This article will help you to set up your Bell Schedule. This is a core function that many features within Minga rely upon, like showing student schedules on IDs, and much more.
Note: Bell Schedule is only available with the Plus and Premium subscription plans.
The Bell Schedule module provides school-wide visibility into student and teacher schedules. This feature allows you to build recurring schedules, map periods to your Student Information System (SIS), and manage irregular calendar days like holidays or early releases. After completing this setup, schedules will be visible on user profiles and the main dashboard.
Permission Level Required: Owner | District Manager
In this article:
Enable Bell Schedule: How to turn on the feature within your school settings.
Select your terms:
Create your Bell Schedule: How to build schedules and map SIS short codes to periods.
Using the Calendar for Irregular Schedule Days: Anticipate and plan for early release days, professional development days, and special occasions.
Make Bell Schedule Visible: Enable visibility for Students, Teachers, and Staff.
How To Enable Bell Schedule
Bell Schedule setup gives you consistent, school-wide visibility into where a student should be during each period, and it can support automation like uploading tardy data to your SIS.
Step-by-step Guide To Enabling Bell Schedule
Step-by-step Guide To Enabling Bell Schedule
Navigate to Settings from the primary navigation menu.
Select the Settings tab along the top of the page.
Scroll until you see the Scheduling heading, and click on the dropdown menu.
Toggle the setting Show bell schedule for owners and managers to ON
Keep Show bell schedule for staff and students turned OFF while you are still building or editing schedules.
Refresh your browser, or log out and back in to have the Bell Schedule tab appear next to the Subscription tab in Settings.
Important: You can set up schedules first without showing them to the school by leaving Show bell schedule for staff and students turned OFF until you complete the setup steps.
Select Your Terms
Step-by-step Guide to Selecting Your Terms
Step-by-step Guide to Selecting Your Terms
Select Settings from the main navigation menu and then select the Bell Schedule tab.
On the dropdown menu, select Terms.
Here, all the Terms that are rostered from your SIS will appear.
Click on the blue edit pencil to rename the Terms so that they are recognizable to you.
Under the Bell Schedule heading, there will be a dropdown of any Bell Schedules you have already created, if you have not created any schedules, this menu will be blank.
You can associate the Term to the Bell Schedule from this screen, or from the Schedules screen outlined in Create Your Bell Schedule.
Select Save to confirm any changes.
Important: If you do not see any Terms listed, you need to confirm that class rosters are syncing in Minga. (People> Rostering and ensure that the setting Sync class rosters as user lists automatically is toggled ON)
Create Your Bell Schedule
This section covers how to define your terms and build the specific timing for your periods. You must have an active SIS sync for terms to populate. While setting up a Bell Schedule involves several moving parts, our interactive walkthrough is designed to guide you through each step with ease.
In the following examples, we will reference these Minga High Bell Schedules:
Additional Example Minga High Bell Schedules
Additional Example Minga High Bell Schedules
Interactive Walkthrough:
Step-by-step Guide to Creating your Bell Schedule
Step-by-step Guide to Creating your Bell Schedule
Navigate to Settings > Bell Schedule > Schedules.
Click Create Schedule.
Enter a Schedule name (this name is visible to Owners and District Managers only).
Match each period to the correct Short Code (Short Codes come from your SIS).
Set the Start Time and End Time for each period.
Select which Days the schedule applies to.
Select which Term the schedule applies to.
Click Create or Save to finish.
Tip: You can create separate schedules for early dismissals, late starts, grade-specific schedules, and special event days so your calendar stays accurate without constant manual edits.
Using the Calendar in Bell Schedule
Each bell schedule you create will automatically be applied to the Default days you select, but in some cases, there may be days where you need to implement an Early Release Schedule, or remove a schedule entirely. On the Calendar setting, you can select a schedule, or no schedule, for specific dates.
Step-by-step guide to the Calendar for your Bell Schedule
Step-by-step guide to the Calendar for your Bell Schedule
Navigate to Settings > Bell Schedule > Calendar.
The correct Bell Schedule will automatically be applied to the default days selected in Creating your Bell Schedule.
To change the schedule selected, or to remove the default schedule, click on the dropdown menu for a specific date.
Select the appropriate schedule (ex. Early Release Schedule) or No Schedule to have no Bell Schedule associated to that date.
Make Bell Schedules Visible
Step-by-step Guide to Enabling Visibility for Staff and Students
Step-by-step Guide to Enabling Visibility for Staff and Students
Select Settings from the main menu.
Click on the Settings tab along the top of the page.
Locate the Scheduling heading and click on the downward facing arrow.
Toggle ON Show bell schedule for staff and students to make schedule information visible across your school’s Minga.
Turn the toggle for Show schedule on student profile to ON to show a student’s entire daily schedule on their student profile.
Note: Students may already see basic daily schedules in My Tools. When Bell Schedule is enabled, it adds more granular details such as Teacher names and room information.
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
● Issue: You cannot see Bell Schedule in Settings.
○ Solution: Once you have turned ON the setting Show bell schedule for owners and managers, you will need to refresh your browser or log out and back into Minga to have the Bell Schedule tab appear in Settings.
● Issue: You do not see any Terms in Settings > Bell Schedule > Terms.
○ Solution: You can populate Terms only when class rosters are syncing from your SIS, so you need to confirm roster syncing is enabled and active in your SIS connection. If you do not see any class rosters importing in your sync, double-check that the correct terms are selected under People> Rostering> Manage class rosters to be synced.
● Issue: Staff or students cannot see schedule details.
○ Solution: You can make bell schedule details visible by turning on Show bell schedule for staff and students in Settings > Scheduling, and you can control profile visibility using Show schedule on student profile.
● Issue: Staff or students cannot see their schedules at the start of the new semester.
○ Solution: Check that the correct terms are selected in your Bell Schedule. At the start of the term, the previous term or semester may be set up for the Bell Schedule and the new term will need to be selected.
FAQs
FAQs
Can Teachers set up or edit Bell Schedules?
No, the only roles that can access or set up Bell Schedules by default are Owner and District Manager. To allow a user with the role of Teacher to edit or access bell schedule set up, you can change their role to Owner under People.
How do I create a bell schedule that supports early dismissals or late starts?
You can support early dismissals or late starts by creating separate schedules in Settings > Bell Schedule > Schedules with the correct period Start Time and End Time, and then assigning those schedules to the appropriate days in Settings > Bell Schedule > Calendar.
How do I make Bell Schedules visible to staff and students?
You can make bell schedules visible to staff and students by turning on Show bell schedule for staff and students in Settings > Scheduling, which makes schedule information visible across your school’s Minga.
How do I show a student’s full schedule on their profile?
You can show a student’s full schedule on their profile by turning on Show schedule on student profile in Settings > Scheduling, which adds the student’s entire daily schedule to the student profile view.