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A Dynamic Web Server Based Appointment Calendar

1. Logins If ASPNET is not in there it should be added to there by the following procedures Click the right mouse button on Logins and choose New login in the pop up to open the New login form Click El button to open the full name list of Windows users ASPNET must be there if the NET framework was installed in that machine Highlight m ok ASPNET Click a button and then EEE button to close the list and back to New login form that is shown below 72 General Server Roles Database Access amp Name TOSHIBA USER ASPNET Windows Authentication ae mosen gt Securty access Grant access Deny access SQL Server Authentication Pas sword a eee Specify the default language and database for this login Database master Language lt Defaut gt X Defaults OK Click o to close this form and finish adding user account ASPNET to SQL server if Windows Authentication in SQL server OK is allowed otherwise choose the SQL Server Authentication radio button input SQL password and then click ok to close this form and finish adding user account ASPNET to SQL server 73 i SQL Server Enterprise Manager 0 x Tt Console Root Microsoft SQL Servers SQL Server Group local anes E Action view Tools x B Bl I Console Root EJ Microsoft SQL Servers 28 SQL Server Group SEE local Windows NT H Databases H E Data Transforma
2. TimeSpan getFirstWeekdayValueInMonth int getLastWeekdayValueInMonth int CalendarSecurity Encrypt static string RecurrenceDetails EventID int StartDate string RangePattern string RangeValue string RecurPattern string Frequency string RepeatRangel string WeekNumber string WeekdayValue string RepeatRange2 string ResourceDetails ResourceName string StartDate string StartTime string EndDate string EndTime string ResourcelID int Event ID int DayMonth YearDetails Month int gt Day int Year int DayOfWeek int DayOfYear int Fig 5 2 The diagram of data classes 46 Except for the two classes of CalendarSecurity and DateTimelInfo which are not related to access anydatabase tables all other six classes are defined as to encapsulate all the related operations in one class That means all the operations that access the related tables are included in the same class For example the EventInfo class includes all the necessary methods to access and manipulate the variables in the Event table such as the methods of AddEvent DeleteEvent UpdateEvent and LoadEvent etc All these methods either return some data to the presentation layer or do some operations that are needed for the presentation layer s EventHanddlers Each main class except for the class of CalendarSecurity has at least one correspondent data class which encapsulates all the d
3. about the users and information about the events created by the users for their calendars Throughout the whole implementation of the calendar system all the tasks for accessing or manipulating the database is performed by stored procedures Stored procedures are compiled batches of T SQL statements Using stored procedures can speed up the accessing of the database because the same T SQL statements do not need to be compiled again each time to access the database Another major advantage of the stored procedures is that they can package T SQL statements for reusing 59 stored procedures have been created for implementing the web calendar system Together these stored procedures comprise the data access layer 5 2 2 The Business Logic Layer The business logic layer is the middle layer of the three architectural layers It connects the presentation layer and the data access layer This layer comprises some custom classes which are responsible for connecting to the database to access the data and some operations which are needed for implementing the web calendar system To implement the business logic layer eight classes are defined Along with them there are eight data classes defined All these classes definition are shown as below Calendar_User UserDetails UserID int getUserByUserName UserDetails UserName string getUserByUserID UserDetails Password string getPasswordByUserID string Role string getUserID
4. 4 shows the default calendar layout after login 14 ByDay Microsoft Internet Explorer ByMonth Today is 12 1 2004 December November 2004 January Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 22 2 20 2 2 ps s 2 2 9 ao aa 26 2 ag Internet z Fig 2 4 Calendar Layout of by Day 2 1 3 Logout the calendar system The user can logout at any time when he finishes the tasks Click the linkButton of Logout logouts the calendar system The user needs to login again to use the calendar system 15 2 2 User Information 2 2 1 Changing Password After the administrator created an account for a user the user can change the password at any time In the calendar page as shown in Fig 3 4 click the linkButton of ChangePassword to open the Changing Password page as shown in Fig 3 5 Password Microsoft Internet Old Password New Password Ok Cancel Fig 2 5 the Change Password Page Type the old password in the Old Password field Type a new password in the New Password field Click the Ok button to change the password 2 2 2 Editing User Information The user can edit his or her information at any time after login the calendar system Except the user s name that is not editable all other fields are editable The fields may be left empty if no information is available In the calendar page such as Fig 2 4 click the linkButton of EditUserInfo to
