Turn an A/B day schedule into a calendar that does not lie
Rotating schedules are the one pattern every calendar app gets wrong by default. Paste your timetable, and this converter picks a rule that matches how your school actually rotates — then you confirm it in the editor before importing.
First: which kind of rotation do you have?
There are two patterns that both get called 'A/B', and they need different treatment. Week A / Week B (also called Week 1 / Week 2) means the whole week alternates: your Tuesday lab is on Week A only, so it happens every second Tuesday.
A/B day block scheduling means the days alternate inside the week: Monday is an A day, Tuesday a B day, and the pattern continues across school days. That second kind is where most converters produce a calendar that is subtly wrong.
Week A / Week B: one biweekly rule
For a week-level rotation, the correct encoding is a weekly event with an interval of two — the event repeats every second week on the same weekday, ending on the last teaching week of term.
This produces the right count automatically: a 14-week course with a Week A Tuesday lab gives 7 instances, not 14. If your calendar shows 14, the interval is missing.
A/B day rotation: dates, not rules
A day-level rotation cannot be expressed as a repeating rule, because holidays break the alternation. After a long weekend, what would have been an A day becomes a B day, and a rule that ignores that drifts permanently out of sync.
The reliable approach is one dated event per class meeting. Paste the schedule as a list of dates, and every row becomes its own event, so a holiday simply removes one date instead of shifting the rest of the term.
What the converter does with your text
If the text says 'Week A Tuesday' or 'alternating weeks', the event is created with a biweekly rule. If it lists actual dates, each date becomes a separate event.
Both forms land in the editor, where the Repeats column tells you which one you got. That column is the fastest way to catch a wrong interpretation before it reaches your phone.
Verify in two minutes
Count the instances of one rotating class. A Week A class in a 14-week term should appear 7 times; a 6-day cycle should appear once per listed date.
Then check one instance after a holiday. If the class lands on a date your timetable says is the other rotation, the events need to be dated rather than recurring.
FAQ
- How do I add an A/B day schedule to Google Calendar?
- Convert the schedule to an .ics file first, then in Google Calendar open Settings → Import & export → Import. For a Week A/Week B timetable use a biweekly rule; for a day-level rotation use one dated event per class.
- Why does my A/B schedule show up every week?
- The event was encoded as a plain weekly repeat with no interval. A Week A/Week B class needs an interval of two weeks, and a day-level rotation needs separate dated events.
- Does Google Calendar support A/B day schedules natively?
- No calendar app has an A/B day setting. The workaround is either a two-week recurrence rule or individual dated events, both of which are standard iCalendar and import everywhere.
- What about a 6-day rotating schedule?
- Use dated events. A six-day cycle does not align with weeks, so any weekly or biweekly rule will drift. List the dates and each meeting becomes its own event.
- Can I fix a rotation that was imported incorrectly?
- Yes. Open the file in the validator, change the Repeats column to the correct rule or split the series into dated events, then re-export and import into a fresh calendar.