[labnetwork] PI lab management system

[John Lee]

Hi, Nava.

If Columbia is on G Suite, the Google Calendar appointment slots might
work for a low-frills solution.
https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/190998

We've been using on-and-off over the years even for informal equipment
sharing of things like AFM, optical profilometer, and fluorescence
microscopes. It's convenient for temporary use too, maybe along the
lines of what you described. The calendar owners can designate regular
hour blocks on a repeating weekly schedule, and also set sharing so
that fellow PIs can see sign-up details by adding to their respective
Google Calendars.

If there will be multiple persons entering the same room for different
stations, you'd use a separate calendar per equipment station. If it's
just about occupancy in a small lab, one calendar for the room might
suffice. If you need to monitor headcount or have a record or names
for contact tracing , you might simply have to require and trust the
person who grabs the appointment to list names of all accompanying
persons (e.g., safety buddy) in the appointment notes.

Again very low frills compared to Badger, but maybe fitting for small
labs and as a quick temporary solution.

Best,
-John

P.S. Looks like Microsoft Bookings works similarly for institutions on
Office 365, but I've never used it.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/scheduling-and-booking-app

________________________________________
Sang-Joon (John) Lee, Professor
Mechanical Engineering, San José State University
One Washington Square, San José, CA 95192-0087
408-924-7167 | sang-joon.lee at sjsu.edu
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/sang-joon.lee/


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Nava Ariel-Sternberg <na2661 at columbia.edu>
Date: Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 12:26 PM
Subject: [labnetwork] PI lab management system
To: <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>

Dear all,
I hope everyone is safe. The past few months have been challenging in many way.
We are preparing for the reopening of the labs in Columbia starting
next week. All in 30% capacity for the first phase. I have been
getting questions from PIs who are looking for a simple and user
friendly way to control the presence and equipment reservation in
their respective labs. A sophisticated (and cheap) multi tool calendar
if you will. For the cleanroom and the rest of the shared labs we use
Badger but it's an overkill and expensive for them to use just for PI
labs temporarily.
Is there anything like that you know of?
Thank you and stay safe,
Nava



Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

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