[ale] Looking for application software for a small business

[Greg Freemyer]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Jim Lynch
<ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com> wrote:
> Geoffrey wrote:
>> Jim Lynch wrote:
>>
>>> I have a dear friend that runs a small beauty shop/spa with 3-4
>>> employees and is tired of running over to the shop when someone calls
>>> during off hours to schedule an appointment.  I told her I'd see if
>>> there was any open  source software that might help here.
>>>
>>> I googled for scheduling and appointment calendars but didn't come up
>>> with anything.
>>>
>>> Anyone have experience with this?
>>>
>>
>> What kind of functionality are you looking for?  You've got simple
>> calendars that can sync to portable devices and have reminders, such as
>> jpilot, sunbird, kpilot, korganizer and the thunderbird add-on lightening.
>>
>>
> She's barely above novice level with computers and has just expressed an
> interest in moving from paper to the computer.  At this point she
> doesn't have a computer in the office, but getting one is not an
> obstacle.  Obviously she's going to need internet access if she expects
> to access it from home, either from her office computer or a third party
> website, like Google.
>
> Since she has more than herself to schedule, a system that allowed
> multiple people to be scheduled is preferred.  The simple calendars you
> speak of appear to be personal rather than group calendars.  I don't
> think she needs/wants the ability to sync.  A web based system would
> probably work just fine.
>
>  It would be important to have a way to backup the data locally or even
> on paper at the beginning of the day in case of network or systems
> outages.  It would be somewhat of a disaster to lose all your
> appointments and not be able to schedule new ones.
>
> Jim.

Jim,

With gmail you can create multiple calendars, one per employee.

They are even color coded.  If you click on Agenda in the upper right
corner you get a nice text listing the shows everyone if you know what
color is whom.

There is a print button, but I've never used it on the calendar.  You
would have to experiment to see if that worked for you.

Greg
-- 
Greg Freemyer
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