PlaNet - Overall Design Document
User Interface

Screens


Login

Screen Shot 
Each employee is required to authenticate themself before viewing their schedule.  PlaNet will prompt them for their Login ID and Password. Once these have been correctly entered, the system checks whether the user has any pending notifications.  If so, the system will prompt the user with the notification screen.  If not, the notification screen will be bypassed.
 
After any notices have been displayed to the employee, he/she will be presented with the main screen. If the user is an administrator, there will also be an additional Administrator screen visible.
 
If the user has forgotten their Login ID or password, an administrator is able to specify a new one for them.
This section looks very good. It is good to have Notification screen come up when after login.

Notifications

A screen shot has not yet been prototyped for this feature.
Notifications are system messages that the user will receive. The user will receive a notification on one of the following conditions: 
Notifications are presented immediately after login to the PlaNet system. The system also checks for new notifications every 5 minutes while a user is logged in. Should any be present, the notification screen is immediately shown.

The notification screen displays all notifications in the order in which they were created.  In the unlikely event that all messages do not fit into the window, a scroll bar is provided.  The notifications are discarded when the user presses "OK". 
We think this section should have another condition:
* The meeting that the user has been scheduled has been modified.
(ie, the meeting location or time has been changed.)

Main Screen

Screen Shot 
The screen shot looks very nice, and seems very easy to use.

In the PlaNet main screen, the user is able to see any 4 hour block, divided into quarter-hour intervals, for a given day in their schedule. The user can select which 4 hour block they are viewing. The following options are available for the user to adjust the time display for their schedule: 
Is it possible to view more than a four hour period? It would be nice if days with meetings could be a different colour then the user would not have to search the month to determine when there is a meeting.

The user can scroll through different time portions of the selected day

Meetings are displayed in the various time slots. If a meeting spans more than one 15 minute slot, then the meeting name will appear at the beginning of the meeting and ditto marks (" " ") will appear below the meeting name. Should more than one meeting be booked for a given time slot, the text "Conflict" will appear.  The user may select "Modify Schedule" to examine the cause of the conflict - q.v. Meeting Details. 

The system database stores schedules twelve months in advance, and deletes schedule information for months that are over one month before. In other words, the user can always choose to view all of last month's schedule, and up to a year ahead from the current month, but no further.
 
Looking for Help
Should the user require assistance with PlaNet, the "Help" button on the top right hand corner enables the user access on-line help system.
This is a good idea to have in line help.

Schedule Viewing and Modification

To modify or view in more detail a particular time slot the user can select it and press "Modify Schedule". The "Meeting Details" screen will appear, in which he/she can do the following:
More detail regarding these functions can be found in the "Meeting Details" section. 
This section is well done. However, we think it is reasonable for user to view the detail of a meeting. Therefore, if you can add another option "View a meeting detail" will be great!

Schedule Printing

The "Print" button prints the selected day's schedule to the default printer.
Is it possilbe to select which printer to print on?

Changing the Password

The user may change his/her password by pressing the "Password" button. The "Change Password" screen will be displayed for the user. 

Exit PlaNet

Pressing the "Exit" button will log users out of the PlaNet system.  If available, the administration window is also closed. 

Meeting Details

Screen Shot 
This screen is very powerful.  We'll walk you through one step at a time.  Remember that help is always available at the click of the "Help" button.
Help feature is nice.

 
Meeting Selection
A meeting has been selected on the main screen and "Modify Schedule" was pressed.  This meeting is highlited in the Meeting List in the top left corner; other meetings which overlap the scheduled time of the selected meeting are displayed in the meeting list as well.  There is always one additional entry, "New Meeting".  It is selected by default if you selected an empty time slot on the main screen. As the user clicks on a meeting in the list, its details are displayed on the remainder of the screen.
Add New Meeting 
An employee can create a new meeting without difficulty.  The following list may seem long at first glance, but testing with novice operators suggests the average learning time for this procedure is under 5 minutes.
Did you test anyone in our company?

