How it works, step by step

Everything in Active Timers and Schedule, in the order you meet it: from the first timer to a full day with a schedule, a crew and several stages. It is free, and it runs in the browser – nothing to install.

1. The idea in one minute

You work in three kinds of windows.

The technician's window is yours. It holds the run list – one row per speaker or item, each with its time – and the buttons that run the clock.
The stage screen is what the speaker sees: a large countdown that turns yellow, then red, and counts over time when the speaker runs long. It only shows; nothing can be changed from it.
The pages you share are for everybody else: a schedule for guests and speakers, a sheet for the crew, a screen for the foyer, the clock on the speaker's own phone.

One room is one stage on one day. It has its own run list, its own stage screen and its own links.

2. Get started: guest or free account

Try it at once, as a guest

Open the start page and press Start as guest. For a day with clock times, press Or start with timers and a schedule instead.
You are in the technician's window of your first room. There is no account and no email.

A guest room is tied to the browser you made it in. It is deleted after 7 days without use, and a guest can have three rooms.

Save your events with a free account

On the start page, type your work email under Save your events and tick the box.
Press Email me a sign-in link. Open the mail and press the link within 30 minutes. There is no password.
You land on My rooms. Rooms you made as a guest in the same browser move to your account.

With an account you can prepare at the office and open the same room on the computer at the venue, work in a room with a colleague, and control the room from other systems.

3. Rooms and the two modes

On My rooms, type the event's name, choose a mode and press Create room.
Make one room per stage and day. A two-day conference with one stage is two rooms.
Press Open to go to a room's technician's window. Copy makes a new room with the same list and settings – handy for an event that returns.

A room works in one of two modes. You switch between them at any time with the two buttons above the run list, and nothing is lost by switching.

Basic timer: a list of timers and a clock. Enough for a meeting or a row of talks where only the lengths matter.
Advanced timer and schedule: the same, with a clock time on every row, headings, a speaker column, and pages to share – the schedule page, the Now and Next screen and the crew page.

4. Build the run list

Row by row

Press + Add timer.
Type the title. It is shown on stage, so write what the speaker should recognise: "Welcome – Anna Berg".
Type the time: 5 is five minutes, 7:30 is seven and a half.
Use Notes for what only you need to see: "walk-on music", "clicker, own laptop".
Move a row with the arrows, and remove it with the cross.

Or paste the whole programme

Press Paste an agenda.
Paste the programme as it is written, from an email, a document or a spreadsheet – one item per line, with its times or its length.
Check the result and press Add to the run list. Tick Replace the run list to start over instead of adding at the end.

These lines are all understood:

# Morning
09:00–09:20 Welcome
09:20 Keynote
10:05–10:30 Coffee
Panel 45 min

A line with only a start time lasts until the next one starts. A line that begins with # becomes a heading. A gap between two items becomes a row called "Break". Lines without a time are left out, and the first start time becomes the start of the day.

In the advanced mode

+ Add heading makes a row with a title only – "Morning", "After lunch". It is never on stage, and Next passes over it.
Speaker is a column of its own. The stage then shows "Title – Speaker".
Own columns… gives every row up to four fields of your own for the crew – audio, video, light, microphones. See the crew page.

5. Put the stage screen up

A second screen on your own computer

Connect the screen by the stage to your laptop as an extended display.
Press Open stage window in the box Stage screen.
Drag the window to the screen by the stage and press F for full screen.

Another computer, an iPad or a phone

An iPad or a phone: in the box Stage screen there is a QR code right under the stage link. Point the camera of the iPad or the phone at it. The stage screen opens, with nothing to type or send.
Another computer: press Copy beside the stage link, send the link over and open it there.

Then tap the screen to get the full-screen button. An iPhone has no full screen in the browser: add the page to the home screen and open it from there.

The stage link needs no sign-in, and it only shows. Give it to whoever looks after the screen. You can have several stage screens open at once – one for the speaker, one at the back of the room.

The stage shows the countdown, the title of the item and the time of day. Under Settings and other systems you choose whether the title and the time of day are shown.

6. Run the show

Press Start on the row that goes first. The clock runs on stage and in your window.
When the speaker is done, press the large Next. It starts the next row. It never happens by itself: if a speaker runs long, the clock turns red and counts over time until you press.
Pause holds the clock and Resume lets it go again. Reset gives the row its full time back.
+1 min and −1 min give or take a minute on the row that is on stage.
To go out of order, press Start on any row.

