Calendar Hacks

Jay Forrest, one of our Information Associates, built a suite of calendar applications for the reference desk. These apps were all designed in PHP. We use Oracle’s CorpTime product as our internal calendar system - great for scheduling meetings - but it doesn’t offer all the functionality that we need. Here is a sample of Jay's work.

IN/OUT BOARD

The in-out board replaces the old and tired whiteboard. Our staff is scattered throughout the building, so this let’s us know who’s in and who’s out. It’s nice because it provides a global status for everyone.

DESK TODAY

Shows who is on desk—as well as who has whatever other meetings, classes, etc. This can be useful if someone calls in sick and you need a replacement or if you need to find someone to switch hours with later in the week.

CALENDAR

This digital calendar replaces a large print calendar used by staff to indicate planned time off. We have this info on our personal calendars, but it helpful to see who’s going to ALA or who is taking time off in the month of July.

Comments

[Mandy]

Wow! This looks amazingly useful!

[fleury]

For our small staff (of 7), we found that the Google calendar tool can function in much the same way. Staff can update it from anywhere (and it's so easy, even our librarians can--and do--use it, LOL).

[Logan]

This seems like an great system. Is it bound to CorpTime, or completely independent?

[Brian Mathews]

Logan-- it's all PHP-- unconnected to CorpTime-- which is kind of bad because people have to keep two schedules-- but CT doesn't have the functions we need, so we adapt.