Students, faculty and staff may use the new Princeton Timeline to get information about events, classes, deadlines and announcements all in one place. Timeline was developed by the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and is available to members of the University community as a website or mobile app.
"Timeline is the next generation of calendaring at Princeton," said Serge Goldstein, associate CIO and director of Academic Technology Services at OIT. "The goal of Timeline is to get the right information to the right people at the right time and in the right way."
Members of the University community may access Timeline online at timeline.princeton.edu or download the Princeton Timeline app from Apple or Google Play stores.
Goldstein said Timeline was developed to make it easier for students, faculty and staff to manage their schedules, as well as to send and receive targeted information about campus events and announcements. Students, faculty and staff log in to Timeline with their network IDs and passwords, which allows users to customize their experience. Timeline events also may be exported to Google and Outlook calendars.
"Timeline offers a personal view for each user, automatically populating items like a student's course schedule or a faculty member's office hours," Goldstein said. "You also can customize the types of information you want to receive, for example athletic events, and the way in which you want to receive notices, such as a text alert or calendar notification."
The new Princeton Timeline calendar system provides information about University events, classes, deadlines and announcements all in one place. Timeline is available to faculty, staff and students as a mobile app or as a website at timeline.princeton.edu, as shown in the above example. Timeline makes it easier to manage schedules, as well as to send and receive targeted information about campus events and announcements. (Images courtesy of the Office of Information Technology)
Timeline offers targeted posts that may be sent to select people, for example, a deadline notification for undergraduate history majors, a Human Resources announcement for employees, or a meeting reminder for members of the Graduate Student Government. The system also offers tagged posts based on interest or activity. For example, a music fan could sign up to receive notices about Glee Club concerts.
"We are working on adding more groups who can send and receive targeted posts in Timeline, and we appreciate input from members of the campus community about groups they would like included," Goldstein said.
Timeline also will automatically pull events from the University's Public Events Calendar, but because Timeline is only accessible to University users, the calendar will still be used to share information with the public about open campus activities.
"We are excited about Timeline's launch, though it is a work in progress. We will continue to develop and improve the system, adding more groups, functionality and features," Goldstein said.
Students, faculty and staff may download the Princeton Timeline app for their mobile devices from Apple or Google Play stores. The goal of Timeline is to get the right information to the right people at the right time and in the right way. Timeline events may be exported to Google and Outlook calendars, and other functions will continue to be added to the system.
Timeline was developed by OIT's Academic Technology Services, Administrative Information Services, Project and Technology Consulting Office, and User Experience Office. OIT sought input from across campus as it developed Timeline, holding focus groups and meetings with various faculty, staff and students, and continues to seek feedback about how to improve the system.
More information and tutorials may be found on the Timeline Information webpage. Feedback about Timeline should be emailed to timeline@princeton.edu. Faculty, staff and students who need help downloading the Timeline app or using the system may contact timeline@princeton.edu or the OIT Support and Operations Center at helpdesk@princeton.edu or 609-258-4357.