On the keyboard, N is Next and space is Pause.

The colours

The clock turns yellow when two minutes are left and red when one minute is left. After zero it counts up in red with a plus sign, and blinks. Change the two limits, and turn the blinking off, under Settings and other systems. On a short timer the limits shrink by themselves.

A message to the speaker

Type in the box Message to the speaker, or press one of the ready lines – "Please wrap up", "One minute left".
Press Show. The message lies across the stage screen until you press Hide.

7. The schedule: clock times for the day

This part is in the mode Advanced timer and schedule.

Type when the first row begins in Day starts at.
Every row now shows its start, worked out from the rows before it. The line above the list says when the day ends.
While you run, the same line says whether the day is on time, behind or ahead, and rows that will start late show their new time in colour.

A fixed start

Some things happen at a set time whatever comes before – lunch at 12:00. Type the time in that row's Start field. Empty the field to let the row follow the others again.

If the rows before do not add up to that time, the row says how much time is to spare or how much is planned too much, with the ways out one press away: Add a break, Shorten the row before, Move to the time that fits, or Let it follow.

Catch up when the day runs late

When the day is a minute or more behind, press Catch up.
It proposes shorter times for the rows that have not started. Untick a row to leave it as it is, for example a break.
Press Shorten these rows.

The clock on stage is never sped up, and no row is cut below half its time. The schedule does not run by itself either: the times follow what you start.

Open the group Share in the technician's window. Every page there has its own link, so handing out one never hands out another. None of them needs a sign-in, and none of them can change anything.

The schedule page – for anybody

In Share the schedule, press Copy and send the link, or let people scan the QR code.
The page shows the event's name and the items with their times. It marks what is on stage now and, with Live times, shows new times when the day runs late. Planned times shows the schedule as it was set; the choice goes into the address, so you can send a link that shows either. The crew page and the programme page have the same switch, and a Now and Next screen takes ?times=planned in its address.
Print it gives a clean sheet in black on white.

Your notes are never on the schedule page.

The Now and Next screen – for the foyer

Press Open the Now and Next screen and put it on a display outside the room. It shows what is on now and until when, and what comes next, in large type.

The crew page – your own columns for the crew

Press Own columns… under the run list and name up to four columns: Audio, Video, Light.
Fill in the fields that appear under every row: "Headset 1", "Slides on input 2".
In the box Crew page, tick Share a crew page. Nothing is shared before you do.
Copy the link and send it to the crew. Each of them can press a column's name to hide it, and send on a link that shows just their own columns.
Tick Show my notes there too if the crew should read your notes. The run list then says so above the notes.

Name plates for the stream

Press Open the name plates. The page lists every row with its names as buttons – a row written as "Anna Berg, Bo Ek & Cia Dahl" gets three.
Copy the link at the bottom and give it to the person running the stream. They add it in vMix or OBS as a browser source, 1920×1080, transparent. It shows nothing until you put a plate on air.
Press a name and its plate comes in; press it again, or Take off, and it goes. One plate at a time – in a panel, the one who is talking. A name that is not in the list is typed in under Someone else.
Choose a look, an accent colour and a size, and whether a name from the run list gets the item's title under it or stands alone. The preview on the page is the overlay itself, so what you see is what the stream gets.
With an account you can make looks of your own, up to ten: press New look…, set the colours, the type, the corners, where the plate sits and how it comes in, and add a logo (PNG, JPEG, WebP or SVG, at most 300 KB). Every change is saved as you make it, and the stream follows. Your looks are there in all your rooms.

Prefer the names in your own vMix titles? The table under vMix on the API page gives them as data.

The speaker's phone

In Speaker's phone, let the speaker scan the QR code.
The speaker presses Turn on the signals and keeps the page open with the screen on.
The phone shows the stage clock and flashes when the time turns yellow, red and runs out. Android phones also buzz; iPhones cannot.

Rehearsal links

In Rehearsal links, copy the link beside a speaker's row and send it.
The speaker presses Start at home and practises against the time they will get, on the same clock as on stage. Nothing on your stage moves.
When they press I'm done, your window shows that they have practised and how long it took.

9. The designer: your own graphics

The screens and the name plates come with a built-in look. The designer lets you make your own instead: a canvas where you place text, shapes, pictures, a progress bar, a QR code, a ticker or a countdown where you want them, in your colours and with your logo – and where the text fills itself in with what is happening in the room. It needs an account. Open it from the box Screens in the technician's window or from the name-plate page – its address is /designs.

