In a more orderly world, everyone in your company would eat lunch at the same time-not only at the same time, but in the same place. If this were the case, the jobs of the scheduling secretaries would be much easier, because then they could communicate with everyone all at once. Meetings and projects could be organized, vacation days established, conferences planned, sales calls set. After lunch, the secretaries could write up a company schedule and send it out before the work day ended.
However, we do not live in an orderly world-not everyone eats lunch at the same time. In fact, very little that is done in a company happens concurrently. Each member of a sales team has individual calls to make. Each department has different conferences to attend. Meetings sometimes happen spontaneously. Sometimes a prearranged schedule is abandoned altogether, and sometimes a schedule is lost.
If you've ever joined coworkers for an out-of-town conference, participated in a bus day trip, or taken your kids to Disney World, you know how difficult coordinating a group schedule can be. No matter what the occasion, everyone seems to have a private agenda-an agenda that can't be compromised. Working around personal agendas to achieve a time for a group meeting can be next to impossible.
Many tools and techniques are used to keep track of everyone in the office. Wall-sized calendars are one favorite. This technique requires employees with strong biceps, as much erasing and rewriting is required. Another tool is the In/Out magnet board. With this implement, each employee is signified by a circular (sometimes rectangular) magnet. The idea is that each employee moves the magnet to "in" when arriving at work and moves it to "out" when leaving. The success of the In/Out board is questionable. Most often, the magnets wind up on the refrigerator in the lounge.
The most popular way to manage group scheduling is to require all employees to tell the secretary where they are going every time they leave the office. Additionally, employees must plan their work schedules ahead of time so that secretaries know when they are going to be out of town, at a conference, or even in another part of the office building. This technique leads to a sure bottleneck. Even a team of secretaries can't keep up with the comings and goings of employees at a good-sized company, especially when the employees themselves often forget to pass out their schedules.
To get a grasp on group scheduling, many companies have put their group schedules onto a computer system. With LANs, the first group scheduling programs have taken hold. These scheduling applications are more successful than the In/Out board for a variety of reasons. First, they give employees the means to enter their schedules whenever doing so is convenient. In this sense, a scheduling application is something like an old-fashioned date book. Meetings and events can be entered when the scheduler is first learning about them.
The second way in which scheduling applications are useful is that they provide a clean interface for arranging appointments. Instead of the employees scratching dates on paper and having to erase them later, the computer can do all the work and keep the calendar looking nice. With a group scheduling program, employees also can view the schedule of a coworker or workers (this capability can be very helpful if your boss is known to take off to Europe at the last minute). In short, a scheduling application can provide what was previously impossible: a schedule for a group of people that can be viewed in one piece and that isn't pasted on the wall in the reception room. Instead, this schedule is available from the computer desktop of whoever needs it.
A third way in which scheduling applications are handy is that they usually can integrate with other computer applications, such as e-mail. In these applications, e-mail messages can be sent out automatically as reminders or updates. Having a scheduling application integrated into a personal or company contact list is also helpful; this way, appointments can be linked to addresses and phone numbers. Some LAN scheduling applications take integration to the extreme, providing complicated features like the ability to send a fax from a calendar or automatic phone dialing.
All these features are nice, but no software application can add hours to the day. Likewise, no software application can convince people to compromise their personal agendas. What a group scheduling application can do is make life easier for everyone by offering an organized and efficient way to coordinate and view a multiple-person schedule.
More than likely, your company already has some sort of scheduling
application installed on the computer network. This application
might be part of a groupware package, such as Novell's Groupwise,
or it might be stand-alone software, such as On Incorporated's
Meeting Maker. Or maybe your company has not yet developed an
electronic scheduling system. (Is the
In/Out board working for you?) However your group scheduling is
being done, you can undoubtedly find room for improvement.
In this chapter, you look into the future of group scheduling. The Web brings new possibilities to the well-developed LAN scheduling applications. These possibilities are the focus here, as online scheduling is an online application that has not yet been widely used. Because the potential benefits of online scheduling are tremendous (I describe those benefits later in this chapter), you can anticipate that online scheduling will eventually be a common intranet application.
