Subject: Planning of group resources

From: "csamson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 22:38:42 -0000

I hope this message is appropriate and of interest to mailing list
subscribers.  For a number
of years I have been exploring the development of an application to manage -
a) a workgroup who may be working on a number of concurrent projects (such
as an SI/consultancy) team
b) 'shared resources' such as meeting rooms, 'hot-desks', car parking spaces

The starting point was the ubiquitous 'Wall Planner', which would be used
alongside individual and group-based diaries.  The result, ScreenPlanner,
can be seen at www.screenplan.com  - you can download a free Windows version
at the present time.  The program includes an XML-based viewer that can
display read-only 'planner files'.  XML is also used to provide remote
updates to the calendar - and I plan to move to a standards-based method of
updating the calendar in the near future.

The reason I embarked on this project was :
a) Diary programs do not easily allow you to view/print a number of resource
activities simultaneously.
b) Project Management programs are not good for managing workgroup resource
allocation.

I would be interested in any comments.  In particular, I feel there is an
opportunity for
the viewer program within ScreenPlanner to be used to 'visualise'
activities entered in traditional diary programs, simpy by generating the
appropriate
XML file from a number of individual diaries.

Ted Carroll