Booking System: Multiple Schools

[Arkaine]

Nick, you'll hate me for this because (at least to me) this request is a huge structural change. This would probably be a good candidate for version 9.3.

 

Districts with multiple schools tend to have multiple schedules. For example, my high school has 4 lessons a day, my middle school has 8, and my elementary schools (I'm pretty sure) don't do block lessons. I'll have to ask about that.

 

This is what I'm thinking. Thoughts?

 

[nickbro]

Too big of a job that one, plus certain things in HAP+ are single site only.

 

Recommendations are to have multiple HAP+ installs, i.e. /hap-high/, /hap-mid/, /hap-elem/

[Arkaine]

Too big of a job that one, plus certain things in HAP+ are single site only.

How about this alternative? Grab different config file based on URL. That way we can maintain the user HTTP sessions.

https://hap.example.com/hap/BookingSystem/?school=high --> /App_Data/schools/high/hapconfig.xml
https://hap.example.com/hap/BookingSystem/?school=mid  --> /App_Data/schools/mid/hapconfig.xml
https://hap.example.com/hap/BookingSystem/?school=elem --> /App_Data/schools/elem/hapconfig.xml

We could even merge configs. An admin could have the default hapconfig.xml, but then, HAP could overwrite (in memory, not the file system) the default XML tags with the school-specific ones (if they exist) before applying the settings, so if the admin wants to keep most of the default settings, but only change the or elements, he can do so.

 

This solution changes the task from major restructuring to just replacing XML elements (in memory, not the file system) before applying the config.

 

if ( (HTTP_VAR['school'] != NULL) && fileExists('/App_Data/schools/' + escapeAndStripDoubleDotsSlashesEtc(HTTP_VAR['school']) + '/hapconfig.xml') ) {
   //merge configuration file in memory before applying it
} else {
   //don't do anything
}

In that case, the admin would add multiple booking system links on the home page each showed to different groups and each linking to a different URL.

 

How about that? That's not too bad, is it?

Edited May 29, 2013 by Arkaine

[Arkaine]

Recommendations are to have multiple HAP+ installs, i.e. /hap-high/, /hap-mid/, /hap-elem/

Thanks! This is what I will probably end up doing.