Booking system

[CHiLL]

I am looking for an alternative to our very complex booking system we have in place at the moment. It is currently a very awkward ASP based system, which takes days to enter all the booking information and timetable information each year.

 

I have had a quick glance at MRBS, and it looks very good. However, I have a few of questions;

 

1) Can MRBS link into SIMS/Nova to pull out timetable information?

2) Can teachers (who don't have many priviliges) write to MRBS (e.g, if they want to book a room, will it allow them to...or do they have to contact us admins to do it for them?)

3) Does it work using periods, rather than time slots? We'd prefer Period 1, Period 2, etc, instead of 9am - 10am, 10am - 11am, etc.

 

I did have more questions, but I've forgotten them, so I may edit/post back when/if I remember!

Edited September 8, 2011 by CHiLL

[johnanderson]

Hi Chill,

 

Have you looked into WebReserv.eu? They have an online booking/reservation system that can be customized to support all kinds of bookings, including daily, hourly & schedules.

 

Cheers

[Chris_Cook]

MRBS does 2 and 3. I think 1 might be possible with the sims command line reporter, but I've haven't had a chance to try it yet. There is a thread on these forums if you search for it.

 

You can set up mrbs to authenticate in several ways, using accounts stored on the config file, in the database, on active directory, or on an imap/smtp mail server. If you use iis on a windows server with windows clients, you can get single-sign-on working fairly easily. There is a good document included with mrbs when you download it that should tell you how to do the mrbs side of things. If you want to block staff from making changes, thats possible too. You can also set new bookings to require confirmation if you want, or limit how far in advance people can make bookings. Its got some really useful options in the current and next version.

 

Periods can be setup in the config file. This is one of the main reasons we choose mrbs. Periods need to be well planned before deploying mrbs to users, as changes can be tricky once bookings have been made - its not impossible though if you know your sql.

 

I've found the support for mrbs to be excellent - probably the best I've dealt with, commercially or otherwise. The developers are very helpful, and there are quite a few users on this forum.

[2097]

I Love MRBS

 

I have mine double protected , I use apache and have a HTACCESS authenticated against AD (staff OU) ( stops the children viewing the room data)

 

I also have it setup in the MRBS config to authenticate with AD to allow staff to login .

 

I also have mine setup for periods , was very easy to change

 

I will also echo the comment above to make sure everything is put on before deploying this .