OT: I know Sharon was saying she'd like to develop her own code for these but...

On 8/14/07, Sharon Foster <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I've been thinking I'd like to develop a web-based personnel
> scheduling program. Library scheduling has some unique problems, as
> I'm sure you all know. ...

Brigham Young University Library released open source scheduling
software for their reference desks. It's web-based (php & mysql).

http://empscheduler.sourceforge.net/

The first step is to describe all the service points and coverage
needs -- number of staff needed and hours of operation. The second
step is to have all employees indicate when they are available --
since itis designed with student scheduling in mind, this allows the
scheduler to have all the student's classes blocked in up front. Each
employee is also designated with a maximum numbers of hours to be
scheduled.

The drawbacks are that
- it lacks any sort of automated scheduling module -- a human has to
fit all the schedules by hand.
- there's no built-in schedule swap board -- we use a wiki to
accomplish that, but it would be better if built in
- you can't note week-to-week changes in the software -- a schedule is
for the whole semester (or whatever). There's nothing to stop you from
establishing weekly scheduling with the software, but that would seem
to go against the intended goal of avoiding this.
- there is no native way to embed schedules in external web pages --
but being mysql-based, you could easily write something
- it was last updated in 2004 and there are a few needless browser
dependencies in the scheduling interface

Drawbacks aside, it beats the heck out of doing it in a speadsheet;
especially if you have employees staffing multiple service points.

I don't know what the licence is exactly, but it would make a good
starting point for further development.

>           An customizable events
> calendar suitable for insertion into a library website is another task
> that interests me.

For calendars, a lot of universities use VT Calendar from Virginia
Tech. MPOW piggybacks on the campus calendar so we don't have to
maintain it in two places. It can be pretty easily skinned to fit your
website's design schema. Also, this month's calendar can be inserted
into a page and events in specific categories can be filtered in or
out.

http://vtcalendar.sourceforge.net/

If that one doesn't suit you, there are many other OS calendars out there.

Tom