Crisis Tracking System--At scheduling.com, occasionally a matter would arrive on the priority list that had not been planned. The code word for such an incident was a "crisis." A crisis could take days or months to resolve depending on its nature. The information relating to a given crisis often had been spread through various e-mails and was generally hard to manage. The team responsible for crisis tracking and I had a conference call during which I was given a wish list of features. The tool I built includes:
- Summary view of open crises displayed in small portal gadget
- Sortable display of actions assigned to staff related to crisis
- Updatable and archivable status entries for each crisis
- Ability to retroactively enter status entries
- Protected administrative interface
News Submission and Management System--Perhaps the most updated section of scheduling.com's portal was the What's New section used for posting news items. Initially, all posts were separate HTML files. However, it was cumbersome when each new posting required one to create the new file, update the news page's links and content, and so forth. I built a news tool with an entry form for standard users wanting to submit items for review as a news post. I used DHTML to create the appropriate form for the user's needs based on answers to questions. The forms allow input of either the full content of an article, a simple paragraph as an introduction to what was being linked to elsewhere, or a simple blurb with no link. Users submitting full articles can use Javascript buttons that help them write correct HTML for their posting. On submission, site administrators are emailed an alert of the posting with a link into the administrative interface where they can accept or reject the posting. Another administrative tool edits past articles and submits new ones directly with instant approval. Old messages are automatically archived.
