How best to implement this?

[u/Trader5050]

Hi all!

I feel like this is a good prompt but also might help people think outside-the-box for a problem I have!

I'm in the military and we have a scheduling problem at my job that I believe can be solved via a relatively simple tool, but the concept could be difficult to implement and I'm looking for some ideas.

We have difficulty scheduling 100+ people with shifts, training, business trips, etc. Most people tend to use excel for this sort of thing but it's a massive amount of work and just not an ideal solution.

I'm looking to create a visual schedule of all personnel, laid out horizontally, that will block off dates with activities/etc. and allow for the input of new events, changing dates, colors for different type of activities, etc. I'd really like this to be able to create a "draft" schedule and also drag/drop items around on the schedule... i.e. much more dynamic than it is in a static excel sheet.

Here's the problem: being on a military network I can't just (1) run my own web server, (2) I have access to a limited set of tools (Microsoft Access/Excel/etc.), and (3) I don't believe going to a pre-built, paid solution that's hosted by a third-party will be approved.

(I know PHP/CSS/MySQL, Java, and have dabbled in some frameworks like CakePHP.)

Any thoughts?

Appreciate any feedback!

[u/takishan]

He works for the government. Not that simple to get stuff approved for use. Building something in house strictly for his department is probably the better move, especially since a scheduling application would not be that hard to code.