Appointment/room scheduling software

On Mar 6, 2007, at 1:23 PM, Nik wrote:

> My wife is starting a group psychology practice, and she and her
> partners
> are looking for a way to schedule the three offices they're renting
> and
> their appointments in some simple interface. (Ideally web-based since
> they're cross-platform.)
>
> Really, they don't need more than the sort of "schedule a room with
> this
> meeting" type features found in Microsoft Exchange or Notes, but
> obviously
> they don't want to spend that kind of money.
>
> As far as I can tell, Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, 30 Boxes,
> etc. don't
> support this sort of functionality.
>
> What's the best way to set this up?

Meeting Maker and NUTD I believe both have this functionality and are
probably priced well for SOHO. I know MM is cross platform now, and I
believe NUTD is as well, though it's been a while since I've paid
attention. Both should support PDA syncing which would probably be
desirable.

While the timing isn't probably quite right, Apple's upcoming Leopard
server will include an CalDAV server. (They've also released it
opensource, you can download it and run in on *nix type OSes.) CalDAV
is a calendar and scheduling protocol that is on the standards track.
Think of it as IMAP for calendaring; any client can talk to any
server if they both speak CalDAV. Apple's iCal application will also
support CalDAV as well several other prominent market players.

http://trac.calendarserver.org/projects/calendarserver
http://www.calconnect.org

Steve Cochran

On Mar 6, 2007, at 12:23 PM, Nik wrote:

> As far as I can tell, Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, 30 Boxes,
> etc. don't
> support this sort of functionality.

I once saw an interesting video tutorial on using Google Calendar
with iCal in a family to keep their schedules synced on when and
where the kids would be coming/going, etc. Wish I could remember
where it was.
>
> What's the best way to set this up?

We've tinkered with this for my wife's business and her associates.
Have you looked into a 'service' that provides advanced answering
service support? It's nice to give clients a number where they can
call and re-schedule when needed. A centralized service of this kind
is usually fixed pricing and has the advantage of central scheduling.

Do all her partners use Macs? Waiting for Leopard would be a
possibility with the updates to mail/calendaring services. You can
also rig a kind of solution using iCal, Mail.app + MailTags and
MailActOn plug-ins. Leopard Server would have most of this capability
built in and would work cross-platform.

Another possibility would be to hire for a one-time fee someone to
set up Zimbra on a computer to act as your centralized Exchange-type
service. With $25/user fee it's pretty inexpensive, powerful, and
cross-platform, but you would need someone to set it up. A basic mac
mini with MAMP Pro connected to a decent broadband connection could
be plenty for such a small group and would cost very little to set
up. The nice thing about something like that is you could set up mail
to be secure and private, kept on the server, and not allowed to get
'out in the wild' so easily. This would be helpful in a setting like
your wife's where confidentiality is so important.

Finally, more expensive but well respected, is the KerioMailServer.
It's probably more secure than most other solutions out there.

<http://www.indev.ca/MailTags.html>
<http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/leopard/icalserver.html>
<www.zimbra.com>
<www.kerio.com>

Best of luck to you,
Jeffrey

On Mar 6, 2007, at 10:23 AM, Nik wrote:

> My wife is starting a group psychology practice, and she and her
> partners
> are looking for a way to schedule the three offices they're renting
> and
> their appointments in some simple interface. (Ideally web-based since
> they're cross-platform.)


See:
http://www.macattorney.com/lomgmt.html#Anchor-Group-32006

Also have a look at:
http://www.macattorney.com/medical.html

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (3rd, 4th, and 5th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________

On Mar 6, 2007, at 10:23 AM, Nik wrote:

> My wife is starting a group psychology practice, and she and her
> partners
> are looking for a way to schedule the three offices they're renting
> and
> their appointments in some simple interface.

You also may want to have a look at this brand new product:

By Appointment
  $79. Requires FileMaker Pro 8 or later.
Life $uccess Institute
http://www.filemaker.com/company/newsroom/releases/1303151.html
http://www.LifeSuccess.org (its not on their Web site yet)

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (3rd, 4th, and 5th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________

On Mar 6, 2007, at 1:23 PM, Nik wrote:

> My wife is starting a group psychology practice, and she and her
> partners
> are looking for a way to schedule the three offices they're renting
> and
> their appointments in some simple interface. (Ideally web-based since
> they're cross-platform.)

