Webcalendar and the Department Database

Using Webcalendar

Events

• Events are your basic object of your calendar.
• Create an event by clicking the Add New Entry link in the GoTo selection line at the bottom of the page.
• Fill out the necessary information in the form boxes on the page and click the Save button.

Participants

• Events can have multiple participants. When event is created with participants then the event is place on each participants calendar as a pending event.
• Emails are sent out when ever a participant rejects an event.
• Participants are selected using the participant tab of the event edit page. Select a participant by CTL clicking its name in the multi select box.

Conflict detection

• After creating an event with multiple participants. Often that event will cause a conflict on someones calendar.
• A helpful tool in find free time slots is the availability button on the participants tab.
• You can then cycle through the days looking for a time slot that all participants have open. Then click on the time slot to reschedule for that time.

Email all Participants

• After a event with multiple participants has been created you can easily e-mail all of its participants.
• Click on the link to the event in question.
• On the veiw_event.php page click the Email all participants link near the bottom of the page. If your email browser is setup correctly as the default mail client a composition window should open addressed to all of the participants of the event.

Views

• Views are quick links to other calendars.
• To create a quick link to the availability of the whole department follow these steps.
  1. Click the Admin link in the GoTo line.
  2. Click the Views button on the admin page.
  3. Click Add New View link near the bottom of the page.
  4. Name the view Biostat Availability.
  5. Set the View Type to month (timebar).
  6. Set the Users radio button to All.
  7. Click the Add button.
• Now look at the new view by clicking on the Biostat Availability.

Categories

• Webcalendar allows for events to be placed in categories for easy sorting.
• You can assign a category to any event that you are a participant of.
• Use the following steps to create a category for meetings.
  1. Click the Admin link in the GoTo line near the bottom of the page.
  2. Press the Categories button on the Admin panel.
  3. Click the Add New Category link near the bottom of the page.
  4. Enter the category name in the text box. In this case "Meetings".
  5. Click the Add button to save you new category.

• Once you have a category you must assign events to it.
  1. View the event you want to set the category for.
  2. If this is your own event click the edit event link. If this is someone else's event click the Set Category link.
  3. Use the drop down box to select the category that you want for this event.
  4. Click the Save button.

• All events but the ones in a specific category can be filtered out by select that category from the Category drop down at the top of the page.

Layers

• Layers are used to overlay other calendars onto your own calendar. The only calendar that this is useful for is US Holidays to overlay holidays on you calendar.
• In order to create a overlay you must first turn layers on.
  1. Go to the Admin panel.
  2. Press the Layers button.
  3. Click on the Enable Layers link.

• To create an overlay of the holidays
  1. Go to the Admin panel.
  2. Press the Layers button.
  3. Click on the Add Layer link.
  4. Select the calendar from the Source drop down box. In this case "US Holidays".
  5. Press the Select... button to select the color of the layered events.
  6. Click on a color. I like Red.
  7. Make sure the that the Duplicates check box is unchecked.
  8. Press the Save button to save the layer.

• The holidays will now show up on your calendar as red entries.

Assistants

• Webcalendar allows users to give other users permission to modify their calendar.
  1. Go to the Admin panel.
  2. Press the Assistants button.
  3. Select the user that you want to be able to modify you calendar.
  4. Press the Save button.

• Events that assistants create will show up in the view entry pane on the created by: line
  as <User Name> (<Assistant's Name>).

Reports

• Reports allows users to create customized display of their calendar data.
  1. Go to the Admin panel.
  2. Press the Reports button.
  3. Use the page template boxes to create a report that displays the information in a manner that you like.
  4. Click the Save button.

Reserving a Room

• In Biostatistics we use a web calendar user to handle conference room reservations.
• To reserve a conference room add it to your event as a participant.
• This will allow you to find a time where both the participants and the conference room are free at the same time.

DBconnect

• https://data.vanderbilt.edu/dbconnect
• Purpose
  • Manage information about grants, collaborations and other projects
  • Track employee professional development spending
  • Create reports based on percent effort versus actual time spent
  • Track publications for our department
• User priviledges
  • Employee information - read only by employee
  • Professional develompent data - read only by employee
  • Project information - read only by all
  • Time data - read by all, write by employee
  • Publication information - read/write by all
  • Journal information - read/write by all
• Reports
  • Professional Development
  • Time Data (Project, Client, Date)
  • Publications