The topic of online scheduling brings to mind the old proverb that in order to take one step forward, you sometimes have to take two steps back. Such is the case with online scheduling and with the Web in general. Many of the features in the LAN scheduling applications simply have not yet been made available for intranets. This does not mean that you'll have to paste yet another wall-sized calendar above the reception room sofa. In fact, online scheduling can offer more in the way of convenience than the most sophisticated LAN scheduling application.
The advantage that online scheduling applications have over their LAN ancestors is that they allow you to view your schedule inside a Web browser. If you need to check out your meeting list late Sunday night, you therefore can do it from your home computer and modem. LAN scheduling applications are beginning to offer plug-ins that will give you some means of using the application though an intranet. Novell's Groupwise, shown in Figure 36.1, has recently developed tools for integrating Groupwise functions into a Web browser.
Figure 36.1: You can register for a Novell Groupwise WebAccess trial at http://www.novell.com/groupwise to see how Groupwise scheduling can be inregrated into a Web browser.
If your company is working from a groupware product that already offers scheduling, and the scheduling is well-developed, check with the application's home office to see what they are offering for intranets. If the options are not adequate, one of the intranet suites might be a good option.
I've already pointed out the advantages of using a suite of applications for online scheduling. The easy integration with messaging and contact records makes scheduling less of a chore. Add online functionality to an already convenient package, and you can toss the In/Out board in the trash. An online schedule is there when you need it, even when you're on the road. You're less likely to be late to a meeting when you can easily look up an address straight from your schedule. And if you are running behind, you'll appreciate being able to bring up a phone number you need with a simple point-and-click in your computer's day planner.
The advantages are clear, but are they possible? For the most part, yes. The future for group scheduling is bright. Besides the LAN schedulers that are building Web tools, a few intranet applications provide group scheduling functions.
How are the online scheduling applications to be used? To answer that question, consider how a fictional company, called LifeLine, Inc., used an online scheduling application to organize a group of employees for a conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
LifeLine distributes vitamins to health food stores throughout the southwest. They are sending employees to the Las Vegas conference as a way to check out their competition and get some leads on new vitamin science. Fourteen employees are attending the conference, and all of them will be spending three nights at the Radcliffe Hotel in downtown Las Vegas.
The conference begins on Saturday, but the employees will arrive at the hotel on late Friday afternoon. A secretary has the job of getting the whole group from the office to the airport and setting up a group schedule for the length of the conference. The schedule will be a tight one.
Almost everyone who is going to the conference has meetings with people from other vitamin companies. The boss wants the LifeLine group to meet at least three times as a group during the conference for brainstorming sessions. Three big conference events-the welcome speech, a dinner party, and a lecture given by a vitamin industry bigwig-are required events for all LifeLine conference attendees. A three-session workshop series about hybrid herbs is of special interest to about half the LifeLine employees, and they don't want to miss a minute of it. At least one employee must attend to a LifeLine booth in the main ballroom from nine to five on Saturday and Sunday.
To complicate matters further, three of the attendees can't leave with the group because they will be out on calls late into the afternoon. They will be arriving later than everyone else, and special arrangements are made for getting them to the airport. The boss's wife, two kids, and Aunt Martha are arriving on Saturday, and a few of the employees have requested that Saturday night be open for "a night on the town," and want to coordinate a starting point.
The secretary originally making the group conference schedule will not be going to Las Vegas. He plans to have a quiet weekend at home. But because he created the schedule using the online scheduling application, all the attendees can adjust their agendas accordingly after they arrive. They can view the schedule from the laptops that most of them are taking along, as well as from the workstation that will be set up at the LifeLine booth. Before the group leaves, the secretary sets up the system to send reminder e-mail messages to everyone who needs one and a general reminder to check the schedule for last-minute changes.
The first group of employees arrives at Las Vegas according to plan. But it doesn't take long before things go awry. The clerk at the Radcliffe doesn't have space for everyone and doesn't seem to have a record of the reservation the secretary made so carefully three weeks before, even though the secretary confirmed the reservation before the group left town. As a result, six employees are moved to a hotel called Star Palace down the street. Late Friday night, someone meets the second group of employees at the airport, and they are taken to Star Palace as well.
