Teachers
How do I read the calendar and add a session to my own calendar?
Written by the TestFLE team.
In short
The “Calendar” entry in the sidebar shows, week by week, your class sessions and your students’ individual openings. Click a block, then “Add to my calendar”, to put that session in Google, Outlook or iCal.
Who this is for, and what you need first
- Who this is for
- Teachers who follow their class sessions; the opening actions also require the right to open tests.
- What you need first
- At least one class of which you are the teacher.
- To schedule, change or close: the right to open tests, granted by your school’s administrator.
- For your own calendar: a Google or Outlook account, or the Calendar app on your device.
The steps
- In the sidebar, click “Calendar”.
- Choose the week. “Today” goes back to the current week, and the two arrows next to it move to the previous or the next one. Clicking a day in the small month view, on the left, takes you straight to it.
- If needed, narrow the display to one class with the “All classes” list.
- Click the block of a session or an opening. A pop-up opens on the block.
- In the pop-up, click “Add to my calendar”.
- Choose “Add to Google”, “Add to iCal” or “Add to Outlook”.
- For Google and Outlook, save the event in the tab that opens. For iCal, let the Calendar app open the downloaded file.
What the calendar shows
The calendar draws the week, from Monday to Sunday, over twenty-four hours. Each block is as tall as its duration and gives the name of the class or the student, then the times. The colour gives the state:
- green, “Session in progress”;
- blue, “Planned”;
- brown, “Ended”;
- dashed edge, for an individual opening (“Dashed edge: individual opening”).
A class session also carries its state in words (“in progress”, “planned”, “ended”). An individual opening says “one-time” for a one-time attempt, or “unlimited”. Anything that runs over several days appears in the “several days” band, above the hours. In the small month view, a dot under a day means that something is happening on it.
The times are those of your time zone, which is recalled under the grid (“Times shown in your time zone:” followed by the time zone). Under the grid, a sentence states what the calendar contains: “The calendar only shows what concerns your classes and students. Cancelled sessions do not appear.”
What the pop-up offers
The pop-up gives the state of the session, its day and its times. For an individual opening, it adds the mode (one-time attempt or unlimited) and the student’s name. Its buttons depend on the state:
- “Follow the session” for a class session in progress (following a session live);
- “View the session report” for a class session that has ended (reading a session report);
- “Change the times”, as long as the session or the opening has not ended; the window that opens is titled “Edit the session”;
- “Close now” for anything in progress: a class session stops at once, with the same effects as its end time;
- “Cancel the session” (or “Cancel the opening”) for anything that has not started;
- “Add to my calendar” for a single session or opening, upcoming or in progress, that has an end time.
The “Schedule a class session…” and “Open an attempt…” buttons, at the top of the screen, open the windows described in scheduling a session and opening the test to a single student. The actions that change a session (these two buttons, “Change the times”, “Close now” and the cancellations) require the right to open tests. Without that right, they do not appear, but you can still read the calendar and use “Follow the session”, “View the session report” and “Add to my calendar”.
Going further
Understanding the calendar and the export
What does the event added to my calendar contain?
The event takes the times of the session. Its title is “TestFLE: Test session”, followed by the name of the class (“TestFLE: Test session - CE1 Bleuets”, for example). For an individual opening, that name is the student’s current class. The title follows the language of your account.
The location and the notes carry your school’s web address. The event contains no student name and no school reference: a calendar is personal and can be shared.
The three choices give the same event. “Add to Google” and “Add to Outlook” each open a tab with the event filled in; you save it yourself. “Add to iCal” downloads a file that the Calendar app opens on its own. TestFLE does not connect to any of these accounts.
Why does the event not follow my changes?
Adding is a copy. TestFLE keeps no link with your calendar: if you later change the times of the session, or cancel it, the event already added does not move. Correct it in your own calendar.
Why “Add to my calendar” is sometimes missing
The button only appears for a session or an opening that is upcoming or in progress, with an end time. It is therefore missing in two cases:
- the session has ended; a one-time attempt the student has already taken is shown as “Ended”, even before the planned end time;
- the block groups several sessions with identical times.
An opening with no end never has the button, because it is not drawn in the grid: it is an open door, not an appointment. For a grouped block, the pop-up lists each class or each student, with a tick box. It does not add an event, because events are added one at a time. To isolate a class, choose it in the “All classes” list.
Acting on several openings in a grouped block
Several blocks of the same kind with strictly identical times are grouped into one, named “3 classes” or “3 students” for example. The pop-up then lists each row with a box, all ticked to begin with. “Change the times”, “Close now” and the cancellations apply to the ticked boxes. If none is ticked, the pop-up says so: “Tick the ones the action should apply to.”
The server handles the rows one by one, without stopping at the first refusal. A summary then appears above the calendar: “Done for” followed by the names and, for each refusal, “Refused for” followed by the name and the reason. If nothing went through, the screen says “The action did not go through.”, and if only part of it went through, “The action only partly went through.”
If adding to your calendar is refused
The “Add to my calendar” window asks the server for the file when it opens. If the session has changed between the display and your click, the window shows the reason:
- the session has been cancelled (“The session has been cancelled.”);
- the session has ended (“The session is over.”);
- the opening has no end (“An open-ended opening is not an appointment: nothing to add to a calendar.”).
Another message appears if the calendar itself does not load: “Unable to load the calendar.”
Related articles
- How do I schedule a test session for a class?A class session opens the TestFLE placement test to a whole class, one attempt per student, at set times. You schedule it from the “My classes” tab or from the “Calendar”, choosing the day, the times, the mode and the setting.
- How do I read a class session report?A class session report shows, for each student, whether they are done with their level, absent, not started or “Not computable”. Open it with “View the session report”, in the class menu or in the “Calendar”.
- How do I open the test to a single student?From the three dots on a student’s row in “My students”, choose “Open a one-time attempt…” or “Open unlimited…”, then the start, the end, the mode and the setting. For a student who takes the test at home, choose “Remote”: the window offers “In person” by default.
- How do I add the test appointment to my calendar?The “Add to my calendar” button puts the test appointment in Google, Outlook or iCal. You will find it on the “My test” card on the Home page and on each line of the “Calendar”.