Calpendo was designed from the very beginning to be flexible, so that it could meet the requirements of many different types of facilities. It's targeted at people who have shared resources that need booking, but within that, there are many different ways you might like a booking system to work. Consequently, there are many options for how Calpendo can be configured.

 

When first using Calpendo, it is unusual to know exactly (or even approximately) how it is required to be configured for the facility.

 

This section poses some of the questions to ask yourself as the configurer, but understand that most of them will not be answerable initially. The options are numerous enough that it is expected that the system will be configured over a period of time as a better feel for what can be done is acquired and more information on how it needs to work for the facility is realised. Also, these questions only give a taste of some of the things that can be done.

 

Please understand that things can be made as simple or as complicated as required. If the facility is relatively new, and the resources are not yet fully utilised, then some of the things that Calpendo allows may not be required.

Resources

•What resources are there that should be bookable?

•Is there going to be a single resource to record annual leave?

•Is there going to be a resource to represent individual people whose time can be booked?

•Do bookers of a resource have to have an allocated project.

Booking Requests

•Are users going to create requests that are then approved by an administrator?

•Or do users create pre-approved bookings?

•Are bookings to be pre-approved for some people and/or some of the time?

•Who can make bookings for which resource?

•What if any information is required for a booking to be made for a particular resource?

Booking Restrictions

•Is it required to put users into separate categories for booking restrictions, and how might that to work?

•How might the Time Templates work? Are bookings going to be prohibited in other people's time?  Is that behaviour going to change when it gets close to the time? So a slot left free with a day or a week to go becomes up for grabs to everyone?

•Can everyone book as far into the future as they want?

•Are double bookings allowed? Perhaps for some resources it might be allowed (e.g  a  computer room with numerous machines )

•Are pre-requisite bookings going to be enforced? That is, that a user must book resource X before they are allowed to use resource Y.

•Is there a limit on how much time a resource can be booked for in a given period of time? If so, who should be allowed to book how much time?

Booking Modifications

•Do users have to downgrade approved bookings to a request so they can then make changes to it that need to be re-approved?

•Or are users to be allowed to make some changes to approved bookings?

•Some users may fear cancelling bookings because the statistics are collected. They may try to downgrade to a request and then change the time or day (by many weeks) to avoid being seen to cancel. So will users be allowed to change things like the time of day of an approved booking, but not allowed the date to be changed.

Administration

•Who is going to administrate Calpendo?

•Who will install and upgrade Calpendo?

•Are there going to be separate administrators so some people only see the most common and easier admin options? Should a menu be configured so that a simple Admin menu offers the ability to handle booking requests, new user requests and project requests, but not more advanced administration option, and an advanced Admin menu that also gives access to automated emails, Permissions, Time Templates and Booking Rules.

Projects

•What process are required to be put in place for creating new projects?

•Will there be a single-step approval process, or a multi-step approval process in which many people each give their approval. Will people need to address questions about whether the project is sensible, has ethics approval or has its finances properly arranged.

•What questions need to be asked of users when they create a new project request? For example, there might be safety related questions about what they are intending to do.

•What information needs to be stored on a project?

•What per-project and per-resource information do needs to be stored? For example, the price for using each resource for a project.

Services

•What services are available?

•When ordering a service what information is required?

•Costing for services.

Workflows

•Are emails to be sent when bookings are cancelled?

•Should any cancellation trigger an email, or just some of them?

•Who should receive such emails?

Permissions

•Who should be allowed to do what within the system?