Posted by seaneffel on July 15, 2008 at 9:46pm
The Google Summer of Code is working on a reservation system API, one which could serve as a great central point for an equipment reservation system or a channel programming schedule. The PEG community currently developing systems like these (CCTV, DOM, MNN, and more) should definitely look at these.
Bookings API and Public Bookings
http://drupal.org/project/bookingsapi
http://drupal.org/project/publicbookings
Which one of you has a good inventory management module that can play nice with a system like this.
Comments
If Bookings API used Node...
We've looked at this and think this could be REALLY useful... if it could be applied to nodes (and of course, CCK variations of nodes) instead of duplicating most of the node schema in it's own table of bookable resources. Someone else brought this up with c.lam a few weeks ago here, but it isn't clear if he is going to make this change.
IMHO, the ideal configuration would allow groups to create their inventory of equipment and/or facilities using CCK, add these content types to be "bookable", and manage the criteria that controls who has the ability to book what with Rules (formally Workflow-ng... assuming Rules works for this type of evaluation).
That said, I also REALLY like Openflows "bucket" approach to reserving generic equipment types vs. specific piece of equipment (ie. reserving a HDV camera vs. Sony HDV Kit #5). Haven't tried to wrapped my head around how the Booking API could work with that approach.
"Resource conflict" looks promising
http://drupal.org/project/resource_conflict seems like it's on the right track. I've just started evaluating it, so I can't say much. But it's all CCK node-reference-based, there's a 5.x-2.* development branch that's just starting to support both CCK date + event.module. Anyone else have experience with this module?
Thanks,
-Derek