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- Jun 20, 2011
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Currently have 2-3 people that are available through out the day for various appointments and a large department of people requesting appointments (typically requiring my resource call to a client at the specified time). On the request there is a specific form that they are required to fill out to ensure that we have all the data we need for that appointment.
We are using Outlook and have the people in the department 'book' time on a generic calendar and we manually go in and assign those appointments. Once the appointment is in the calendar, the client is expecting the call at that time and it is nearly impossible to move.
There are 2 major issues we are having with this:
1. We have to count on the people in the department not overbooking a single time slot. (We manage this manually by requesting they not book more than 2 over lapping appointments)
2. We can't control when they request the time slot. Each of the appointments typically takes 1.5 hours and 2 people might schedule from 8:00 - 9:30 but then someone else might request 10:00 - 11:30 and another person from 9:30-11:00. This causes a 30 minute gap for at least one of my resources where they can't be requested for an appointment. Several of these gaps and we lose 2-3 appointments that could have otherwise fit into the regular work day.
I need to find a way that is scalable (as I will be adding more people to my team as the company grows) to block out specific time slots. I also need it to show the appointments as full if they are already at the max available for that time slot. I can then assign to my people. As an extra 'nice to have' feature, I would like to have it alert the person that requested the appointment that it has been assigned and to whom.
ANY suggestions or ideas would be most welcome!
We are using Outlook and have the people in the department 'book' time on a generic calendar and we manually go in and assign those appointments. Once the appointment is in the calendar, the client is expecting the call at that time and it is nearly impossible to move.
There are 2 major issues we are having with this:
1. We have to count on the people in the department not overbooking a single time slot. (We manage this manually by requesting they not book more than 2 over lapping appointments)
2. We can't control when they request the time slot. Each of the appointments typically takes 1.5 hours and 2 people might schedule from 8:00 - 9:30 but then someone else might request 10:00 - 11:30 and another person from 9:30-11:00. This causes a 30 minute gap for at least one of my resources where they can't be requested for an appointment. Several of these gaps and we lose 2-3 appointments that could have otherwise fit into the regular work day.
I need to find a way that is scalable (as I will be adding more people to my team as the company grows) to block out specific time slots. I also need it to show the appointments as full if they are already at the max available for that time slot. I can then assign to my people. As an extra 'nice to have' feature, I would like to have it alert the person that requested the appointment that it has been assigned and to whom.
ANY suggestions or ideas would be most welcome!