[dev] Resource Calendars/conflict management

[Marcus I. Ryan]

I will, within the next couple months, need to set up Kronolith to handle
scheduling computer labs.  We have shared calendars and scheduling, but we
don't have resource scheduling yet.  I've thought of at least two methods for
handling this, but I wanted to get some feedback from the community.

We could define a set of attributes for all calendars and let the calendar
admin pick and choose from among them.  These could include available hours,
conflict handling (e.g. don't allow someone to schedule a conflicting
appointment), administrative overrides (if conflicts aren't allowed, is there
someone who can override the setting to create an overlapping appointment),
etc.

Another, or additional option, is calendar types.  A personal calendar would
allow pretty much anything anytime.  A work calendar might limit hours of
availability so someone couldn't schedule a fellow employee for the weekend
without intervention.  A resource would have time restrictions as well, not
allow conflicting appointments, and perhaps be tied to a specific location. 
They might also require additional attributes (for meeting rooms, how many
people will they hold, etc.)

Basically I worry about the balancing act between usability and flexibility. 
The latter solution doesn't allow as much flexibility (you're tied to the
requirements/limitations of the defined type), but is much easier for the end
user to use and understand.  The former allows much more contrl.

Any thoughts on what the preferred/best approach would be?

(further brainstorming: I imagine we could define a set of restrictions as
extensible classes somehow and similar to Turba's attributes.php, allow the
system admin to define different types).

Further, if someone wanted to turn this into a sponsored bounty it would
increase the likelihood of me or someone else getting to it sooner :)

--
Marcus I. Ryan, marcus at horde.org
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