NANY 2018 Release: BedPlanner

[Ath]

NANY 2018 Entry Information

Application Name	BedPlanner
Version	1.0.0.0
Short Description	Plan teams of people onto bunk-beds in several locations/rooms
Supported OSes	Windows & Linux, running Oracle Java 8 or newer runtime
Web Page	BedPlanner on Ath's DCMembers site
Download Link	BedPlanner on Ath's DCMembers site
System Requirements	Java 8 or newer runtime Windows & Linux, MacOS (untested)
Version History	1.0.0.0 2017-12-26 Released for NANY 2018
Author	Ath

Description
Requested by a colleague, who is also a Red Cross volunteer and team-lead, to write an application for planning the ca. 700 Red Cross volunteers onto bunk-beds during the Four Days Marches yearly held in Nijmegen, NL, this year (2017) for the 101st time.

Features
BedPlanner combines a list of people, some with specific requests, and a list of locations/rooms/beds so the people can get a good night sleep after a hard days work, medically supporting the walkers (blisters, muscle cramps, fatigue, etc.). This used to be done manually by one person, but it takes days to get everybody happy about their bed. This year it is all done 'mechanically' by BedPlanner, so only a computer to blame
More elaborate description on the Web Page.

Planned Features
Depends on the Red Cross team, organizing the Four Days Marches.

Screenshots
No screenshots, as it is a command-line operated application.

Usage
Installation
Unzip the downloaded file into a subdirectory of its own, on upgrade: overwrite any previous files EXCEPT BedPlanner.properties.
Optionally unzip the downloaded test-data.
Ensure an installed Oracle Java 8 or newer runtime.

Using the Application
Read the included Readme.md file (best use a MarkDown viewer)
Modify the BedPlanner.properties configuration file as needed, setting the columns for input, etc.
Set up input files
Run the application, using the .cmd or .sh script (assuming Windows or a Linux shell), providing parameters as documented in the Readme.md

Uninstallation
Remove all files and directories.

Known Issues
It requires some time to grasp the input (and output) file formats, not for the faint of heart .

[BGM]

Looks interesting for planning for organized summer camps, maybe? Why did you write this?

[Ath]

Why did you write this?

Well, several reasons (not limited to this list):

• Requested by a colleague (see my description above)
• The challenge to get the idea off the ground
• Replace a quite laborious manual process
• I like programming/problem solving

[BGM]

The bedroom schemes has a limited use, I think (which is why it is interesting - solving a very particular problem this way is fascinating to me), but I have a similar particular problem.  (Maybe you have read my profile, I am a Catholic Religious Brother) We have 9 altars here at our house, and I have to schedule any random number of priests to say Mass at them every day.  Sometimes we have only a few priests, sometimes we have 20 (at certain times of the year).  Right now I do all this on pen and paper, but I've always dreamed of writing a program to do it for me, and then to share the program with my colleagues all over the USA who have the same problem.  I thought of creating an online application using a javascript system called FullCalendar.  But I have only gotten into the beginning stages and ran out of time (and go back to pencil and paper).

Your program looks interesting - but could be more generally useful if the schema were not limited to "bedrooms" and "sleepers" but rather to "assets" and "users" that could be named anything. For me "bedrooms" could become "altars".  However, there will never be anyone paired for my uses, but the scheduling throughout the day and the durations would be the primary thing. 

[Ath]

Well, if you where to plan a group of visitors into a chapel, to get the most efficient use of the seats, then, maybe, BedPlanner would be sort of usable for that. But planning priests to say Mass at any of available altars seems more appropriately planned by another type of scheduler/planner.
Searching for such type of planner/scheduler will most likely get you result, as this sounds like a rather common type of resource-distribution problem, like schools need for planning teachers in classes.

[Ath]

We have 9 altars here at our house, and I have to schedule any random number of priests to say Mass at them every day.  Sometimes we have only a few priests, sometimes we have 20 (at certain times of the year).

I'd like to think this over a bit, but I'm not very familiar with these type of planning/scheduling challenges, so I have a couple of questions about that:

• At what times are these Masses planned?
• All at the same time?
• overlapping?
• sequential?
• Are the priests to say (max) 1 Mass per day?
• or more when not enough priests are available?

BedPlanner takes into account some special attributes of people and beds/rooms, are there any special attributes available/needed in this context?

[BGM]

Ath, so, 9 altars, normally, the priests would all say Mass simultaneously at two times, say, 6:30 and 7:14 - taking about 45 minutes with preparations.  But then there will be later Masses at other times intermittently.  Yes, each priest can only say Mass once; although in some chapels where there a lot of people a priest might say two Masses on the main altar, although this isn't the case at the place where I am stationed.

I've searched for planner type applications to track this before and never really found what I was looking for.  I still haven't abandoned the idea of writing something myself.

[nogojoe]

Hi Brother ,I am happy to donate NZ$100.00 towards a coder to help  produce an app to suit exactly what you want.
There are some pretty skilled coders Skwire etc  that should implement what you want.

Nogojoe

[BGM]

Hi, nogojoe - wow, that is very generous of you!  I wasn't trying to get anyone to get this going for me - really, I was just talking (if it were a javascript-based web-application, I could modify it to suit my needs and the needs of our other chapels, too).  Maybe I should start a new thread though, because now we aren't talking about Ath's nice bedtime application.

I started my own thread here.
Thanks for your interest, y'all.