00	Networks13:30–15:00	Project13:30–16:45
Prog.15:15–16:45	Networks15:15–16:45	Workshop15:15–16:45	Eng.15:15–16:45	Project13:30–16:45

Multi-year planning

Timetables on demand

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Eng.08:15–11:30	Workshop08:15–09:45	Networks08:15–09:45	Workshop08:15–11:30	Prog.08:15–09:45
Eng.08:15–11:30	Project10:00–13:15	Eng.10:00–11:30	Workshop08:15–11:30	Networks10:00–11:30
Workshop11:45–13:15	Project10:00–13:15	Prog.11:45–15:00	Project11:45–13:15	Eng.11:45–13:15
Networks13:30–15:00	Eng.13:30–15:00	Prog.11:45–15:00	Networks13:30–15:00	Project13:30–16:45
Prog.15:15–16:45	Networks15:15–16:45	Workshop15:15–16:45	Eng.15:15–16:45	Project13:30–16:45

Who is it for?

Your planning team and teaching staff in one workspace

Built to improve collaboration between college leadership, planners, and teachers, bringing yearly program plans, resourcing, teacher workload metrics, and timetables into one place.

College leaders & timetable planners

Build and maintain campus- and program-specific plans and timetables, and gather teacher feedback without scattered Excel files.

Teachers

Review plans and timetables via a shared link and see workload by year and term at a glance.

Features

What Smootables does

Every key planning stage in one system. No more separate Excel spreadsheets for annual and term plans.

Plan

Multi-year planning

Plan several academic years and terms on one visual timeline.

Optimize

Timetables on demand

Term timetables straight from the plan, with automatic optimization under your college's specific constraints.

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Eng.08:15–11:30	Workshop08:15–09:45	Networks08:15–09:45	Workshop08:15–11:30	Prog.08:15–09:45
Eng.08:15–11:30	Project10:00–13:15	Eng.10:00–11:30	Workshop08:15–11:30	Networks10:00–11:30
Workshop11:45–13:15	Project10:00–13:15	Prog.11:45–15:00	Project11:45–13:15	Eng.11:45–13:15
Networks13:30–15:00	Eng.13:30–15:00	Prog.11:45–15:00	Networks13:30–15:00	Project13:30–16:45
Prog.15:15–16:45	Networks15:15–16:45	Workshop15:15–16:45	Eng.15:15–16:45	Project13:30–16:45

Analyze

Hours and cost insight

Teacher hour totals and cost estimates update from the plan automatically.

Why a dedicated planning tool?

Planning at a vocational college is a huge task, usually spread across Excel sheets, Word docs, and legacy tools, but the data still has to come together for the timetable. Smootables keeps yearly plans, resourcing, and scheduling in one shared system.

Better than Excel for planning

Excel can hold a plan, but it cannot check one. Formulas break silently, versions fork, and the year plan, staffing sheet, and timetable drift apart. Smootables keeps them in one model: planners and teachers edit the same data, totals recalculate as the plan changes, and pre-generation checks catch problems a spreadsheet never reports.

Faster than manual placement

Still building timetables by hand? Smootables generates optimized term timetables on demand, saving your planners and teachers weeks of manual work.

Modern, web-based, quick to learn

Smootables runs in the browser with nothing to install, and planning, resourcing, and timetabling share one interface. When a generation run fails, you get a typed conflict cause and concrete suggestions instead of a cryptic error, so planners can fix the plan without a support ticket.

Benefits

Why vocational colleges choose Smootables

One tool for everyone

The same workflow for planners and leadership, with less confusion across the academic cycle.

Shared planning process

Managers, teachers, and planners work from the same source of truth.

AI-powered workflows

Our AI agents quickly carry out even large plan changes for you.

Easier than Excel

Purpose-built: no formula bugs, automatic hour and cost roll-ups.

Individual pathways included

Student group-based timetables and individual learner timetables are both supported.

From plan to timetable

Programs, resourcing, and optimized timetables in one chain.

How it works

Three steps from plan to timetable

Resources & programs
Add teachers, rooms, equipment, groups, and students. We help migrate the data into Smootables. Then add your college's program offering to the platform.
Year and term planning
Place teaching units across terms in a multi-year view. Hours and cost estimates update automatically.
Timetable & optimization
Generate a term timetable on demand. The solver optimizes for teachers, rooms, equipment use, and your rules, and it minimizes gap hours for teachers and students.

AI in daily planning

Use the built-in assistant for large plan changes or to explore resourcing options that balance workload and rooms.

For example, you can ask the assistant to:

Move a module to the next academic year for selected cohorts
Suggest staffing that balances workload for chosen teachers
Copy a term plan, adjust core hours, and regenerate the timetable

See how Smootables handles planning and timetabling at your vocational college

Let's talk, and we'll show you how Smootables fits your college's planning and timetabling workflows.

Module	2025–26Total 366h			2026–27Total 160h
Module	T1142 h	T2128 h	T396 h	T488 h	T572 h
Engineering & trades
Engineering fundamentals32 h
Workshop practice24 h
Systems & networks28 h

Module	2025–26Total 366h			2026–27Total 160h
Module	T1142 h	T2128 h	T396 h	T488 h	T572 h
Engineering & trades
Engineering fundamentals32 h
Workshop practice24 h
Systems & networks28 h

Module	2025–26Total 366h			2026–27Total 160h
Module	T1142 h	T2128 h	T396 h	T488 h	T572 h
Engineering & trades
Engineering fundamentals32 h
Workshop practice24 h
Systems & networks28 h

Teacher	Week 1 hours	Year tot.
J. Smith	38h / 35h	1420h / 1500h
M. Jones	32h / 35h	1280h / 1500h
A. Chen	36h / 35h	1520h / 1500h
T. Williams	28h / 35h	1180h / 1500h

Module	2025–26Total 366h			2026–27Total 160h
Module	T1142 h	T2128 h	T396 h	T488 h	T572 h
Engineering & trades
Engineering fundamentals32 h
Workshop practice24 h
Systems & networks28 h

Year planning and automatic timetables for vocational colleges

Your planning team and teaching staff in one workspace

College leaders & timetable planners

Teachers

What Smootables does

Multi-year planning

Timetables on demand

Hours and cost insight

Better than Excel for planning

Faster than manual placement

Modern, web-based, quick to learn

Why vocational colleges choose Smootables

One tool for everyone

Shared planning process

AI-powered workflows

Easier than Excel

Individual pathways included

From plan to timetable

Three steps from plan to timetable

Resources & programs

Year and term planning

Timetable & optimization

AI in daily planning

See how Smootables handles planning and timetabling at your vocational college

Your planning team and teaching staff in one workspace

College leaders & timetable planners

Teachers

What Smootables does

Multi-year planning

Timetables on demand

Hours and cost insight

Better than Excel for planning

Faster than manual placement

Modern, web-based, quick to learn

Why vocational colleges choose Smootables

One tool for everyone

Shared planning process

AI-powered workflows

Easier than Excel

Individual pathways included

From plan to timetable

Three steps from plan to timetable

Resources & programs

Year and term planning

Timetable & optimization

AI in daily planning