[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Hope this helps =)

Help Page

Index

Introduction
System Overview
Administrator
User
Frequently Asked
1. What is the difference between "Title" and "For"?
Contact
Credits

I. Introduction

Welcome to the Signup Center! This website is an online tool that makes signups easier and more flexible. The tool is open for various uses, such as signups for class sections, presentations, appointments, etc. The tool includes email reminders and many other functions and features.

I.i. What is the Signup Center?

The Signup Center is an online tool that allows an administrator (owner) to create a signup sheet with available slots or times that other users can sign up for. Instead of having different online signup sheets on each of the class or department websites, this is a universal tool that can be used for many purposes. A user can login and search for the specific project (signup sheet) that they want to sign up for. Then with a few clicks the signup can be made easily. This tool was created by the Instructional Technology Group (ITG) upon requests from many professors.

I.ii. Signup Center Terminology

The following are a few words that are picked to be used for universal purpose, but could be a bit confusing.

Project : this is the same as "signup sheet"
Administrator : The owner of the signup sheet
User : The person who signs up (the "signer-upper")
MultiSlot : A type of project which allows users to pick slot choices
Title : Description of the project
For : What project is for, such as classes, department, etc.
Num Users : Maximum number of users per slot
Auto Accept : Automatically accepted (no need of owner's confirmation)
Allow Notes : Allow users to write notes to the owner
Priority : The priority of the user's choice
Add Recurring slot : Adding many slots repeatedly by the condition given
Logout : This link does not actually log you out, but asks you to close your browser

I.iii. Getting Started for professors (admins)

To make a signup sheet, simply logon as an administrator. You will see an admin page saying there is no project found. Click "add new project." Fill in the form as described in section 3.2 , and the project will be displayed in your admin page. You can now get to the project by clicking on its title. The project page will allow you to add slots and edit the project information. Once you add slots, the project will be ready for users (students) to signup. The signup will appear on the project page, and you can come back to check the progress at any time. Then, at the end date of signup period, the program will automatically email you with a link to the results.

I.iv. Getting Started for students (users)

To sign up, you need to logon as a user. This will take you to a user page. Click the link that says "signup," which will bring you to the project search page. Type in your class name, the title of the project, and/or the professor name, and then search. You can also use the search form on the top of the page. When you find the project you want to sign up for, click "signup" and it will bring you to that project's signup page. For more details on how to signup, refer to section 4.3. After you have signed up, the project will appear on your user page. You can edit your signup as long as the project is not yet confirmed. You will receive an e-mail once the project is confirmed, and an e-mail reminder the day before the signup time.

II. System Overview

This is an overview of the Signup Center system for both admins and users.

II.i. Project Type

There are three project types. Each one serves different kind of signup.

Slots : Users choose from the list of slots on a first-come-first-serve basis.
MultiSlots : Users indicate 3 preferences.
Time : Users choose any time in the given period.

II.i.1. Slots

This type of project allows the administrator to add any number of slots to the project. Users may pick one available slot from the list. "Available" means the slot is not full and hasn't been passed (in the future). This means the signup is first-come-first-serve.

This type of project is best for section signups or for projects with a large number of users per slot.

II.i.2. MultiSlots

This type of project is similar to the Slots type, but in this case a user is allowed 3 choices. At the end of the signup period, the program will automatically fill the available slots and try to fit every one in, taking users' prioritzed choices into account. Users who have selected the same choice with the same availability will be placed on a first-come-first-serve basis. If a user cannot be be placed (although this is a rare occurence, it is a possibility), the program will automatically deny the user's signup and inform both the user and the administrator. In this case, the user should logon and sign up for any slots that are still available, as if the project were now a Slots project. The administrator will also receive the full list of users' choices in case he/she would like to make any changes later on. Please also note that the user can only sign up once for this type of project.

This type of project is best for presentations or for projects with a small number of users per slot.

II.i.3. Time

This type of project allows the administrator to specify any number of available periods for signup inside a given period. The administrator can also specify how many users can sign up for the same time period (ex. the Writing Center could make more than one appointment at once).

This type of project is best for making appointments and signing up for office hours.

II.ii. User Type

There are two user types, individual and group.

II.ii.1. Individual

The individual user type is for projects that users sign up for individually.

II.ii.2. Group

The group user type is for projects where users sign up as groups. The person who signs up must provide the Net-IDs of the other users in the group. Once the signup has been completed, any users in the group can sign in and view their signup status or edit their signup. "Max num users/groups" is the maximum number of groups allowed.