  1. Select "New Meeting" in the Meeting List. Override the title by entering a new meeting title.  Your name will appear under "Meeting Originator".
  2. Identify people listed in the "Company Personnel" area who you would like to attend. Select their name, and use the "Add" (>>) button to book them as a "Meeting Attendee".  The "Remove" (<<) button performs the reverse operation.  You may not remove yourself from a meeting you schedule.
  3. "Meeting Notes" may be used to communicate any message to all invitees. Providing a note is optional but is usually good practice.
  4. Should a periodic meeting be desired, this is the time to request it.  We talk about this below.  For now, we'll assume just the one meeting is being scheduled.
  5. Pick a location from the "Location" drop box.
    The consideration about adding the building does not have to be included in the final project. With a space of forty characters we can specify the building by appending its name to the room specification.

  6. If you have a particular date and time you would like the meeting to be at, select this by adjusting the "Meeting Date", "Start Time" and "End Time" areas. (An alternative is to use the "Find Time" feature, discussed below.)  As you adjust these parameters, you will notice that some of the names in the "Company Personnel" and "Meeting Attendees" areas will lighten from black to grey, or darken from grey to black.  When a name is in black the person's schedule is free at the selected time.  Shoud the person's name be coloured grey, they already have something booked during the selected time. You may still ask them to attend the meeting, but be prepared to have them miss it, should their other commitment be more important to them.
  7. Press "OK", and the meeting will be scheduled.  If you press "Cancel Meeting" instead, the meeting will be cancelled.
This is a good way to identify the people who can attend the the meeting and who can not. But, we think "black" and "grey" are too close to each other. It may be hard to identify between them. If you could change to some other colors will be great.

Being able to schedule a individual eventhough they are already in a meeting is a nice feature but if that person's conflicting meeting is canceled does the system change their schedule so that they can make the new meeting. Does the system inform the origination that a meeting is canceled and more individuals can attend.

Periodic Meetings 
This section of the screen is to allow the user to indicate if a meeting will be repeated at a certain interval. Peroidic meetings are meetings with same meeting times and are held on multiple days. The following intervals are available:  
To request a periodic meeting, check the "This meeting is periodic" box, and select a time interval between meetings.  "Period Start" is the day of the first meeting; "Period End" is the day after which no more of this meeting will be scheduled. If you don't want a periodic meeting, uncheck the "This meeting is periodic" box.
This is nicely concieved but what format must the date be entered in i.e., ddmmyyyy

Modify Meeting 
If a user is the originator of the meeting, they may modify the information of the particular meeting. Modification is performed by editing the meeting details. If a user is not the originator, the only modification they can make is to remove themselves from attendance. Each meeting attendee is notified of alterations made by the originator.  The originator is notified if someone decides not to attend a meeting.
Does the user just change the fields that have to be different or must more subtle actions be performed.

Cancel Meeting

Screen Shot
When this button is pressed by the originator of a meeting, the meeting will be removed from the originator's schedule and the schedules of all meeting attendees.  The program asks for confirmation: the default is "No", preventing accidental cancellation.
Cancel Meeting Attendance

Screen Shot
A user can inform PlaNet that he/she will not be attending a meeting by removing him/herself from the list of "Meeting Attendees".  They must subsequently press "OK". 
Find Common Time

A screen shot has not yet been prototyped for this feature.
The user will enter the desired meeting duration, start and end dates for the search, and earliest and latest times for the meeting. PlaNet will provide a list of times, any of which will not conflict will all meeting attendees' schedules. PlaNet will use the date and time the user selects. The user will be informed if no such time exists.
It would be nice if we could access this function from within the add meeting and modify meeting functions. This is not really necessary but it would be a great feature to be added.

When no common time were found, instead of informing the user that no such time was found, maybe provide a list of people who can not come to the meeting because the originator may still want to hold the meeting if there are only one or two people who can not come.

Change Password

Screen Shot 
The "Change Password" screen enables a user to change their own password. Users are required to enter their desired new password twice to ensure that an inadvertant typographical error does not prevent them from accessing PlaNet.  To change his/her password, a user must do the following:
To avoid the password change, the user can press "Cancel". ISSI recommends, but PlaNet does not require, that users change their password once every two months.
This section is well done. The screen shot also looks very good.

