Online Flight Schedule Needed

[Pixelpusher]

Here's my situation. I am designing a flight instructor website for a client and they need the ability to have an online schedule. The schedule will be one where they can input the students and the students can log in and see on a daily basis if the airplane is booked for a particular time slot. If not, they can book the airplane and choose between two flight instructors. The instructors also need to have the ability to change the schedule and show a particular time as booked or open. So what we have is:

1 airplane
2 instructors
Unlimited students

Here is an an example of a paid service similar to what we need to accomplish: http://www.flightschedulepro.com/fro...20Overview.wmv

Anyone have any ideas?

[pauland]

This is a potential nightmare project. Currently you have a client who wants something, there's a known solution but your client won't want to pay the fee.

So what you provide must cost less than the known solution ($40 Month).

The real problem is that in my experience is they may asking for what they want now, but will inevitably be asking for more as soon as they get it or even before you finish. Scheduling systems look simple but they can be a lot of work to implement. It's not so much the actual scheduling but the user admin/maintenance/privacy aspects and your client will inevitably ask for additional detail to be saved about the instructors/flights and the thing will grow. They'll soon get fed up of copying flight details to excel for charging and printing reports, so they'll want that too.

Whose going to keep backups of the schedule data, what happens if the server is unavailable?, .. etc.

Anyway, you'll be very lucky to keep this simple.

[gwpriester]

Well observed Paul.

[Pixelpusher]

I think it could be a simple solution if I were a programmer. On the main website there will be a link to the Schedule page. Once clicked, the user will be redirected to the schedule login page as in this more simple example: http://24.227.204.212/www-sched/index.cgi There is a drop down list where the individual will select what they want to do. If they want to see a particular instructors schedule from the drop down the page appears like this one: http://24.227.204.212/www-sched/sche...ott%20Belt%27s with a signup form at the bottom to schedule an open slot from the onscreen calendar.

I need to implement a very simple scheduling system just like this one but I have no idea how to create the calendar. I can easily create the signup form but I do not know how to make it work with the calendar.

[pauland]

I think it could be a simple solution if I were a programmer.

I have to say that I am a programmer and that's why I think it's going to more work than you imagine. Once you have it working you have to keep it working.

If your client can't afford $10 a week for an existing online schedule - cigarrette/beer money for one pilot - they have a problem.

Anyway, good luck.

[Soquili]

Pauland is correct.

Most non-programmers think things are much simpler than they truely are.

Programs do not and cannot think so the programmer must anticipate many things that can occur to make a program not work correctly.

Even after spending many hours writing the code to handle all the logical things that could happen, the programmer must then contend with all the non-logical ways ordinary people can find to cause the program to work incorrectly.

[pauland]

Pixelpusher, whatever route you go - please let us know how things go.

[Pixelpusher]

Thanks everyone.

Right now I am working with the client to use a paid service (FlightSchedule Pro) until I can figure out how to design and create something for them. I guess I will be needing to learn how to create a database. I really wish there was a visual database design program that I get (and get my head around) that would make this type of job easier for a beginner such as myself. I also have another client that has hundreds of products that he want me to put online, not in a shopping cart but in a categorized search that would bring up every product with an item number and a description. Again, I realize this will be database driven but I have no idea where to even start. I have been looking at Filemaker Pro and MicroOLAP but there will be a learning curve, and then having to figure out how to tie it all together to show up on a web page.

Wow this is going to be an experience!

[pauland]

Thanks for the update. I hope your clients understand the amount of work you are putting in. Don't forget to be sure to have an agreement about ongoing maintenance and fault fixing. Once you produce a database application you will have all of the worry about not losing or corrupting that live data. Clients don't generally like to be told their database has been lost or won't be working for awhile, while you sort out a problem. Once it goes live you will need TWO databases to work with to continue development.

Enjoy the adventure!

[gracehjs]

I can help you with the database. I use Access and it is quite visual. If you are brave enough to code check out Microsoft Visual Web Designer Express Edition - it is free. It lets you generate code for the web including using SQL and Access.