The WASS system supports appointment scheduling over the web. Unlike traditional scheduling systems, which allow people to specify when they are busy (e.g., when they have meetings), WASS allows people to specify when they are free. WASS allows appointments to be scheduled only for these free times, which WASS refers to as "blocks". The way WASS works is as follows:
1. Someone who wants to be available for appointments (let's call her "PROFESSOR SMITH") goes into WASS and creates a calendar for themselves (they only need to do this once). They then add blocks of available time to that calendar. They can add or delete such blocks whenever they like. The blocks can either be single blocks (a block of time on a specific date) or recurring blocks (e.g., every Tuesday from 9:30 to noon between a start and end date). Each block corresponds to a date and time when PROFESSOR SMITH is available to met with other people (e.g., their "office hours"). PROFESSOR SMITH can divide any of these block into individual appointment "slots", or treat them as a monolithic unit (first-come, first-served). PROFESSOR SMITH can also assign various kinds of access limits to the blocks (e.g., restrict access to specified users and/or to users in specified courses).
2. A person wishing to make an appointment (let's call her "STUDENT JANE") with PROFESSOR SMITH goes into WASS, looks up PROFESSOR SMITHS's calendar, finds a block of available time that is covenient for her, and schedules an appointment with PROFESSOR SMITH at that time. STUDENT JANE can only schedule an appointment during one of the blocks of available time that PROFESSOR SMITH has added to her calendar. If the block she selects has been divided into appointment "slots" by PROFESSOR SMITH, then STUNDENT JANE must select an available slot. PROFESSOR SMITH can set limits on how many appointments an individual student can sign up for, as well as the total number of appointments for a given block.
3. STUDENT JANE and PROFESSOR SMITH each receive email notifications and reminders about the appointments, and they can go into the system to view and/or cancel these appointments at any time. What differentiates WASS from standard calendar/scheduling systems is its ability to allow people to specify their availability. This is useful in situations such as office hours scheduling (the professor is only available on specific dates for specific periods of time). It can also be used to schedule things such as specialized equipment (which has limited aviability) or rooms (e.g., squash courts).
WASS is useful in cases where a person or resource is available only on specific days during specific periods of time. It is not intended to replace a standard calendar system (such as Outlook), but can be used an an adjunct to such systems (WASS can generate iCal streams which can be imported into systems such as Outlook).
The WASS system is fundamentaly asymetric. It consist of a set of calendars created by people who hold office hours (e.g., professors, deans, advisors), and appointments made by people who meet with the calendar owners (e.g, students). Students do not need to create calendars; only people who hold office hours create calendars. WASS also supports the notion of managers, people who manage a professor's calendar. It should be noted, however, that WASS does not enforce any kind of role assignment. Anyone who can authenticate to the system can create a calendar. Thus a student could create a calendar that other people would access to make appointments with the student (e.g., a student who was the leader of a student organization could create a calendar on which they indicate their avaialbility for appointments with other students who wish to meet with them).
A given user could use WASS both to publish their availability, and to make appointments with other users. For example, a professor who has a calendar in the system could use WASS to schedule an appointment with another professor who has a calendar in the system. In the interests of security, you should probably move this text file out of the WASS admin directory and into a directory that is not accessible to web users. It is not needed by the running WASS system.
Source: README.txt, updated 2011-10-13
