PULSE guide · Add schedules

Your first schedule upload

For a district or building administrator bringing staff schedules into PULSE for the first time. What you see at each step, and what to do when a file is turned away. Sentences in quotation marks are what PULSE shows.

Step by step

  1. Open Add schedules. From Staff, or from the Add schedules button on Workload. The page shows your district and school year at the top. A panel headed First time here? lists what applies to your district, including any school whose school day is not set up yet. You can hide it.
  2. Check the cycles. Cycles PULSE is using lists each school's cycle for the year, for example 5-day cycle. A school with no school day set up gets a card asking for it. PULSE fills in the number of days and the earliest start and latest end it finds in your file. Nothing is set until you confirm.
  3. Add your files. Choose files, or pick ones already on Documents. One file can hold one person or a whole school's grid. Spreadsheets are the safest first upload: PULSE reads them itself, and nothing leaves PULSE to be read.
  4. Read the line at the top. It reads like 25 ready · 1 has a conflict to review, beside the Confirm all matched button, and it says exactly what that button will and will not take. The tabs below count the rest. Start with Needs you.
  5. Answer each card under Needs you. School days come first, because each one you set lets the schedules waiting on it through. A card may also ask: Choose who this is… when no staff name matched, or Add as new staff. 2 files give Alex Sample's week. Which is current? when two files cover one person; PULSE never combines them. It lists staff or It lists students when a names column is unclear. For a session that overlaps one already on the calendar, Keep both or Leave out the overlapping sessions.
  6. Confirm. One card at a time, or Confirm all matched, which skips any card with a question still open. A confirmed card reads Their week is now measured from the groups in this schedule. Plan and Workload have recalculated.
  7. Undo if something looks wrong. Undo takes back one person's schedule. Undo this batch takes back everything you confirmed from these files. A school day you set can be undone too, until something uses it.

The likeliest snags

1 · A school has no school day set up

Its schedules wait under Matched, each saying which school it is waiting on, and a card for the school sits under Needs you.

Fix: check the days and times PULSE filled in from your file, change them if they are wrong, and press Use these. The waiting schedules are read again and are ready to confirm.

2 · The grid has no heading row

PULSE could not find the column headings. The first rows should name at least a day and a time.

Fix: put a row near the top that names the columns, for example Day, Start, End and Staff. Delete any title or logo rows above it, save, and add the file again.

3 · A name in the file is not on your staff list

No staff member has this name.

Fix: choose who it is, or add them as new staff if they are new this year. PULSE holds that schedule until you answer and never guesses.

If your district has not turned on document reading, a PDF or photo is turned away. A text PDF shows: Reading photos and PDFs isn't turned on for your district yet. Upload a spreadsheet. Export the schedule as Excel or CSV and add that file instead.