Planning tool for e.g. service people

[DianePDavies]

I am looking for a planning tool to schedule tasks for a group of 10 people.
Basically it should be some kind of calendar, where tasks of different
duration can be planned - e.g. a 3 week trip, a 1-day visit etc. Ideally it
should also be able to list "to dos" on a daily basis - e.g. "call this
customer", "provide information to sales".
Holidays should be shown as well.

A simple spreadsheet is not quite sufficient - it may work for the overall
planning showing each service persons availability - but for several to dos
on a single day it is not good. Maybe it is one central data registration
with several ways of displaying the information - e.g. a personal plan or a
general plan showing all people in an overview.

I have considdered using Access to log the information - and then display it
in some format - e.g. in a Visio calender - but I dont know how do do that. I
can see that there is an Outlook wizard that can populate teh Visio calendar
with data from Outlook. I do not want to use Outlook for planning - it should
be easier available to the central planner - but also accessible for the
individuals. Perhaps some kind of authority control - e.g. only some people
can list vacation (i.e. it has to be approved before scheduled).

Any ideas?

 

[Paul Herber]

I am looking for a planning tool to schedule tasks for a group of 10 people.
Basically it should be some kind of calendar, where tasks of different
duration can be planned - e.g. a 3 week trip, a 1-day visit etc. Ideally it
should also be able to list "to dos" on a daily basis - e.g. "call this
customer", "provide information to sales".
Holidays should be shown as well.

A simple spreadsheet is not quite sufficient - it may work for the overall
planning showing each service persons availability - but for several to dos
on a single day it is not good. Maybe it is one central data registration
with several ways of displaying the information - e.g. a personal plan or a
general plan showing all people in an overview.

I have considdered using Access to log the information - and then display it
in some format - e.g. in a Visio calender - but I dont know how do do that. I
can see that there is an Outlook wizard that can populate teh Visio calendar
with data from Outlook. I do not want to use Outlook for planning - it should
be easier available to the central planner - but also accessible for the
individuals. Perhaps some kind of authority control - e.g. only some people
can list vacation (i.e. it has to be approved before scheduled).

I suspect that what you want to do is beyond the capabilities of the
project planning built-in to Visio. There may be 3rd party add-ons
that can help you.
However, I think you should be looking at a proper project
planning/management tool which should have all your requirements.
I believe Microsoft produce one or more such tools.

 

[Al Edlund]

Diane,
Paul is correct in that a more appropriate tool might be MS Project or one
of the other project tools. With that said some other alternatives have
prerequisites in calendar management such as being able to examine MS
Outlook/Exchange calendars (as opposed to individual schedules).
Al

 

[DianePDavies]

Well - MS Project just seems to be way to much. I am not really looking at
dependencies (like possible in MS Project) - I just want to show when
somebody is on what assignment - and then have the additional facility of
listing simple tasks on a day where they are at the office (as opposed to
being on a job).

I believe there must be lots of other people having the same need - what do
they use to schedule their service people?
--
Diane

Diane,
Paul is correct in that a more appropriate tool might be MS Project or one
of the other project tools. With that said some other alternatives have
prerequisites in calendar management such as being able to examine MS
Outlook/Exchange calendars (as opposed to individual schedules).
Al

 

[Al Edlund]

what do you use for e-mail? Is there a group calendaring function in it?
Both MS Exchange and Lotus Notes support group calendaring.
al

Well - MS Project just seems to be way to much. I am not really looking at
dependencies (like possible in MS Project) - I just want to show when
somebody is on what assignment - and then have the additional facility of
listing simple tasks on a day where they are at the office (as opposed to
being on a job).

I believe there must be lots of other people having the same need - what
do
they use to schedule their service people?

 

[DianePDavies]

MS Outlook 2003.
--
Diane

what do you use for e-mail? Is there a group calendaring function in it?
Both MS Exchange and Lotus Notes support group calendaring.
al

 

[Al Edlund]

in my outlook under actions I can view group schedules,
al