Questions on building a work order dispatch board.

[nelsonm]

Hi all,

Again, if this is not the correct forum category for this post, please move it.

I need to build a work order dispatch board type calendar. I have searched the internet for examples. While there are many examples of event calendars like the google calendar, there aren't any dispatch board type calendars that i could find to use as examples to help me get started.

It's a fairly traditional dispatch board in that it has technicians in the left column and the rest of the columns represent either day, week or month views. Each row displays the technicians name and subsequent work order icons of varying lengths to represent the length of the job. Like most event calendars, clicking on an empty cell would trigger the display of an empty work order form and clicking on an existing work order icon, that may span several cells, would trigger the display of an existing work order.

Here's an image of the general layout: [nados.com...]

I know that using jQuery and jQuery UI would be very useful in putting this type of board together but i'm not sure on how to proceed.

My questions are...

1. Is it better to use divs or tables to create this type of dispatch board framework?
2. Is it better to create static day, week and month views or create them dynamically?
2. has anyone seen any examples of this type of dispatch board calendar on the web?

Any help on this subject is greatly appreciated, thanks.

[edited by: tedster at 9:06 pm (utc) on May 10, 2012]
[edit reason] make URL clickable [/edit]

[rocknbil]

That's by definition what tables are for - intersecting columns and rows of data.

Have you looked at project management softwares? There are a lot of those out there that could plug right in to what you're doing, maybe you were looking up the wrong terms (?)

[nelsonm]

Hi rocknbil, thanks for responding...

I'm not looking for a complete management system and in the course of looking for dispatch board examples and/or tutorials, i have run across many management systems that have built in dispatch boards. Unfortunately, the customer wants a custom customer scheduling and job tracking system. So i'm simply looking to...

1. either build a dispatch board for...
2. or find a dispatch board that i could plug into

an existing customer scheduling and job tracking system i have been building.

I'm guessing that a plugin dispatch board that is modifiable would be difficult to come by. I know that i could probably find someone on the net with experience building calendars to build one to specs for me. In any case, "dispatch board" seems to be the most reasonable term to search for. What do you suggest?

thanks.

[jimbeetle]

Try things like [work order software], [work order tracking] or [service order software] and such. I had a project a couple of years ago where the developer plugged in a package that had an Outlook-styled interface that sounds close to what you want.

[nelsonm]

thanks, i'll try those terms.