II.iii. Start & End Date

There are a few different types of start and end dates that you will use in Signup Center.

Project Date : Defines the length of the signup period
Slot Date : Defines the length of the slots
Time Date : Allows the user to choose a period of time

II.iii.1. Project Date

Project start and end dates define the user signup period. The program will not allow any signups after that period has ended, but the user may still edit his/her preferences until the signup has been confirmed.

II.iii.2. Slot Date

Slot start and end date define the period of the slot. The user must choose one of the provided times to signup.

II.iii.3. Time Date

Time date is similar to the slot date. In this case, though, users choose the time themselves from within the available periods (i.e. signing up for office hours).

II.iv. Project Options

The following are the options that give flexibility for the project admins fit their kind of projects

II.iv.1. Number of users per slot

This allows administrators to specify their "default" maximum number of users/groups per slot. This number will automatically fill in the max num field when you add new slot, but admin can still change the values to be varying between slots.

II.iv.2. Automatically accepted

Automatically accepted is the option for the administrators who don't want to login and confirm the signups. If the project is automatically accepted, the signup status after users have signed up will be "Accepted" which means the signup is succeeded. Please note that the users can still edit their signup if it has not been confirmed. The default for this option is Not Automatically Accepted.

II.iv.3. Hide other users' names

This option lets the administrator choose whether or not a user can see other users' signups. Normally, when users sign up, they are able to see the list of slots and the name and number of people who have signed up for each slot. If the administrator chooses to hide names, the user will see "(hidden)" instead of the name of that user. The default value of this option is Hide.

II.iv.4. Allow users' notes

If this option is selected, users may write a note to the administrator along with their signup if they have any preferences or problems to express. The note will appear along with the name in the project page. Administrators should decide whether or not this option is useful, as notes from users could potentially be bothersome or unimportant. The default for this option is Allow.

II.iv.5. Note to the users

This gives the administrator the opportunity to write a note that will show up on the user signup page. The message will be highlighted to make sure the users read it.

II.v. Signup Status

Signup has 5 different statuses.

"Waiting for confirmation" : The signup will be at this status once the signup is made if the project is not 'Automatically accepted'. This status means the users need to wait for a confirmation from the admin to make sure that the signup is accepted. At this status, the users are allowed to edit or delete their signup.
"Accepted" : The signup will be at this status once the signup is made and the project is chosen to be 'Automatically accepted'. This status means the signup has been succeeded, but the users can still edit or delete their signup.
"Confirmed" : The signup will change to this status when the admin confirm the signup from either 'waiting' or 'accepted'. At this status, the users cannot edit or delete the signup anymore.
"Denied" : This status will occur if the administrator doesn't accept your signup due to any reason. At this status the users can edit or delete the signup. Once it has been edited, the status will go back to 'waiting' or 'accepted'
"Edited by the owner" : The signup will change to this status if the admin has moved the signup to another slot, or if the admin has changed the date and time of the slot. At this stage the users will be asked to confirm the change. The users only have the option to confirm it, or else they need to contact the admin with any problems.

II.vi. Email & Confirmation

The following are events that are accompanied by email confirmations to the user or administrator.

Confirm&Deny : When the administrator confirms or denies the signup, the user will receive an e-mail update with that information.
Edit : If the administrator makes any change to the signup, the user will receive an e-mail update with the change and signup status.
End of the signup period : At the end of the signup period the admin will receive e-mail notification that the signup period has ended, with a link to the results page.
Reminder : Users will receive an e-mail reminder one day before the time of the signed-up slot.

II.vii. Logging out

Once you have logged in, your Net-ID will appear under the Signup Center logo on the right side of the screen. Next to your Net-ID, there should be a link to the logout page. Since the program uses the Brown Web Authorization system, the only way to securely logout is to close the browser window, or for mac users, quit the application.

III. Administrator

The administrator is the owner of the project or the signup sheet. The following section describes in detail the display and all the functions of each page for the administrator.

III.i. Admin Page

The Admin Page is the first page for the administrator. It shows the table of the projects that the current admin has. Each row displays the title, the "for" value, the number of signups, and status of the project. Clicking on the title of the project will take you to the Project Page. Clicking on the link "result" will take you to the Result Page .