Administrator Screen

Screen Shot 
The administrations screen is only available to an administrator. This screen allows the user (this will now always refer to the administrator) to work with Empolyee management, or meeting Location management. 

Employee Management

The primary tasks available for this screen relate to employee management. There are a number of options available for users of this screen. The user can add employees, modify employees, and delete employees. A list of employees are available for viewing. The list of employees is sorted in ascending alphabetical order. The user can scroll in all directions (left, right, up, down) to display more information when needed.
In above paragraph, you mentioned that a list of employees are available for viewing. We are wondering what kind of information can be viewed? Should there be a "View employee information" option?


The user can also type the first letter of an employee's last name in the list box, and the list will position itself to the first employee in that sublist of employees whose names begin with the typed letter. 

The following employee management functions are available in this screen 
This sounds like a really nice feature. Can we type more than one letter to get a better match? Will the typed letter be case sensitive?

Adding an Employee
Screen Shot 
This screen allows a new employee to be added to current list of employees. 

The following information must be entered to add an employee: 
Any of the above can be entered by simply clicking in the white box beside the name. This screen also contains an administration checkbox to indicate if the user being added is an administrator. When the user has finished entering the information, they can press the OK button to confirm the new employee entry. If the user wishes to cancel the addition, the Cancel button can be pressed. 
How does one add a new administrator? We assume that there exists one administrator from the start, but does s/he have access to the 'Administrator' attribute in any other instance of Employee? As well,t here is no mention of how the system will react to the addition of a new employee who has the same name as one already entered in the system. One possible way of dealing with this is to be able to enter a middle name for the new employee.

Modifying an Employee
Screen Shot
When modifing an employee, a screen similar to the Add New Employee screen will appear. The user can click on the desired attribute (First Name, Last Name, Login ID, Password, Comments) of the employee and then make changes by typing the information for that attribute. Once this is done, the user can press the OK button to confirm the changes. If the user wishes to cancel the changes, the Cancel button can be pressed. 
Deleting an employee
Screen Shot 
To delete an employee, the user can select the desired name of the employee and highlight it. When looking for an employee, the user can nagivate throught the list of employees by using the scroll bars, or typing the first letter of the employee's name to position the list to the first employee whose name starts with the typed letter. Once the desired employee is selected (the name is highlighted), the user can initiate the deletion by pressing the Delete button on the right side of the screen. Following the press of that button, a confimation screen will appear and ask the user for confirmation of the deletion along with a warning message indicating that all meetings for that particular employee will be cancelled. For confirmation, the user can press the OK button. To cancel the deletion, the user can press the Cancel button. 

Location Management

Screen Shot 
To gain access to the location management functions, the user clicks the Location checkbox. When this is done, a list of locations will be displayed where the employees list used to be. To switch back to the employees list, the user can click the Personnel checkbox.
The screen shot of the Location Management shows a click box called "Meeting Rooms". Is this the "Location checkbox" refered to in the proceeding paragraph?


As with the employees list, changes to the locations can be made by pressing the Modify button. Adding and deleting can also be done by pressing their corresponding buttons. 

The following Location management functions are available in this screen. 

Add a new Location
Screen Shot 
To add a new location, the user can type in the new description. To confirm the location, the user presses the OK button. To cancel the addition, the user presses the Cancel button. 
Modify Location
Screen Shot 
To modify an existing location, the user can edit the existing description and press the OK button. To cancel the modification, the user can press Cancel. 
Delete Location
A screen shot has not yet been prototyped for this feature.
To confirm a deletion of an existing location, the user can press the OK button. To cancel the deletion, the user presses the Cancel button. 
The Administration Interface including functions for Employees and Location seem to have been well thought out and organized. The Employees of Imagine 8 software should have no trouble understanding and learning how to use this part of the system.

In general, the user interface part is well done! We like the screen shots that you have shown. If you could change/add the options that we suggested above will be great! Good job! We are looking forward to seeing the whole system!

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