Transcript Colaborative Scheduling/ Team Calendars

Team Members:
 Mohammad Bin Hussein
 Eric Kurbat
 John Macharia
 Alcides Rodrigues
Agenda
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Introduction
Collaborative Scheduling Defined
Project Tools
Activities
Use Cases:
 Capworks Development Inc. (CDI)
 Beverly Hills Spa & Hairdresser
 Scheduling and calendar tools in the market
 Free software
 Paid software
 What did we learn
 Important Factors to consider when choosing the software
 Wikipedia Page
What is Collaborative Scheduling ?
 A bad name for a band.
 The ability to magically get everyone into a meeting
using pixie dust.
 The ability to coordinate schedules between two or
more people to schedule meetings and appointments.
Project Tools
Document/decision/communication management
Voice communication and conference calls
Real Time screen sharing
Scheduling all our meetings
Activities
1-2
 Creating, updating, and viewing schedules
from different access points.
 User reviews participants’ calendars in order to
schedule a meeting.
 A meeting organizer changes the time of a
scheduled meeting.
 A PC user wants to accept an event invitation
from a Mac user.
Activities
2-2
 A user wants to import calendar information
into his personal calendar.
 Users want to make sure that their data is
protected from unauthorized users.
 Users want to be able to work offline and then
synch when possible.
Use Cases
 Offline and automated synchronization
 Customer self-scheduling
Plan By Wire Use Cases
Offline and automated synchronization
 Name: Kate Jennings (Age: 34)
 Position: Senior Account Manager
 Company: Capworks Development Inc. (CDI)
 Location: Chicago, Sacramento, and Charlotte
Offline and automated synchronization
Objectives:
 Upgrade company’s scheduling/calendar tool to
include offline functionality.
 Increase employees productivity by maintaining an
up-to-date scheduling system; thus, allowing new
trips/meeting to be scheduled more efficiently.
Offline and automated synchronization
Background:
 Non-for-profit organization involved in affordable
housing development.
 Matches developers with investors.
 Account managers are constantly on the road
visiting developers and touring proposed
development sites - often visiting several sites in one
trip.
Offline and automated synchronization
Scenario: Kate
 Senior account manager based in Chicago. Responsible for the
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Midwest region.
Energetic and likes to get her work done efficiently.
Prefers to visit more than one location when is on site visits.
Visits sites in remote locations where Internet connectivity (or
mobile signal) is not available.
If Internet connectivity is not available, Kate still wants to be
able to use her laptop or phone to review her appointments (or
other members of her team).
Offline and automated synchronization
Requirements:
 Able to reach/modify calendar (using a laptop, or
mobile phone) even when there is no connection –
automated synchronization takes place when
internet or phone connectivity is present.
 Automated notification of new appointments,
conflicts, and/or updates.
 Application must support at least 100 users.
Offline and automated synchronization
Technology:
 Microsoft Exchange - Outlook
Beverly Hills Spa & Hairdresser
Use Case(2): Enable customers to schedule and review appointments with
service providers by directly accessing their scheduling tools.
 Name:
Veronica Nolan (age: 31)
 Position:
Owner/Manager
 Employees: 4 Full-time / 12 Part-time
 Lactation: Los Angeles
Background
 Veronica has an MBA from University of
Southern California. She and her friends
wanted to start their own business.
 Opened for Business on January 2008.
 Majority of Staff are friends prior to working
here.
 90% of their business is by phone reservation,
10% walk-in customers.
 All her Part-Time staff have Smart-Phones to
make communication between them faster via
emails.
Typical day at work
1-2
1. Starts with a really big cup of coffee!
2. She reviews the current reservations on
Outlook calendar.
3. Customers call to make reservations.
4. She checks the current schedule of her full
time staff to see if they have time the same
day or the following day.
5. If a time slot is available, Veronica confirms
the appointment with the customer (who is still on
the phone) and enters the data manually into
outlook calendar.
Typical day at work
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6. If all her full-time staff are occupied, then she
schedules the customers for the following day.
7. Then she sends a group email to her part-time
staff of the new appointment and waits for a
reply from whoever is available.
8. If she receives a positive response then she
confirmed the reservation.
9. If no one is available for the appointment,
then she makes a new one based on availability
then informs the customer of the new
reservation date and time.
Veronica needs another cup
of coffee!
Goals & Objectives
 Minimize the time spent on the phone handling
reservations and scheduling staff.
 Provide customers with an easy tool to make
their own reservations.
 Avoid schedule/ reservation conflicts and
increase efficiency.
 Give part-time employees more flexibility in
accessing and modifying their appointments.
Requirements to achieve objectives
 The software should have an easy intuitive interface that enables
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staff and customers to use it comfortably with 10 days of use.
The tool can integrate to other calendar tools such as google
calendar, outlook, iCalendar and others.
Veronica is able to see her staff’s schedules and be able to
schedule appointments based on their availability information
synchronized to the new software.
The tool will work on different platforms; Windows, Mac, Linux
etc.. to accommodate all the users.
Price-Point: less than $50 per month
Scalability: must support up to 20 people with the
ability
to expand as the business grows
Selected Tool:
“TimeCenter”
Online appointment scheduling
Customers manage appointments
Service & event scheduling
Your TimeCenter-page
SMS Text messaging
Customer database
Customer reminders
Promotion tools
Instant popularity
Your logo
Notifications
Security
Demo: https://www.timecenter.com/demo/
Other Tools to Consider:
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“AppointmentQuest” http://www.appointmentquest.com/
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Has pretty much all the features needed for Veronica’s business.
The software is adopted by different industries and business.
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The interface is less impressive than that of TimeCenter.
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“BookingCalendar” http://www.bookingcalendar.com/index.php
The tools…
Free Scheduling Tools
 agreeAdate (basic service is free)
 doodle
 Google Calendar (beta)
 meetingWizard
 mixin (advertising-based revenue stream)
 SAM (Set A Meeting)
 timeBridge
Fee-based Scheduling Tools
Note that most had an available free trial period
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Appointment-Plus
appointmentQuest
bookingCalendar
functionFox
fusionCalendar
graceSchedule
groupReady
hotSchedules
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Meeting Room Manager
Microsoft - Outlook
peopleCube-meetingMaker
scheduleAnyWhere
ScheduleOnline
shiftBoard
timeCenter
hyperOffice
What have we Learned?
 An increasing number of tools and software are
available which target different segments of the
market
 These tools are increasingly integrated and
synchronized to different devices
 The cost of these tools vary significantly, it is best to
consider different tools to better match with business
needs.
Important factors to consider when
choosing the software
 Cost
 Can your department/office afford the tool?
 Who will be using it?
 Will they all work for the same company?
 Are the target users technically savvy enough?
 Where will the users be accessing it?
 Locally only?
 Is web access needed?
 How many users will be using it?
 How will your needs change as time progresses? Will the tool grow with
your needs?
 If you go with a free tool, how long can you expect it to be around?
Wikipedia page
 Time permitting, we can now visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_software
Next presentation please!