Office Reservation software

[Kimbel Jeffers]

I've been tasked with finding a software tool that helps manage the onboarding and exit process of new and departing faculty. Ultimately i would like this software to management faculty office interms of when resources can be removed from a particular office and when a new faculty member can be moved in with the necessary resources. This tool should have notifications and alerts so there are no conflicts with someone being removed from a office and someone being placed in a office.

 

Does anyone know of such a software tool or can point me in the right direction of solving this issue.? Thanks

[Dan Bashaw]

Hi Kimbel.

I know you've been tasked with finding a software solution, though I'm wondering if you may need an interim step first: Does your institution have checklists covering all of the steps needed in on-boarding, relocating, and 'off-boarding' faculty and their offices? First step to creating a system would be to have accurate checklists of all the actions needed.

Once you have those, you might want to consider prototyping the system using a combination of online checklists ( Evernote, Google Docs, checklist.com, Trello.com), and scheduling tools (Google Calendar, Outlook) to manage the process. After trying this for a while and refining the checklists and scheduler, you could then start to look for or build a tool that can meet your exact needs.

Also... at that point you may find that checklists and schedulers are all you need for the amount of faculty turnover you have. Depending on your scale, complete automation might not be the best choice, especially after you factor in the cost of maintaining a commercial or open source YASS (Yet Another Software Solution) over the next several years.

let me know what you think – would a manual solution like this be a good way to proceed in your case?

[Kimbel Jeffers]

The problem is we use a manual process right now and things keep falling through the cracks.

[Dan Bashaw]

Hi Kimbel -- Does you manual process include a checklist and workflow documentation?

If not, it sounds to me like checklists and schedulers are your best next steps. You can structure and document what you do now, and then look at it to see if there are improvements you can make. Things like this:

Where does the current system fail exactly? Between steps 7 and 8? How could that failure point be fixed? Would a calendar reminder in step 1 help?

This is really useful analysis work that I think needs to be done before buying or building a system.

If your task mandate is to 'Find A Tool And Fix This Right Now Dangit!" you could do this clarifying work using Remember The Milk (http://www.rememberthemilk.com/) which would show that you are definitely working on automation rather than a manual system.

Hope this helps!

[Dan Bashaw]

Hi Kimbel -- Did you ever find a good tool for this? if so, please post and let us know. Cheers, Dan

[Kimbel Jeffers]

I've found a few options from these software companies called Asure and Active Data.