Separate finding a BoF and scheduling a BoF

For finding a BoF, the minimum we need is a list of BoF titles with their time / location + keyword search, simply because it's too difficult to scan the grid for something you'd be interested in.

A closed taxonomy for BoFs seems great too (rather than freetagging). Just go with a multiselect of tracknames for now, maybe? There's a few BoFs that don't fall into those categories, e.g. internationalization/localization, so perhaps that could be another term. There might be others.

The reason I'm anti-freetagging is that folks will have different words for similar things and then there's the perennial favorite : word and plural word appearing in the tags.

Should we allow BoFs to be scheduled during the keynote and during lunch?

Yes, I think BoF scheduling should be open all the time. Is there a reason to not allow it that I'm missing?

I think the current BoF scheduling looks good. My only comment would be to send the user to the "View BoF" page after creating a new BoF, rather than back to the Schedule BoF page. Or at least have an easy way to navigate back to the View BoFs from the Schedule BoFs page.

Thanks *VERY* much for your help with this. I definitely owe you a beer ;)

Cool, scheduling looks great.

My feedback is similar to mpotter's ... we should be able to access the BoF schedule from the scheduler page, and after submitting a BoF.

The other thing is that I thought the buttons at the top linked to the BoF Schedule for that day, but they're just shortcuts. Possible solution: Styling them as links / link text should say Add BoF to Wednesday, etc?

Oh and totally allows BoFs during those times. A lunch BoF sounds good in theory (depends if folks have to leave to get lunch, then they may trickle in rather than be on time)

One other really somewhat picky thing is that it would be nice to show more than 4 categories at once, to reduce scrolling

Otherwise, awesome!

It seems to me that when you're scheduling a bof, and some of the rooms already have a bof going on, but aren't full, to indicate which rooms have 1 spot open and which have 2 spots, so that you can take an unused room if one's free. (One could have one tab open to the schedule and one to the scheduler, but that might be more difficult if the user is on a mobile device.)

Also, just for fun, I filled up a room at a timeslot to see what was happening, and then ran back through my browser history to create another one, to simulate what would happen if two people tried to use the last slot in a room at the same time. The error message says

The proposed time and room conflicts with the following item:
Filling up room 202 in Room 202
Please select a different time slot and/or room.

, which is fine, but there's no way to select a different time slot and/or room without leaving the form that you have already entered all your other information on, which again, is a real pain if you're working off of a mobile phone.

And as a minor point, I see that you can assign tags to the sessions, but that there doesn't seem to be any way to filter down which BoFs you're seeing for, say, 'Mobile' only. Is that planned?

I will continue to poke at things, but it's really a slick system so far and I'm pretty impressed with it.

Browser: Chrome
Path:

1. program --> BOF
2. click propose a BOF
3. Create a BOF and schedule in a time and place
4. Save
5. Edit the BOF
6. Unschedule the BOF
7. Edit the BOF
8. Choose multiple locations and 1 time slot.

If all the locations are available, the BOF will be scheduled in multiple rooms at the same time.

Browser: Chrome
Path:

• Create a BOF
• Unschedule the BOF
• Edit the BOF
• Choose a location, but not a time
• Save

Expected result: it errors and tells you you need a time slot
Actual result: it saves the node

Browser: Chrome
Path:

• Create a BOF
• Unschedule the BOF
• Edit the BOF
• Choose a time, but not a location
• Save

Expected result: it errors and tells you you need a location
Actual result: it saves the node

There's links on these pages to the rooms and the timeslots, but when you click on those times or rooms, all you find out is... the room's size and the time. It'd be nice if these linked pages provided you with the Bofs for that room or that time.

My only issue is that I missed the quicklinks at the top of the page. Partially due to not expecting them to be there and partially due to them blending with the regular text on the page. They could due with some styling to make them stand out a bit. Even a little bolding and a larger header. Talking with Coltrane, he said he tried a button style and it was thought to be too confusing. I agree with this assessment to an extent, but there are some other smaller, yet effective, treatments that can be applied to draw your attention.