Introduction

What is MARTA?

MARTA (Polish: Modułowa Aplikacja Rezerwacji i Tworzenia Aktywności; Modular Application for Reservations and Activity Creation) is a Joomla extension for managing activity timetables and room use.

The system brings together information about locations, groups and instructors, then uses it to build a clear timetable. The timetable can be managed from the Joomla administrator area and published directly on the website.

A single source of truth

MARTA stores all the information needed to prepare a timetable in one place. Group names, instructor details, locations and activity times therefore do not need to be entered separately in every view published on the website.

A change made in the administrator area can be reflected immediately in every timetable that uses the updated information.

What information can the system store?

MARTA can manage information about:

• buildings and their addresses;
• rooms assigned to buildings;
• activity types, including a description and image;
• activity levels;
• instructors;
• groups and classes;
• timetable entries and timetable periods.

A group can be linked to an activity type, level and instructor. A timetable entry identifies the group, room, day of the week, start time and end time.

Managing the timetable

The Continuous Timetable defines the standard recurring weekly plan. You can also create timetable periods that are activated manually or automatically for a specified date range.

A period can replace or supplement the Continuous Timetable. This makes it possible to prepare a holiday timetable or a schedule for a special event without deleting the normal plan. When entries are saved and published, MARTA analyses room occupancy and warns about detected conflicts.

Publishing information

The timetable can be published on a Joomla website as a single-day or weekly view. Activities can be presented on a timeline or in a compact list, and the view can be restricted to selected days and rooms.

Depending on the configuration, visitors can see activity times, room and group colours, and details about the activity type, level, instructor and location. An optional module can also display the timetables for one, two or three selected days side by side.

Who is MARTA for?

MARTA is intended for organisations that run regular activities in one or more rooms, including:

• schools and educational establishments;
• cultural centres and providers of extracurricular activities;
• clubs, studios and training centres;
• other organisations that publish recurring activity timetables.

What next?

The best way to begin is to create the buildings and rooms. You can then add activity types, levels, instructors and groups before building and publishing the timetable.