As we continue to prepare for the coming academic year (we don’t start classes until the week after Labour Day) I’ve begun to prepare the data for the Faculty.
One of the introductions last year was the “Duty Calendar” — who does residential duty each night, both faculty and prefects (student leaders). In the past, it was stored in five different spreadsheets, one for each house and then one for the entire campus (since on weekends, faculty members are assigned to the campus rather than specific houses during the day Saturday & Sunday). No one from other houses knew who was doing duty in any other house and if swaps were made, folks were never really sure that the change had been made. Now, although the data starts out on a spreadsheet (I configure a spreadsheet for the House Directors) it is then copy-and-pasted into a Sharepoint Calendar. 3 clicks and 2 key-presses for each spreadsheet and the information is available to all.
To be precise, it is pasted into five calendars, one for each house and one for the campus and then they are merged (using Sharepoint’s Calendar Overlay) into one calendar. This has made the information visible to people that need it but also available to other applications on our system. Faculty can now see who is on duty in each house and this information is fed into our weekly (printed) residential duty sheets. Any changes are automatically updated and reflected on the calendars. And, like all the other Sharepoint calendars, the House Directors can link their house’s calendar into their own Outlook calendar so they know who is on duty each day without having to visit Sharepoint.
[Since I’m beginning a new academic year, and a new job, I’m re-starting blogging today, August 1st, and do my best to reflect, or at least comment on, something I’ve encountered each day.]
