Over the weekend of November 20-21, 2021 and again December 3rd we upgraded our scheduler software to Booked v2.8.5.
New Features:
1) New “wait list” feature – if you try to schedule a time that someone else has already booked, the scheduler will now ask if you would like to be notified via email if the time becomes available.
Be aware that you will get a notification ONLY when ALL of the time you have requested in a given reservation becomes available. For example, if you try to reserve a three hour block that is already reserved by another person / other people, you will only get an email if all three hours open up. If a portion of the time becomes available there will be NO email. The only way around this is to make several small reservations over the course of the day/time you would like. For example, if you would like an hour sometime between 9am and 2pm on Tuesday, try to reserve 9-10am, 10-11am, 11-noon, etc. until you have covered the time. It’s clunky, but it’s the only workaround we have found so far.
2) Advance bookings are now allowed up to 30 days in advance (previously unlimited). Advance bookings created in the old scheduler beyond December 22, 2021 have been deleted.
3) Reservations can only be deleted up to 15 minutes before they begin. After this time reservations can be modified, but not deleted. The previous scheduler allowed for deleting reservations at any time.
4) There is a new “find an open slot” feature that allows you to find the first available time on any microscope or category of microscope you have permission to schedule.
5) Microscopes and workstations are color-coded by type. Confocal microscopes are brown/khaki, widefield are bright blue, lightsheets are lime green, etc.
6) As before, only trained users are allowed to book resources. Microscopes and workstations a person does not have permissions to book are shown as read-only.
7) The change password feature works! It did not work in the old version.
8) Expanded email notifications are available under My Account -> Notification Preferences.
Known bug with work around:
The new scheduler seems to have issues with many people’s first login. We are working with IT to fix this but so far have only found a work around. First make sure you are not getting a pink banner that says your username or password is not recognized. If you are NOT having a password issue (i.e. just get returned to the same login screen with no banner), the work around is to click the Schedule -> View Schedule pull-down in the upper right and then click the “Log In” button in the upper right of the new screen. Then you should be able to login and create reservations. If you’re still having issues, send a screenshot to Christine.