The next problem arises early Saturday morning, when the boss is detained at the airport, waiting for his family's flight to come in (late). A group brainstorming meeting ends early, and a few attendees abandon the conference in favor of shopping. The person scheduled to attend to the LifeLine booth is sick from allergies (no vitamin seems to help), and another person takes her place instead of attending the first workshop. Because the computer is set up at the booth, these changes are easily entered into the group schedule as the attendant checks her e-mail.
Now everyone is back on track again, and it's a good thing. The boss needs someone to get him and his family at the airport. He has left his wallet at the hotel and doesn't have money for a cab. His wife has only travelers' checks, and no cabby will take them. After the booth attendant is alerted by a phone call, she is able to contact the second in command, who is attending a lecture as scheduled. After the boss's wallet is retrieved, two employees leave the conference to take a bus to the airport. A second brainstorming meeting is canceled, but when the boss and company arrive back at the hotel, it is rescheduled for early that evening. The booth attendant enters these changes, and it seems something of a miracle when everyone shows up on time.
Online group scheduling, when applied, is indeed something of
a miracle. Out-of-town conferences, which are notoriously subject
to Murphy's Law, are just one example of how online scheduling
applications can be useful. For day-to-day operations, a company
like LifeLine might use online scheduling to keep track of employees
who are out on sales calls and to enable all employees to make
scheduling changes from their desks, at their homes, or on the
road.
| Due to the relatively static nature of M&J's intranet, it has little opportunity for a scheduling application. Typically, such an application would require fairly advanced CGI or database programming. The firm does use the intranet, however, to announce meetings and events for the firm. Each office has its own page that is regularly updated with new items by the administrator. This way, with minimum effort, the employees of the firm can have an updated schedule of items at their fingertips at any time. On the calendar page is an e-mail link to the administrator who updates the page, so if a scheduling conflict occurs, or if someone wants to add an event, making the change is as easy as clicking the mouse and sending a message to the correct person. |
| The SGAA has a more advanced and dynamic scheduling system. On this system, users can get information on trade shows, press releases, deadlines, new product releases, or any other type of event. Some users can even post events to
the calendar by using an interactive form. This function is available to both SGAA staff and members. Users can easily post events and relevant materials relating to the events. If a manufacturer posts a press release or a new product release, for
example, the text of the press release or the specification sheet for the new product can be posted and linked from the event itself. Along the same lines, SGAA staff can post events regarding a convention or meeting and link the event to a sign-up
form or an agenda.
This scheduling function is built using a back-end database, and all the event information is stored in the database. The information is pulled from the database by CGI scripts, and the event pages are created on-the-fly by the Web server. In this manner, events can be posted, modified, or deleted immediately without using HTML. The scheduling function is useful to the association because having up-to-date event in-formation makes avoiding conflicts easy when scheduling for dozens or hundreds of individuals. |
Online scheduling applications are likely to be a part of most of the up-and-coming intranet suites. A few suites already offer scheduling applications. The advantage here is that you can integrate the scheduling with the other suite applications. Intranet group scheduling is different from LAN scheduling in that group and personal schedules can be updated without the limits of geography. The applications reviewed in the following sections are featured for a simple reason: they are the only ones available at this time. But because more and more pop up every day, you might do some research on your own.
The central scheduling calendar in InTandem, shown in Figure 36.2, can be viewed by day, week, or month. Events also can be displayed or printed out on a single chronologically ordered list. The calendar gives organizations the opportunity to maintain a complete list of important events, including everything from upcoming meetings to employee vacations. All authorized users can add new events to the calendar and modify the events that they have added.
You can add events to the calendar by simply typing information into an online form. Using this form, you can upload document files or images and link them to events, as shown in Figure 36.3. Similarly, you can embed images and hypertext links to information elsewhere on the intranet or on the Internet itself within the specific event information, allowing participants to have instant access to agendas, maps, online registration forms, and other relevant information.
