school scheduling

[bpowell]

Is it possible to use Access to create a fairly complex schedule/timetable
for a dance school? I need to include teachers, students, musicians in
classes that are recurring and then have random entries such as special
rehearsals or practices. Does anyone have ideas?

 

[John Vinson]

Is it possible to use Access to create a fairly complex schedule/timetable
for a dance school? I need to include teachers, students, musicians in
classes that are recurring and then have random entries such as special
rehearsals or practices. Does anyone have ideas?

It certainly could be done. It probably won't be particularly easy
though, especially to have it user-friendly and robust. How are your
Access skills - and/or your budget to hire a good Access developer?

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[John Welch]

Access is a fully functional database development tool. That is, if your
project is something that can be done with a database, Access will handle it
well (unless you have special circumstances like you will have 50 users all
logging in to the database at the same time, or you need super high
security, or you will have over 2 gigabytes of data (which you won't with
what you're talking about), or you need a web-based system.

If your question is really "Is it possible for _me_ to use Acces to
create....", then I would say that if you are asking this question, then
probably not. Access, because of its complexity and power, is not something
you can just pick up and use (like Excel). You'd probably be looking at
paying an Access developer several thousand dollars to create what you're
talking about.

hope this helps
-John

 

[bpowell]

I have had experience with Access before. Also I will have the help of the IT
department at our school. For the most part it will be used by one scheduling
coordinator to create a large timetable... perhaps individual for the
students will be transmitted later. We are then hoping to display this on
plasma screens throughout our campus so that any changes in information that
happen immediately each day can be done from one spot. Right now I'm trying
to figure out how the best way for me to tackle this would be.

 

[Brendan Reynolds]

There is existing off-the shelf software that might meet your needs. The
company that I work for is the Irish distributor for this software. I'm not
directly involved in that part of the business myself, so I can't tell you
very much about it, but as far as I can tell our customers seem to like it
....

http://www.gpuntis.com/timetabler.htm

 

[andy boyns]

Basically, we're looking for a TEMPLATE.

I requested that Microsoft look at this 3 years ago. Come on guys, show your
commitment to education projects: there must be thousands of schools globally
who could make great use of a "school timetable" template (.mdb).

The basic requirements as I see it are to show Student, Teacher, Room
schedules in a weekly format. eg 5 days, each with say 8 blocks. Personally
I'd like to be able to use this with classic ASP to display on our web-site.

Sure some schools are able to <quote>an Access developer several thousand
dollars to create what you're talking about</quote>, but 99% need to use this
money in the classroom!

How about it?

 

[pvdg42]

Basically, we're looking for a TEMPLATE.

I requested that Microsoft look at this 3 years ago. Come on guys, show
your
commitment to education projects: there must be thousands of schools
globally
who could make great use of a "school timetable" template (.mdb).

The basic requirements as I see it are to show Student, Teacher, Room
schedules in a weekly format. eg 5 days, each with say 8 blocks.
Personally
I'd like to be able to use this with classic ASP to display on our
web-site.

Sure some schools are able to <quote>an Access developer several thousand
dollars to create what you're talking about</quote>, but 99% need to use
this
money in the classroom!

How about it?

I realize this may not be what you are looking for directly, but you may
want to try getting in touch with local technical institutes and community
colleges to see if their IT departments (the departments that teach IT) have
what we call "service learning projects". Where I teach, we actively seek
out real world projects in the local community for our advanced students.
The students, under leadership of an instructor, do the project as part of
their grade in an appropriate course, and get additional recognition for
community service. The beneficiary is charged nothing.

 

[andy boyns]

Hi

Great idea - unfortunately I work in Turkey where to the best of my
knowledge there aren't any similar projects :-(

As I wrote above, however, this project is one Microsoft should sponsor, as
it would have significant impact on educational establishments throughout the
world.