III.ii. Add New Project

At the bottom of the Admin Page, there is link for adding a new project. This link will bring you to Add Page. This page contain a form asking the following information

Title : Title or Description of the project
For : What (or whom) the project is for (classes, group, department, etc.)
Project Type : Type of the project
User Type : Type of the user
Available Signup Date : Period of time in which users may sign up
Number of users per slot : Default maximum number of users
Automatically accepted : Automatically accepted users' signups
Hide other users' names : Hide the names of people who have already signed up
Allow users' notes : Allow users to write notes along with the signup
Note to the users : Write notes to the users

The following examples illustrate how to fill out the form for different situations.

III.ii.1 Non-Registrar Sections

This is an example of a signup sheet for professors who need students to sign up for small sections in class.

Title : "Class Section"
For : "PY001" (for consistency, please put class name in form XXxxx, such as VA010, CS128)
Project Type : "Slots"
User Type : "Individual"
Available Signup Date : N/A
Number of users per slot : N/A
Automatically accepted : "No" (admin should check first before confirm)
Hide other users' names : "Yes" (not necessary to show the names)
Allow users' notes : "No" (not necessary)
Note to the users : N/A

III.ii.2. In-class Presentation slots

This is an example for professors who need students to sign up for presentations.

Title : "Presentation"
For : "PY001" (for consistency, please put class name in form XXxxx, such as VA010, CS128)
Project Type : "MultiSlots" (small number of max number of users per slot)
User Type : "Group"
Available Signup Date : N/A
Number of users per slot : "1"
Automatically accepted : "Yes" (normally program will generate the best result for the admin)
Hide other users' names : "No" (students might be more comfortable to signup, seeing others' names)
Allow users' notes : "Yes" (with MultiSlots type this is necessary)
Note to the users : N/A

Note : for the MultiSlots type, please make sure the available signup time ends before the first slot starts.

III.ii.3 Appointments with Writing Center

This is an example of a signup sheet that allows students to sign up for an appointment with the Writing Center.

Title : "Appointment"
For : "Writing Center "
Project Type : "Time"
User Type : "Individual"
Available Signup Date : N/A (should be very long; cover all the available time slots)
Number of users per slot : N/A (more than one, if admin can take more than one person at a time)
Automatically accepted : "No" (admin should check first before confirm)
Hide other users' names : "Yes" (not necessary to show the names)
Allow users' notes : "Yes" (necessary for an appointment)
Note to the users : N/A

III.ii.4. Appointments with Writing Fellows

This is an example of a signup sheet that allows students for the Writing Fellows make an appointment with specific student. This is basically the example to make individual appointment with the other person.

Title : "Appointment1"
For : "Writing Fellows"
Project Type : "Time"
User Type : "Individual"
Available Signup Date : N/A (depends)
Number of users per slot : "1"
Automatically accepted : "No" (admin should check first before confirm)
Hide other users' names : "Yes" (not necessary to show the names)
Allow users' notes : "Yes" (necessary for an appointment)
Note to the users : N/A

III.ii.5. Office Hours

This is an example of a signup sheet where professors or TAs display their office hours and students make individual appointments. This way, students don't have to spend time waiting for others.

Title : "Office Hours"
For : "TA PY001" (for consistency, please put class name in form XXxxx, such as VA010, CS128)
Project Type : "Time"
User Type : "Individual"
Available Signup Date : N/A
Number of users per slot : "1"
Automatically accepted : "Yes" (since it's office hours, the admin will be available anyway)
Hide other users' names : "Yes" (Not necessary to show the names)
Allow users' notes : "Yes" (necessary for an appointment)
Note to the users : N/A

III.iii. Project Page

The Project Page displays the information about the project and a table of all the slots, including the date and time and the list of signups for each slot. From this page there are several links for the administrator to edit project information, add a new slot, edit or delete slots, confirm or deny the signups, confirm all the signups at once (this applies only to signups that have a status of 'waiting' or 'accepted'), and link to the result page.

III.iv. Add New Slot

There are two ways to add slots: adding each slot one by one, or adding recurring slots (ex. the same time everyday for one week). The links for adding new slots are at the bottom of the Project Page.

III.iv.1. Add single slot

This page contains a form that asks you the information to add one slot.

Name/Id : The name of the slot, such as section1, section2, etc. It's okay to leave this field blank.
Start&End date : Time of the slot.
Max number of users : Max number of users for this slot.

III.iv.2. Add recurring slot

This page contains a form that asks you the information to add multiple slots.

