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Re: Booking a timeslot from a pre-existing list of available slots

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Guillaume
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Hello everyone !

I am sharing with you a « funny » problem that keeps my neurons busy and now depressed. If only I could :

  • Create a form where a Roll up could be displayed as a Single Select in a form
  • Select existing records through a form & update them

CONTEXT :
My team wants to schedule committees, composed of 8 timeslots (2 committees / month).
We need people to book a timeslots to present their topic (among available ones of course).
We want to open the booking on a quarterly basis.

The Committee Table is configured as follow :
[Date] Field : Date Primary
[Single Select] Field : Timeslot (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H)
[Single Select] Field : State (Blank, Requested, Planned, Confirmed)
[Text] Field : Requester
[Text] Field : Topic

The table view is grouped by Date for the team to easily see the agenda of each committee.

THE PROCESS WE WOULD LIKE (BUT CAN’T) APPLY:
A requester :

  • Finds a “date / slot” combo (aka state is blank)
  • Blocks an available slot by :
    • Leaving his name
    • Notifying the topic
    • The update of the state from “Blank” to “Requested” would be automated.

I am stuck… anyone with a good idea?

1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
Guillaume
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

With the help of Scottworld, I have taken the following path :slightly_smiling_face:
Hello @Someone !

I have eventually gone the way described below.
I am only sharing the backbone of my tables, I added many other extra fields & automations to ease the management but that’s off topic) :

Table 1 : Dates
** Where we manually input the dates when available **
PRIMARY - [Date] Dates
[Linked filed] Comittees (linked to Table 2)
[Formula] Timeslots to create (8-{Timeslots created})
[Roll up] Timeslots created

Table 2 : Committees
** Where we list the Committee dates & timeslot **
PRIMARY - [Formula] Committee ({Linked Date}&"- Slot "&{Timeslot})
[Link] Linked Date (linked to Table 1)
[Single Select] Timeslot
[Single Line of Text] Requester
[Formula] Available? (IF(OR({Request #},REGEX_MATCH(Status,“Planned”)),“no”,“yes”))
[Look up]Request # (linked to Table 3 - Request #)
[Single Select] Status (Requested, Planned, Validated)

Table 3 : Managing Timselots
** Where we handle people’s booking requests **
PRIMARY - [Autonumber] Request #
[Link] Timeslot (link to table 2)
[Single Line of Text] Requester
[Formula] Request Date (CREATED_TIME())

See Solution in Thread

3 Replies 3

My post here describes how to create a system that is similar to what you are looking for. It’s not identical to your needs, but it gives you the general idea of what needs to be done:

Less similar is this post, but it is along the same line of thinking:

Thank you very much for your answer @ScottWorld !
I indeed went through your first path, my issue is that with timeslots, it adds a number of fields in the possibilities to pick from. But hey! I’ll just deal with it (I added a formula which returned ’ Date&" - "&Timeslot).

So, your second idea is very much the thing that I am taking away. I will just set a limit of 8 available slot per date (when State is blank) and the team will appoint people to the slots. That’s a little bit admin work for the team yet it also keeps the flexibility that only a Human being can handle (with the current configuration).

I won’t mark your answer as a solution yet - just to see if someone ends up on that thread and could come up with a better solution… but that’s definitely a workaround that I will be satisfied with

Guillaume
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

With the help of Scottworld, I have taken the following path :slightly_smiling_face:
Hello @Someone !

I have eventually gone the way described below.
I am only sharing the backbone of my tables, I added many other extra fields & automations to ease the management but that’s off topic) :

Table 1 : Dates
** Where we manually input the dates when available **
PRIMARY - [Date] Dates
[Linked filed] Comittees (linked to Table 2)
[Formula] Timeslots to create (8-{Timeslots created})
[Roll up] Timeslots created

Table 2 : Committees
** Where we list the Committee dates & timeslot **
PRIMARY - [Formula] Committee ({Linked Date}&"- Slot "&{Timeslot})
[Link] Linked Date (linked to Table 1)
[Single Select] Timeslot
[Single Line of Text] Requester
[Formula] Available? (IF(OR({Request #},REGEX_MATCH(Status,“Planned”)),“no”,“yes”))
[Look up]Request # (linked to Table 3 - Request #)
[Single Select] Status (Requested, Planned, Validated)

Table 3 : Managing Timselots
** Where we handle people’s booking requests **
PRIMARY - [Autonumber] Request #
[Link] Timeslot (link to table 2)
[Single Line of Text] Requester
[Formula] Request Date (CREATED_TIME())