Form calendar with Base

[lcharry]

I have desing the tables, relations and some forms and reports of a data base in Openoffice-Base 3.0 for a dentis clinic. The problem is how to manage the assigments the appointment for every patient with every dentis. I need a form where input the appoinments and visualize the current calendar.

How can I desing a form for this or if exist a template o any plugin or a calendar program to conect to my daba base?

Best Regards,
Luis Charry

[r4zoli]

You can insert date field into form and, doble click on control, when form in edit mode, on Properties General tab set Dropdown=Yes, and you can use built in calendar, seen in attached picture (sreenshot fron OOo 3.1 dev, but this feature available from 2.1 IIRC).

[lcharry]

thank you. I´m sure this is good to create an appoinment for a patient and a dentist. So you have an idea, currently i use the Mozilla Sunbird Calendar, to create an appoinment and to visualize the schedule of all patients and dentist by day or week. All this in the same graphic enviroment. I would like to know if exist a way to connect OpenOffice Base with a calendar application or to a graphic calendar interfase. Or is possible with Openoffice Base only?

Than you.
Luis Charry

[r4zoli]

It is for forms within database and standalone, and no connection to calendar application.
OOo Base a single file with single user use. If you want to share appointments you can use OOo base as frontend to real database (MySQL, postgreSQL etc.)
If you work with Sunbird you can share appointments with more than one dentist, put your calendar on server and add it to all dentist Sunbird.

[DaveD]

I must warn you, I attempted to use Sunbird to schedule appointments in a massage therapy clinic with 4 RMT's. It looked great and actually worked as expected. However, Sunbird gets incredibly slow the more appointments added and became nearly unusable after about 1-2 weeks. We then started using MySQL and haven't had problems since. I haven't tried Base in the last few releases, but I am curious to try it out again soon to see how it has progressed. But you really should avoid Sunbird for such a professional environment with critical information.

[HalTDavis]

I've done similar with multiple database integration... ...awful to try, but when it works, it can make you look good. When it doesn't you look like "un burro grande".
For instance, I took data from a parish database, applied it to a schedule database, and added functionality for attendance, and other records. I also applied different gui elements. Most had only to see the schedule, and some had to interact with the attendance record. I took the attendance record and applied it to a VBA excel file, allowed them to change it there (checkboxes etc), and then they could push close and the data would write back to the scheduler, and into the view. The view was handled by outlook. I let them subscribe to an iCal file. They couldn't edit it, but they could certainly see it. THey could view each room, check attendance records etc, all with different interfaces. They liked it. The boss didn't. He wanted it all in one app. When he heard that the software cost a bit, he canned me, and went back to separate interfaces anyway... Because they were easier for everybody else. He didn't have to use them, he had to see them. I did go back and was hired again, rebuilt it all, and it worked a while. They upgraded at their next cycle to a full solution, enterprise.
The idea here is that you can set up your interface however they want it. But with freeware or shareware, you're gonna have to code a lot more and get by with less built in visual.
I see two options.
You can use a single database to run the backend of both. First, you can have an HTML or coded webpage access your database for viewing and editing, but that can expose the data to corruption. If you want a way to slow that down, or stop it, expose a replaceable file for viewing, and allow data collection separate from that file (keep similar structure in the second file), and then validate the second file against the database with queries. Haven't checked if OOBASIC allows SQL to be used in filling objects for validation, but if it's similar to VBA in that fashion, you can just create an SQL database for your data source, and use SQL to call or fill entries from scripts at the back end. Validate for errors, validate for conflicts, then enter the data. I'd use ical structure for viewing and inputing, you can subscribe to it in most calendar apps, and process it fairly easily into useable data for validation. Use it to create your entry data, and you can validate, and on successful entry just append it to the old file, which should update everybody else. The cleanup will come at intervals, and will happen when the database updates the ical file, which really occurs only when deleting data (cancel appointment), or when a specified time elapses. iCal is still the standard in passing MIME calendar data, and it can be used to enhance communication with customers\clients.
just my perspective. Dunno if it will help.