Name/Id : The name of the slot, such as section1, section2, etc. It's okay to leave this field blank. The name of each created slot will be in the form <name>1, <name>2, etc.
Start&End date : Period of the recurrence. The slots will be created according to preferences within this period of time.
Start&End time : The time during the day of the slots.
Choice of recurrence : Choose the days, or click on the 'everyday', or 'weekday' button.
Max number of users : Max number of users for each slot.

III.v. Project-Edit Page

This section contains two pages: the project-edit page and the slot-edit page. The project-edit page allows you to change any information you submit when you add the project. The slot-edit page allows you to change the slot information and also move or delete the signups in that slot.

Warning : Changing project information when there have already been some signups could cause information to be lost or confuse the users that have already signed up. For instance, changing the user type from Slots to MultiSlots will lose any existing signups. Basically, changing project information can cause confusion and make your project inconsistent. Therefore, please make sure you're prepared to deal with these problems before changing any information!

III.vi. Result Page

This page contains the list of the slots/time and the signups, without the status or note fields. The signups that appear are only the signups that are not 'denied' ('waiting,' 'accepted,' or 'confirmed'). At the bottom of the page, there are functions for the admin to get a printer-friendly version of the result, or export the result to another format.

III.vi.1. Printer-friendly

By clicking the 'printer-friendly' links at the bottom of the result page, the printer-friendly version of the result will show up in a new window. Then you can go to File->Print to print the result.

III.vi.2. Export

The administrator can export the result to the following format.

Microsoft Excel : The file is in the format is .csv
Microsoft Word : Just copy and paste
Text File : For admin who wants to use it for other purpose
WebCT Calendar : For admin who use WebCT Calendar.

Choose the format then click 'Go', you will see the export page with the full details instruction and the file to download.

IV. User

The user is defined as the "signer-upper." Signup Center allows users to choose slots, see other people's signups, write notes to professors, and edit and delete his/her signups.

IV.i. User Page

This page contains the current user's list of signups. It displays each project's title, date and time of the signup, members, notes, and priority of the signup. At the bottom of the page there is a link to go to Search Project Page. Please see section 2.5 for explanations of the status.

IV.ii. Search Project

This page helps users locate specific projects. Enter information about the project (i.e. title, for, name of owner) in the text field at the top of the page. Click search, and the program will search for projects that contain those texts. The Search page also shows the last twenty projects added into the system. Once you find the right project, click 'signup' to go to the Signup Page .

IV.iii. Signup

The signup page contains information about the project, notes from the professors, a form for signup, and a list of all the slots. The signup form varies slightly depending on the type of project. If the project's user type is 'Group,' the user can add the other members' Net-IDs (please make sure these are correct!); if the professor has decided to allow user notes, there will be a text field for users to write notes.

IV.iii.1. Signup 'Slots' type project

For 'Slots' type projects, users can select one of the available slots from the drop down box.

IV.iii.2. Signup 'MultiSlots' type project

For 'MultiSlots' type projects, users must select three slot choices from the available slots list. Users can add and remove until they get their preferred choices. All three choices must be filled before signup can be completed.

IV.iii.3. Signup 'Time' type project

For 'Time' type projects, users can pick their own start and end times from the available time table. The program will not allow users to sign up if the selected time is not inside the available time, or if the time overlaps another signup more than the specific maximum number.

IV.iv. Signup-Edit Page

From the user page, users can choose to edit or delete the signup. For the explanation of when the users can edit or delete please see section 4.5 below. In the edit page, the users can change the slot time, group members, and the note to the professors. For the 'MultiSlots' type you have to edit by each choice, but the choice cannot be the same.

IV.v. Signup editability rules

Users can edit or delete their signups only when the status of the signup is 'waiting' or 'accepted'. Once the administrator confirms the signup, users can no longer edit or delete. Confirmation from the admin can be made any time after a user has signed up (before and after the end of the signup period). So please make sure your signup preference is correct before you signup!

The coolest DHTML calendar widget by Mishoo, website : http://dynarch.com/mishoo/calendar.epl
OverLib by Erik Bosrup, website : http://www.bosrup.com/web/overlib/
ezSQL Database Class (1.26) by JVMultimedia, website : http://php.justinvincent.com/

The Signup Center was created by Chonlagarn Iamsumang in the program of Student and Technology Assistants (STA)

All rights reserved. Instructional Technology Group (ITG). Computer and Information Service (CIS).