Scheduling Software for Large Organisations? 60
DrCJM asks: "My wife works for a large hospital here in Australia, where her main role is building, managing and (where needed!) enforcing a schedule for all the junior doctors. This schedule covers several campuses, different specialty streams, different expertise levels, and so on. I'm sure there's a scheduling software package out there that can do all of the basic scheduling much faster than their current method of sitting down with very large bits of paper and lots of coloured pens. What software have Slashdot readers encountered that might do the job? Open Source would be great, but commercial efforts are acceptable too."
Cron (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Cron (Score:2)
There are streamlined genetic algorithms applications, and a few new ideas -- ant colonies and swarm algorithms among them.
I'd say, roll your own in Matlab.
Re:Cron (Score:2)
DOCS2000 (Score:5, Informative)
Check the data storage (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Check the data storage (Score:2)
Re:Check the data storage (Score:1)
Re:Check the data storage (Score:2)
Re:Check the data storage (Score:1)
Re:Check the data storage (Score:2)
Sears uses (Score:3, Informative)
If commercial is ok too (Score:4, Interesting)
Extreme Silliness perhaps- It's possible, for instance, in a properly set up Exchange/Outlook system, to view everybody's calendars, schedule a meeting, invite everybody to the meeting, and have them synchronize down to their PDAs, which remind them not only of that meeting, but also of the next one, which means that at the end of the meeting you have x # of people, all of whose PDAs are ringing to tell them it's time to move to the next room.
Seems to me it would be good to help schedule loades of people, and if you have a wifi network, automagically synchronize PDAs over the wifi network to inform people where to go next.
Re:If commercial is ok too (Score:2)
it doesn't, you're still stuck with the problem of creating schedules, even if you have solved the problem of distributing those schedules to the people(which shouldn't really be a problem in this case as they depend on the schedule for their education).
Re:If commercial is ok too (Score:2)
Re:If commercial is ok too (Score:2)
Re:If commercial is ok too (Score:2)
building a schedule means creating a schedule, at least in my book.
what she's having difficulty with is managing those schedules, setting them so that they don't get impossible shifts, not too many hours per week and so - this is fucking hard by hand when dealing with thousands.
Re:If commercial is ok too (Score:1)
Still, the Outlook/Exchange method of enforcement has it's pluses.
Re:If commercial is ok too (Score:1, Troll)
Re:If commercial is ok too (Score:2)
Exchange has settable warnings about impossible shifts and excessive hours per week (though the standard installation has 40 hour weeks and 15 minutes between appointments on those warnings- something tells me this situation would call for somewhat higher limits than that) which propagate down to
Re:If commercial is ok too (Score:1)
Don't tell me... you work for HP.
Mozart Oz (Score:3, Informative)
A company called Friartuck [friartuck.net] makes commercial scheduling software using Mozart [mozart-oz.org].
call-scheduler (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.call-scheduler.com/
I doubt it (Score:3, Insightful)
I seriously doubt it. This is one area where I can't imagine a computer beating a big board holding pieces of (colored) cardboard and a few whiteboard pens. If it needs to be viewable over the web, then set up a webcam in front of it!
One reason why computers are so bad at it and the old way so good (aside from the mere ease of use and reliability aspects), is the size. You just cannot see and understand as much interrelated information in one glance on a computer scren as you can on a big board on the wall.
(How are these specialised boards for planning called in English, anyway?)
Re:I doubt it (Score:2)
Re:I doubt it (Score:2)
I agree if you look at it this way - but look at it another way. The HUGE advantage a computer based system would have is that everyone except the person in charge of the whole planning can look at only the information that concern
What does your scheduling problem look like? (Score:4, Interesting)
GAMS - General Algebraic Modeling System [gams.com].
They use this for airline crew scheduling and all sorts of other stuff.
Also, look at this AMPL - A Modeling Language for Mathematical Programming [ampl.com]
I hope I haven't misunderstood your question though... (all you may need is iCal.... or maybe not.)
Re:What does your scheduling problem look like? (Score:1)
I once worked for a company that did exactly this: sold airline crew scheduling software and support. It is not trivial -- that workplace was crowded with maths and CS PhDs, the algorithms were very advanced, and they always had the latest and greatest Unix servers so that the schedule calculations took hours rather than days.
I suppose it's worth it if you can find a schedule which saves a few empty flights a year ...
VA's VistA (Score:5, Informative)
The US Department of Vetern Affairs created VistA for it's hospitals. It includes an elaborate physician scheduling package. It is in the public domain. The CPRS component provides a GUI view that many physicians and most clerks like.
OpenVistA is a commerialized flavor of the public domain software, which you can have installed and maintained from companies such as Medsphere [medsphere.com].
Re:VA's VistA (Score:1)
scheduling software for hospitals. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:scheduling software for hospitals. (Score:2)
They're actually pretty forward-thinking when it comes to technology. I've been impressed with what I know of the staff scheduling product, ANSOS One-Staff and how well it's developed and maintained. These people are serious about good software maintenance. The product is evolving well too, my husband did a substantial amount of the design on
Re:scheduling software for hospitals. (Score:2)
I've been an ANSOS One-Staff user for a little over 5 years now. The software development has been a little slow over the past few years but seems to be picking up. They have some new leadership in key positions (product director and VP) as well as some new development resources.
It's definately worth taking a look at.
Re:scheduling software for hospitals. (Score:1)
Put the credit where it's due though
~
Ask an Operations Research expert (Score:1)
Re:your wife should be replaced (Score:2, Informative)
She's asked.
Lots.
too many "fuzzy" variables (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:too many "fuzzy" variables (Score:1)
Still, if the system can spit out a base schedule that would save a lot of time. They already have a system where 'personal requ
Re:too many "fuzzy" variables (Score:1)
We (the company I work for) actually develop some other software for QH, so you never know, something might comes of it...
(sorry I misread that you were looking for scheduling for doctors, which as you say has different parameters again. I also think the people of my wife's ward have had it too good for too long with their personalised rosters.)
Re:too many "fuzzy" variables (Score:2)
All your points probably could be encoded in some sort of mathematical programming model without too much trouble. Just add your additional points as factors affecting the objective function value.
Re:too many "fuzzy" variables (Score:1)
Don't go with Exchange (Score:2)
Groupwise available on Linux (Score:1)
That may not seem like a big deal if you are not currently using Linux outside of your infrastructure, but it does mean that MS-Exchange can't keep you from mixing MS-Windows, Linux, and OS X as it best suits the needs of your organization.
However, neither of these address the issue of scheduling thousands of staff more or less automatically.
Microsoft Project (Score:1)
Quantum Leap (Score:1)
FET (Score:1)
FET (Score:2, Informative)
Mod Parent Up (Score:1)
The task is not trivial, believe me.
just announced (Score:2)
http://www.prnchart.com/
available for Windows or Mac
I have no idea if it is in the right ballpark. Just a conduit for a news blurb.
Lightning Bolt (http://www.lightning-bolt.com (Score:1)
Physician Scheduler (Score:1)
It's a rules-based system, so all the sundry variables that pertain to the work and the people are taken into account to automatically generate the schedule. The system's been around for the better part of 10 years and is widely used in healthcare.
http://www.atstaff.com/Products/PhysicianProduct.