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PLEASE READ THIS. Good Vibe. NHS.

Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 10:16 pm
by MiniMonty
Hi all,

I'm at stage zero (still thinking through and scribbling diagrams on paper) of designing a system which can match diaries or calendars
for many users against one "master' calender / diary.
Just wondering if anyone has any useful links / tips / tricks / experience to share.

Think of it like this:
I know of fifty houses in a town that need to be painted on various specific days in the next two weeks.
Everyone on this forum is a house painter.
I post the calendar showing the dates that the painting needs to be done.
Anyone can log in, see the available work and commit to a job which occurs on a day that suits them.
Click, click, and once someone has committed to do that painting job the calendar is updated to show only the remaining available work.

It's not a great analogy but I hope you get the idea.
I need to build something that matches the "need / offers" from a central source to many "suppliers".
The real thing works in 12 hour shifts.

Anyway - I'm having trouble getting my head around the conception of the whole thing so any hints and tips are much appreciated.

Best wishes
Monty

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edit...
Thought I'd separate this out a bit....




PS - if you want a bit more (honest) detail here it is:

The NHS (National Health Service) is owned and funded by the people of Britain.
It's a FREE national health service which is rather wonderful (but full of flaws, holes, disasters and mismanagement).
But it does provide completely FREE health care at the point of delivery to 60 million people (and any visitor) in the UK.
Pretty cool - but always in need of improvement (and more money).

The NHS is trying to be more "community" based and recognises that many (most) of it's nurses do extra hours via commercial agencies
in their free time to supplement their income. So, the NHS has decided to trial their own "in house" agency to allow nurses
to do extra hours at the same hospital (or other local hospitals) at commercial market rates. (i.e. private health care rates).
This trial will take place in a small Northern UK city (population appx one million) during the Summer and Autumn of 2011.

For the trial, I've been asked to look into the feasibility of an online system which allows nurses (from one small specialist unit) to see the
available "agency" shifts and to commit to them with a click or two online. The system would then do all the obvious stuff - link the nurse to that shift,
create a record which includes all the info that goes with it etc etc etc.

I know this is simple stuff for you PHP gurus but it's hard for me (as a definite php junior) to know where to start.

I'm not a total php newb - but this looks like a BIG system to me and I know if I get it designed right from scratch it will be a lot easier to
amend / alter / update etc., later on.

Anyway, thanks for listening if you've read this far and any help / tips / links / advice you can offer are very much appreciated.