This is a solution I’ve been working on for a while that enables parents to login and reserve time slots with teachers (think Parent-Teacher conferences). Keep in mind, this does not implement any kind of calendaring. I think we’re all quite familiar with areas in which SharePoint is lacking. Thus, I have avoided using calendars at all in this. If you want to book appointments using calendars, I’d suggest Outlook :).
Consider also, this does not have to be for teacher-parent booking only. Imagine using this to book venues, laptop carts, really anything and everything that has time slots available. It might not take the place of things like Outlook, but it’s an interesting way to use SharePoint for some of it.
Note: after much deliberation I’ve decided to open source this bad boy (check it out on CodePlex). I figured in lieu of cash, I’d rather see what people do with it, and how they improve upon it. For installation instructions, click here.
Ok, here are the screenshots (to download from CodePlex, click here)
On the home screen, a parent will see a list of teachers
After selecting one (or multiple) teachers and clicking “Go”, they will be presented with the schedule of those teachers. Any unavailable slots will be grayed out.
To reserve a time slot, the user clicks on the list item and is prompted for the student’s name. This is an additional step to further clarify who the appointment is for (if your parents and children are not “linked” in SharePoint).
Upon entering a name and clicking ok, you get a confirmation message and a confirmation email (if you’ve setup a workflow on the list).
To see your entire schedule click “My Schedule”
If you would like to change your reservation, click “delete reservation” and go back to “Select Teachers” to select a new time slot.
[...] in Education: A Case Study Sep 24, 2012 This is a morphed, updated, renewed version of the SharePoint Scheduling Assistant. I’m not releasing this version quite yet, but this is a brief case study on how it’s [...]