Recommendations for a Scheduling App

16 Jul 2019 17:27:24

Georgia Cheer

Hi,
I belong to Dorchester Neighbourcar scheme. We have volunteer drivers who take passengers to their doctor, dentist, hospital etc appointments. What I'm wondering is does anyone recommend a way to put into a diary appointments that can be accessed by others and changed (either by color or some other obvious way) so that the drivers can access the diary, change the color to their color when they are accepting to pick up that patient on the diary, so everyone can see who is left that still needs a driver? This might have a very simple answer, but then I am asking on behalf of other people who might not have a Mac device and who are also of various levels of tech knowledge.
Further to this, it would be helpful to have a page that shows the drivers availability table as some can drive Mon afternoons, All day Tuesday but not other days. Then there are some times when the driver is on holiday so not available AT ALL.
Look forward to what answers there may be from others. Thank you.

Re: Recommendations for a Scheduling App

16 Jul 2019 23:04:49

Mick Burrell

If not everyone has an Apple device then you probably need to use an online calendar e.g. Google Calendar - assuming it can do what the Mac calendar app can. The idea being that the administrator puts all appointments on in a particular colour then each driver can select an appointment and change it to their colour to show acceptance. Any still in the original colour still need a driver.

There may be a cross platform calendar app that would do this but it would need to be hosted online somewhere. Our AUGWessex calendar, run by me, is hosted on iCloud (free of charge).

I'd suggest a simple table in Pages or spread sheet in Numbers to show regular availability for each driver. Copies (as a pdf) could be mailed to anyone who needs one.

Re: Recommendations for a Scheduling App

19 Jul 2019 12:27:56

Georgia Cheer

Thank you Mick. I will look into the Google calendar. We are currently trying to entice volunteers to make the scheduling phone calls as 2 people had to stop due to health problems. That’s why I was hoping to get something to assist any new volunteer by making the job more: user friendly, better organized, and semi-automated!

Re: Recommendations for a Scheduling App

19 Jul 2019 12:48:56

Derek Wright

At the risk of teaching you to suck eggs, have you spoken to any of the other Neighbourcar schemes to see how they organise their drivers and bookings.