Four kinds of design

Name plate – the lower third in the stream, with the name and the line under it. Drawn on a transparent picture.
Stage screen – what the speaker sees: the clock, the title, the message, and anything else you want there.
Now and Next – the screen in the foyer: what is on now, what comes next and when.
Slide – a full picture with nothing fixed about it: "Starting soon" with a countdown, "Thank you", a sponsor loop. A slide is used wherever it fits: choose it as the stage screen's design, or as a name-plate design to lay it over the stream.

Make one

Press New design and pick a template – the eight name-plate looks are there as designs, with a broadcast two-tier, a festival plate, a corporate one with a logo slot and a progress bar, two stage screens, two Now and Next screens and three slides. Or start from an empty canvas.
Or ask an AI: press AI, say what you want – "a dark plate with a gold line and the name in serif" – and a design is drawn for you to change. Without a connected AI the same button gives you a text to paste into your own assistant; paste its answer back as JSON.
Move, resize and rotate with the handles, align with the guides that appear, and set every layer's details on the right: type, colour, shadow, how it comes in, how it goes out, and what it does while it is there. Ctrl+Z undoes. Everything is saved as you go.
Press Use to put the design on a room, or do it from the room as below.

Live data: the double braces

Any text may hold a key in double braces, and the key is replaced by the room's live value. The most useful:

{{plate.name}} and {{plate.line}} – the name plate on air.
{{clock}} – the clock as on stage (4:59, +0:12), {{phase}} – normal, yellow, red or over, {{state}} – idle, ready, running or paused.
{{timer.title}}, {{timer.speaker}}, {{timer.names.0}} to {{timer.names.3}} – the item on stage and its speakers one by one.
{{next.title}}, {{next.speaker}}, {{next.at}} – the item after it and when it is expected.
{{message}} – the message to the speaker, {{room.name}} – the event, {{day.behind}} – "12 min late" or nothing, {{day.start}} and {{day.end}}.
{{now.time}}, {{now.date}}, {{now.weekday}} – the clock on the wall.

A layer can also be shown only when there is something to show: when the text is not empty (a second line, a message), in a colour phase (a red frame when the time is over), while something runs, while a plate is on air, or when the day runs late. That is how the templates make the stage clock change colour: one layer per colour.

Data from outside

A design can read a data source of its own: a JSON address, a CSV file, a plain text, an RSS feed – or a Google Sheet published to the web as CSV. Add it under Sources with a name, and use {{src.name}} in a text; a list, such as a feed's headlines, can run in a ticker. Our server fetches the address for the screens, every so many seconds as you set, so it must be public on the internet, and the address and what it returns pass through our server. Do not point it at anything private.

Effects

Every layer has a way in, a way out and, if you like, something it does while it is there. Besides the quiet ones – fade, slide, rise, scale, blur, wipe, a typewriter for text – there are the ones that make a room smile: confetti (a burst of paper as the layer lands), burn (fire eats the layer away, or licks its edge while it stands), glitch (the picture tears for a moment), explode, shatter and pixelate. Preview each one on the layer with the play button beside it. Use them with a light hand; a name plate that burns every time is funny once.

Use a design in a room

The screens: in the technician's window, under Settings and other systems, the box Screens has a choice for the stage screen and one for the Now and Next screen. Standard is the built-in screen. The choice takes effect on every screen that shows the room, at once.
The name plates: on the name-plate page your plate designs stand among your looks, marked Design. Press one and the stream draws with it; its own colours and sizes apply, so the accent colour and size there are greyed out. A design can also take itself off air after a set number of seconds.
From the editor: Use puts the design on one of your rooms.

A colleague you edit a room with sees your designs there and can choose them, but only you can change them. If you delete a design, the rooms that used it go back to the standard look.

Logos

Upload your logo in the image library (the image tool), or press Find a logo on the web there and give the company's name or website: we look on its homepage and on Wikipedia and keep what we find as one of your pictures. The AI uses your pictures too – "with the Acme logo" makes it look the logo up when you have none. Make sure you may use a logo you did not make yourself.

Templates from the community

A design made with the service's own AI becomes a template for every user the first time you use it in a room: its layout, colours, texts and motions – never your pictures or data sources, and without your name. That is how the template library grows. A design you make with your own AI (the copy-and-paste path), or by hand, stays yours alone. The designer says so before the AI draws.

