Scheduling sync software

[glc]

Friend of mine works for a photography service, and needs some advice. Situation is as follows:

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Scheduling sync software.
I'm going to be looking for some for the office soon.
Demands:
CHEAP, because my boss is cheap and would rather pay more in wages and upset customers because we double book and have to cancel one after they have been booked......

Next, must be able to reliably sync 30+ profiles schedules and alert of conflicts.

Run on a windows server.

be nice to be cell phone and PDA accessible.

The problem, we have 10-14 people scheduling photo sessions, 1/2 of those are out in the field (sales, customer service etc), and no one knows what the others have scheduled until they get back to the office. The ones at the office don't know what days the ones in the field have scheduled until they get back in. Even inner office is clueless to what the others in office are doing.

The result, chaos, over booking, stress, redundant meetings, anger (inner office and customers), plus compounded wasted time.
A large part could be taken care of with better communication, but that aint happening...... So I'm turning to technology.

Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations?
What does your office use, or what procedures do you guys use?

[Force Flow]

My first impulse suggestion would be exchange's calendar, but it's certainly not a cheap solution. I've heard of alternatives in passing, but I have no idea how good they actually are.

[pam123]

The guy who runs the company http://www.beinsync.com/ was interviewed here : http://dl.tv/ episode 227

And I put it on my "to be checked out" list.
Cheaper than exchange's calendar, even if not exactly cheap.

[PSS-Mag]

Hello all,
Newbie, and the friend referenced.
Thanks for the referral and thread GLC.
Nice forum you guys have here, could be very useful!
First let me say I am not an IT or an admin anymore, I got out of the field 5-6 years ago, but you never really are able to get out......
Seems once it's on your resume then many of the duties are expected even if it's not in your title or job description.


Anyway on to this project.
Force Flow, my first thought was MS exchange too, but I don't know how well it does with remote access.


Pam123
BeInSync seems to do everything I want, except it's hosted remotely on their server.
Unless they are approved by the state education board I doubt that I'd be able to do that for the red tape and privacy laws. I'd have to ask then I'd need to be able to answer a lot of questions before we could implement something like that.
Plus; BeInSyn business starts at $10/month per user* for 5 users and above.
I'm not real sure what that means but I'm taking it as $100 per month for 10 users.
I wouldn't be able to sell that to my boss.

But yea I think something just like that, except that we host and run on our own server a one time purchase.

The biggest problem I'm running into.

What we have, is about 10 people (5 in office, 5 on the road). All are setting up appointments for things that we have limited equipment and man power for.
18 sets of equipment, 18 employees to run it. Right now all scheduling is done on paper. Naturally the net result is tons of conflicts. Days where someone has scheduled 4 people out at his place, someone else has scheduled 6 out at another, someone else 4 at yet another, someone else another 6 at another, all on the same day. Then when we all get together to sync our date books. We realize that we have scheduled 20 out on these days and only have 18 available.
It's actually worse than that, but that simplifies it.

So I'm thinking something like a doctors office uses for appointments, that can be synced and accessed remotely. The 5 in the field could stop at a wifi hot spot and sync before they go into a customer. The ones in the office would instantly know when a schedule has been made by someone else in the office or as soon as the field reps sync. (which would be sooner than when we all have our weekly schedule meeting). Everyone should have a better idea of what is available for however many they need.

Sorry for the long post, it's kind of hard to explain because I really don't know what I'm looking for. I just know there has to be a better solution than paper.

[Force Flow]

Web access for exchange:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook_Web_Access

[pam123]

Take a look at this SynchbackSE :

http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncbac...tribution.html
http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncbac...reenshots.html

it's a shareware program, so I'm not sure how that will go over, but it could work for you and it's got a free trial.
You'd be running the whole deal yourself.