Figure 36.3: InTandem offers a hyperlinked event list. Colored buttons designate event categories.
Each time an event is added, InTandem's calendar is instantly revised, providing all authorized users with accurate, continuously updated information. Events are shown listed by title on the given date and can be viewed in detail with the click of a mouse. Users have the option of entering public, private, and group events into the calendar. This flexibility ensures that only items of interest to everyone are posted in the public area. Obviously, not everyone in the office needs to know that Joe's daughter Suzy has a dentist appointment on Wednesday, September 3, at 12:00.
Public events are visible to all authorized users, and private events are visible only to the user who created them. Group events are visible to all the members of a group-for example, the budget committee. Group events are used to post information that is confidential or not of interest to all users. As an aid in scheduling meetings, the schedules of an entire group can be automatically superimposed on a single calendar to determine times at which the entire group is available to meet. A contact address is automatically included in every calendar event for those people who need further information. By simply clicking the name of the person who posted the event, users can send an RSVP or ask questions by way of an automatically generated e-mail message. As with all of InTandem's features, the scheduling software is completely customizable and can be searched using a powerful search engine.
The WebShare Calendar, shown in Figure 36.4, is part of the WebShare intranet suite and is a hearty tool for group and individual scheduling. A demo on the Radnet home site (http://www.radnet.com) provides a sense of the WebShare Calendar's basic functions. You can pull up a daily, two-week, or monthly view of a group or individual calendar. An additional feature enables you to group and view appointments in specific categories.
Figure 36.4: The WebShare starter calender offers multiple views and a calender overview.
WebShare users can purchase the WebShare Designer (for Windows NT) and customize the WebShare Calendar to their liking, as shown in Figure 36.5. The interface can be redesigned for more detailed views. Integration with the other WebShare applications (Calendar, Problem Tracking, Resources & Reservations, Discussion, Moderated Discussion, Employee Record, Newsletter, and Contacts) is well-constructed and can be taken further with the WebShare Designer.
Figure 36.5: You add appointments to WebShare by filling out an online form.
In WebShare, you add appointments to the calendar by using a form. Fields for descriptions, categories, and start and end dates are provided. You can add customized fields with the WebShare Designer. The original WebShare developers were once employed by Lotus Notes, and when they created WebShare, their goal was to create "Lotus Notes for the Web." You decide whether they achieved their goal.
Crew Calendar, shown in Figure 36.6, is an online scheduling application that comes with Thuridion's Crew intranet suite. Integrated with the other applications (Locker, Messenger, Cardfile, and Office), the Crew Calendar features a handy and well-constructed calendar that can be used for group and individual agendas. The highlight of Crew Calendar is the ability to search for free blocks of time. You also can share your schedule with others, including those people who do not have Crew accounts.
Another Crew Calendar highlight is the way it integrates with the Crew Office application. It works so that a user logging in can go to the Crew Office and retrieve a page with the day's plans outlined on-screen, as shown in Figure 36.7.
Never short on hyperlinks, Crew Calendar allows users to stock their day planners with contacts, documents, and any other item that might come in handy.
Online group scheduling can't add hours to the day or eliminate Murphy's Law, but it can be a tool for decreasing the chances that unexpected emergencies and last-minute changes will hamper your company's productivity. A fluid, easily updated group schedule is a resource that can benefit everyone from interns to CEOs. What's more, a group schedule brings a sense of unity to a team of people who might not see each other all that often.
When you're looking for an online scheduling application, you'll find that most of them are part of intranet suites or redeveloped LAN applications. Which of the two will serve your needs the best depends on what scheduling application you are currently working with. If a LAN application is already in place, you might want to supplement it with tools for the Web. If you're unhappy with the LAN application, or if no means of computer scheduling is currently in place, an intranet suite with a scheduling application would be a good choice.
Whatever you decide, pay special attention to a scheduling application's capability to provide a comprehensive array of functions. The best online scheduling application allows you to add hyperlinks and send e-mail right from your calendar. It should also provide a streamlined interface that looks good when printed onto paper. All these features will be the miracle workers you need to keep on top of a group and to keep track of your personal agenda, which you should never compromise.