10. Work together, and events with several stages or days

Edit a room together

In the box Edit together, type a colleague's email address and press Invite.
The colleague signs in with that address – the account is free – and finds the room on their own My rooms, marked "Shared by".
You both see each other's changes at once, and the header says who else has the room open.

A colleague can do everything in the room, running the show included, except delete it, invite others and make keys for other systems. You can take them out again, and they can leave. A room made without an account cannot be shared.

A programme: several rooms on one page

On My rooms, under Programmes, press Create programme and give it the event's name.
Add the rooms that belong to it, and give each its day. Rooms on the same day are parallel tracks.
Share the programme's link. The page shows the days under each other and the rooms of a day side by side, and follows every room live.
Now and Next screen on the programme gives one screen for the foyer with what is on now and next in every room.

A room is shown in a programme while it is in the mode Advanced timer and schedule. Notes are never shown.

11. Let your AI assistant do the typing

From a file to a schedule. Is the programme in Excel or Word? The page AI Friendly has one sentence to copy. Give it to your AI assistant together with the file. The assistant gives you a link; open it, check the schedule and press Create room.
Change a schedule you already have. In the room, press Change it with your AI, copy the text into your assistant and say what you want – "move the keynote to after the coffee". Open the link it gives you; you see the result before the room changes.
Connected. On My rooms, under Connect your AI assistant, make your connection and add it to an assistant that takes connectors, such as Claude. After that you only have to ask.

An assistant only edits the schedule. It can never start, pause or stop the clock, send a message to the stage, or change what is on stage.

12. After the event

Open the group Report and Excel and press Open the report. It lists every item that was on stage with its planned time and the time actually used.
From the report: Print or save as PDF, Download for Excel, or Clear the history.
Download for Excel in the technician's window gives the run list itself as a file: start, end, length, title, speaker and notes.
For next year's event, press Copy on the room on My rooms.

13. Stream Deck, video mixers and your own programs

Sign in – rooms made without an account cannot be controlled from outside.
In the room, open Settings and other systems and make a key under Control from other systems. A key for all your rooms is made on My rooms.
Follow the page API: start, pause and Next from a button panel, the countdown in a video mix, or the day's agenda loaded from your own system.

A key is shown once. Treat it like a password: anyone who has it can control the room.

Name plates in the stream

If the event is streamed with vMix, the names you have already written in the run list can fill the name plates: the room gives a table with the speaker on stage, the names of a panel one by one, and who comes next, and vMix puts them into your own titles. Press Next in the room and the plates follow. The steps are under vMix on the API page.

14. Your account

Signing in is always a link in an email. Your session lasts 30 days on that computer.
Two-step sign-in is optional. Press Account on My rooms and turn it on: signing in then also takes a code from an authenticator app on your phone. Save the recovery codes you are shown.
Sign out on a shared computer when you are done.
Delete my account, at the bottom of My rooms, erases your rooms and your address from the service at once.

15. If the internet drops

A clock that is running keeps running, on stage and in your window.
A stage window on your own computer keeps following you, so you can go on pressing Start and Next.
A stage screen on another device says "No connection – still counting" and catches up when the connection is back.
Control from other systems and the shared pages wait until the connection is back. What you run meanwhile is not in the report.

16. Good to know

Not for secrets. Anyone with a link sees what that page shows. Do not type anything sensitive into titles, notes or messages.
Times follow each device's own clock. The countdown is the same everywhere; the time of day on the stage screen is that device's own.
Limits. Three rooms as a guest, 50 with an account. Up to four columns of your own, and up to ten colleagues in a room.
It is free, with or without an account. How we handle your details is on the page Privacy, and the conditions are in the Terms of use.

17. Help and contact

Questions about this service, or something that does not work: write to appsupport@activeled.se.

Press Get help at the bottom of the technician's window, or at the bottom of My rooms.
You get a support code, like ATS-7K4M-2QXP. Press Copy, or the button that opens a mail with the code already in the subject.
Write what you did, what happened and what you expected, and send it.

The code tells us which room and which browser it is about, so that you do not have to send links or screenshots of them. It holds nothing you have typed, and it opens nothing by itself.

Bigger event? Active LED is a full-service event agency, and we offer event services across Europe. In the technician's window, Send this programme to Active LED sends us your run list so that we can get back to you – or visit activeled.se.