Overview
The Calendar time slots duration setting controls how the time axis is displayed in the day and week calendar views used across the portal. It is a single, institution-wide setting shared by all user types – it is not a per-role or per-person preference. This guide explains what the setting does, where its effect can be seen, and how to choose a suitable value for your institution.
What This Setting Does
This setting defines how often a time label (for example 08:00, 08:15, 08:30) appears along the left-hand time column of a day or week calendar. You choose one value from a fixed list of options, expressed in minutes: 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, or 120. The default value, used until an administrator changes it, is 15 minutes.
In plain terms: a lower number produces a calendar that is more zoomed in, with a time label printed every few minutes and each row of the calendar representing a short period of time. A higher number produces a calendar that is more zoomed out and compact, with fewer, more widely spaced time labels, for example only on the hour.
Important: this setting only changes how time is labelled and how tall the calendar grid looks on screen. It does not change the earliest time someone can start an event, does not round or restrict appointment times, and does not set the length of lessons, meetings, or sessions. Those aspects are controlled by other settings – see Related Settings in the Notes section below.
Where It Is Used
This setting applies in the following places:
– The Calendar widget shown on a user’s Home dashboard (My Calendar preview), for Student, Teacher (Lecturer), Parent (Guardian), Employee, and Admin dashboards.
– The main Calendar page (typically found under Calendar and Timetable > Calendar, or My Calendar, depending on how the menu has been configured), when viewed in Day or Week layout.
– The Absences calendar shown to Parents (Guardians) and Students, where attendance-related events are displayed on a calendar grid.
The setting affects Day and Week calendar layouts only. It has no visible effect on a Month layout, because a month grid does not show individual time labels.
Because this is set once for the whole institution and is not a per-role or per-user option, everyone who opens one of the calendar pages above will see the same time-label spacing.
Note: this setting is separate from the time-grid options found inside the Timetable building and scheduling screens used by Admins and Secretaries to build class schedules. The Timetable module has its own, independent display controls for the scheduling grid. See Related Settings below.
Business Logic and Behavior
Business Rules
– Only one of eight fixed values can be selected: 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, or 120 minutes. Free-text or custom values are not supported.
– If the setting has not been configured, the system falls back to a default of 15 minutes.
– The value applies uniformly to every user type that has access to a calendar view; there is no way to set a different value for one role, such as Teachers, versus another, such as Students.
– The setting changes label spacing and the visual density of the calendar grid, not the underlying scheduling logic. Existing appointments, sessions, or events are not moved, resized, or hidden when the value is changed.
– Smaller values create a taller, more detailed calendar that may require more scrolling to see a full day. Larger values create a shorter, more compact calendar that fits more of the day on screen at once, at the cost of less detailed time labelling.
K-12 Mode vs Higher Education Mode
This setting behaves identically whether the institution operates in K-12 Mode or in Higher Education Mode. It is not the setting that switches an institution between these two modes – that is a separate, institution-level configuration – and the list of available values, the default value, and the pages affected do not change based on the mode.
The practical difference between the two modes is only in typical usage, not in the behavior of this specific setting:
– In K-12 Mode, institutions typically run several short, fixed-length periods per day (for example, 40 to 50 minutes each) and often prefer a shorter interval, such as 15 or 30 minutes, so that period start times remain easy to read on the calendar.
– In Higher Education Mode, institutions often run longer lecture blocks with more flexible start times spread across a longer day, and may prefer a longer interval, such as 60 minutes, for a more compact overview. In this mode, the person delivering a class is generally labelled Teacher (Lecturer) rather than Teacher, in line with the terminology normally used for Higher Education institutions.
This is a general guideline based on typical scheduling patterns, not a rule enforced by the system. An institution in either mode may pick any of the eight available values.
Examples
Example 1 – K-12 Mode
Alpha Primary School runs six 45-minute lessons per day, back to back, starting at 08:00. The Admin sets Calendar timeslot duration to 15. When Teacher (Lecturer) Maria Andrews opens her Home dashboard, the calendar widget shows a time label every 15 minutes (08:00, 08:15, 08:30, 08:45, and so on), making it easy for her to see exactly when each lesson starts and ends.
Example 2 – Higher Education Mode
Beta University offers lecture blocks that typically run for one to two hours, with different Groups (Sections) starting at different times throughout the day. The Admin sets the Calendar time slot duration to 60. When Student Jordan Lee views the Calendar page in Week layout, time labels appear only on the hour (09:00, 10:00, 11:00, and so on), giving a cleaner, more compact overview of a longer academic day.
Example 3 – Absences Calendar
Gamma International School keeps the default value of 15 minutes. When Parent (Guardian) Robert Chen opens the Absences calendar for his child, absence records for the day are displayed against a time column labelled every 15 minutes, so he can quickly match an absence to the exact lesson period in which it occurred.
When to Use
When to Use a Shorter Interval (15 or 30 minutes)
– Your institution has many short activities or lessons during the day, and users need to distinguish between closely spaced start times at a glance.
– Users frequently create or review events, sessions, or meetings that start at non-standard times, for example 09:10 or 09:45.
– Readability of fine time detail is more important to your users than fitting the whole day on one screen without scrolling.
When to Use a Longer Interval (60 to 120 minutes)
– Your institution mainly schedules longer blocks of time, for example lecture periods of one hour or more.
– Most activities start on the hour or on the half hour, so fine-grained labels would add clutter without adding useful information.
– You want users to see a full day’s calendar with less scrolling, prioritizing a compact overview over fine time detail.
Notes
Prerequisites
– The Calendar, or the relevant dashboard widget, must be visible to the role in question. If an administrator has hidden the Calendar for a given role (see Related Settings below), that role will not see any effect from this setting, because the calendar itself is not shown.
– For the Absences calendar to be affected, the attendance calendar feature for Parents and Students must be enabled and accessible to the relevant role.
– No other configuration is strictly required before changing this setting. It can be adjusted at any time and takes effect the next time an affected calendar page is loaded.
Related Settings
– Select elements to hide at a role’s dashboard (Main Settings > General Settings > Dashboard Settings > Dashboard Settings & Rights): controls whether the Calendar widget appears on a given role’s dashboard at all. If the Calendar is hidden for a role, this Duration setting has no visible effect for that role.
– Default minutes duration on timetable views (Academic Settings > Timetable > Timetable Settings > Visibility Settings & Rights): a separate setting that defines the default period length shown specifically in Timetable module views, not the general Calendar pages covered by this guide.
– Timetable calendar time slot, for calendar view option (Academic Settings > Timetable > Timetable Settings > Timetable Creation Settings): the equivalent time-label spacing control for the Timetable building and scheduling screens. It works the same way as this setting, but only affects the Timetable module, not the Calendar, Home dashboard, or Absences views described in this guide.
– Default Min Minutes of Timetable Period per Lesson (Academic Settings > Timetable > Timetable Settings > Timetable Creation Settings): defines the minimum length, in minutes, of a lesson added to the timetable. This is different from the current setting, which only affects how time is labelled, not how long an activity is.
Assumptions vs Confirmed Behavior
Confirmed by the application’s design: the setting is a single institution-wide choice of 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, or 120 minutes, defaulting to 15; it governs time-label spacing on the Home dashboard calendar, the main Calendar page, and the Absences calendar, in Day and Week layout only; and it behaves identically in K-12 Mode and Higher Education Mode.
Reasonable assumptions, not directly confirmed, included to help with decision-making: the typical preference for shorter intervals in K-12 institutions and longer intervals in Higher Education institutions. If your institution’s experience differs, treat this guide as a starting point and choose the value that best suits how your calendars are used day to day.