My school uses VTCalendar <http://vtcalendar.sourceforge.net/>, a
free web-based calendar developed by Virginia Tech, to manage their
room reservations. You can see their setup here: <http://
calendar.ncssm.edu/main.php?view=month>. It's probably not the best
way but it is definitely *a* way.

Max

> My school uses VTCalendar <http://vtcalendar.sourceforge.net/>, a
> free web-based calendar developed by Virginia Tech, to manage their
> room reservations. You can see their setup here: <http://
> calendar.ncssm.edu/main.php?view=month>. It's probably not the best
> way but it is definitely *a* way.

I have used calendar.net to do something similar...also free and web based.

Kathie

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions.

I've installed WebCalendar, an open-source scheduling system, which fits the
bill nicely as it can seamlessly manage conflicts for rooms/resources. No
other calendar that I found that was inexpensive and cross-platform was able
to do this. (At least without going into something like Zimbra or other
groupware -- way more than we need!)

<http://www.k5n.us/webcalendar.php>

Interesting that there's so few options for scheduling shared resources.
Might be a good business opportunity...

--
Nik :: gerberinik.net
Software picks, serious Mac geekery and productivity tips!
<http://iNik.net/>

I too see no online calendar service that provides shared-resource management (eg, room reservations), and I'm a bit stunned that nothing exists. I tried calendars.net as per reference above, and that doesn't seem to have it, either.

Can anyone confirm that no existing, online service has a shared-resource-management mechanism? Or point to one that does? (I'd much rather not add another web app to my internal collaboration server if I can avoid it.)

-Matt

On 7/27/07, Matt England <tidbits.commengland.net> wrote:
> I too see no online calendar service that provides shared-resource management (eg, room reservations), and I'm a bit stunned that nothing exists. I tried calendars.net as per reference above, and that doesn't seem to have it, either.
>
> Can anyone confirm that no existing, online service has a shared-resource-management mechanism? Or point to one that does? (I'd much rather not add another web app to my internal collaboration server if I can avoid it.)

google calendar claims to have such a feature, though I have not tried
it. I suspect I'd have trouble getting people around here to use it,
and with one calendar per resource it might be sort of unmanageable.

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=44105&query=conference&topic=&type=

TDB

Google Apps for your Domain (aka Google Hosted Apps) does support resource scheduling if you pay for its premium version ($50/year/user).

--Nik

>> Can anyone confirm that no existing, online service has a shared-
>> resource-management mechanism? Or point to one that does? (I'd
>> much rather not add another web app to my internal collaboration
>> server if I can avoid it.)
>
> google calendar claims to have such a feature, though I have not tried
> it. I suspect I'd have trouble getting people around here to use it,
> and with one calendar per resource it might be sort of unmanageable.

You could also go with a hosted Microsoft Exchange service but doing
that just for calendaring doesn't make a lot of sense.

On Jul 27, 2007, at 8:24 AM, Matt England wrote:

> shared-resource management (eg, room reservations)

I'm told that folks have used the following applications successfully
for scheduling shared resources:

Meeting Maker
Phone: 781-530 2600 or 800-282-7319 x3
Fax: 781-530-2601
Email: mmsalesmeetingmaker.com
http://www.meetingmaker.com/home.cfm

TeamAgenda
Phone : 514-908-7212 or 416-238-9519
Fax: 514-697-7859
Email: salesteamsoft.com
http://www.teamsoft.com/



Randy B. Singer • Mac OS X Routine Maintenance • http://
www.macattorney.com/ts.html

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/leopard/directory.html

At 08:24 -0700 27/7/07, Matt England wrote:
>I too see no online calendar service that provides shared-resource
>management (eg, room reservations), and I'm a bit stunned that
>nothing exists. I tried calendars.net as per reference above, and
>that doesn't seem to have it, either.
>
>Can anyone confirm that no existing, online service has a
>shared-resource-management mechanism? Or point to one that does?
>(I'd much rather not add another web app to my internal
>collaboration server if I can avoid it.)

Matt,

The Now suite has looks after shared resources and the Now server can
be setup to support on line connections.
--

Regards,

Mark (}-:
+61 (0)4 1927 7198
Skype / AIM / iChat: gibsonm1