5. Page Click the linkButton To to open the Contact page as shown in Fig 2 7 and follow the steps as described above 2 3 Navigating the Calendar After a user logins the calendar system the default calendar layout is the ByDay layout as shown in Fig 2 4 This layout has three components In the top is the linkButtons for different tasks in the middle of right side is a Date Navigator and the main part is the scheduling area for displaying the events including appointments and meetings that is in the middle of the page Click the linkButton at the top of the date navigator to scroll through months 19 Select a date from the date navigator to display that day s events Click the event shown in the scheduling area to open that event for viewing or editing Click the GoToToday linkButton to quickly go to today s calendar Click the ByMonth linkButton to open the ByMonth layout that displays the events of a whole month as shown in Fig 2 9 ByDa oso ernet Explore lol x File Edit View Favorites Tools Help EJ November January 4 1 retretre Fig 2 9 Calendar Layout of ByMonth 20 Click a date in the ByMonth layout goes to the ByDay layout of that date Click the linkButton ByDay in ByMonth layout goes to ByDay layout 2 4 Scheduling Appointments and Meetings 2 4 1 Scheduling an Appointment Appointments are activities that do not involve other
6. accepts the meeting and the ShowTimeAs option for this attendee in this event is tentative clicking the linkButton of Decline means that this attendee does not attend the meeting and the 52 ShowTimeAs option for this attendee in this event is free If the attendee does not reply the ShowTimeAs option for this attendee in this event is free too The ShowTimeAs property is used when the meeting organizer needs to show the attendees availability The linkButtons of Status and Availability are used for the users to show the responses and the availability for all the attendees including the reserving resources The linkButton of To is disabled in this page so nobody can change the meeting details in this page But the user can delete the meeting If a user clicked the linkButton of Delete and the user is the meeting organizer the meeting details keeps the same but the meeting subject is attached by a string of Cancel in the beginning of the subject to show that this meeting is canceled by the organizer meanwhile the reserved resources is released automatically by deleting the reserved resources from the ResourceUsed table If a user clicks the linkButton of Delete and the user is an invited attendee for this meeting it only deletes the attendee name from the MeetingAttendee table and keeps all other information unchanged and this meeting event is not displayed in this user s calendar If the deleted meeting is a recurrent eve
7. all the recurrence information When a user finishes the recurrence selection and clicks the Ok button the Recurrence page is closed and the three DataTables are saved in three Session variables which are saved later in the database when the user clicks the linkButton of SetUp in the Appointment page or Send button in the MeetingMainPage page 19 Proxy aspx and Proxy aspx cs A proxy is someone to whom you give access to your calendar with either read or read write permission This page is used for the user to assign proxies or access other users calendars as a proxy The implementation of this page is much similar to that of the Contact page There are two List boxes in the right hand one is for the read permission and the other is for the read write permission The assigning proxies in both List boxes are saved in the table of Proxy Each time when the user clicks the linkButton of Proxy in the main page the web server fetches the assigned proxy names of that user from the Proxy table and display them in those two List boxes The user can add proxies or remove proxies within this page at anytime Each time the user edits the proxies the user needs to save the proxies in the Proxy table by clicking the Save Proxy button If the user wants to act as a proxy to another user the user can select a user s name from the left hand List box and click the ActAsProxy button Then the selected user s calendar is displayed in the main page with the sele
8. also view or reply meetings from the calendar In the ByDay layout Click a meeting in the scheduling area the chosen meeting is opened for viewing and replying as shown in Fig 2 15 25 Click the linkButton Accept Tentative or Decline to send the response or just close this window to ignore this meeting E MeetingReadOnly Microsoft Internet Explorer Private 7 zhong jane j li teresa Price Gail Subject Planning Christmas Part Location fin 11 Post Side Lane Pittsford NY 12 2 2004 1 00pm 12 2 2004 3 00pm Come together to plan the party Fig 2 15 Response a Meeting Invitation 2 4 4 Check Meeting Responses After scheduling a meeting the meeting organizer sends messages to attendees and then waits for other users responses After the attendee receives the meeting request the attendee may respond to the organizer by indicating whether or not this attendee will attend this meeting The organizer can monitor the responses to know who will attend and who will not Users can check the responses of a meeting request in the AttendeeStatus page The AttendeeStatus tabulates the people and resources who were invited their status meeting organizer Required Optional or Resource and their response to the organizer Accepted Declined Tentative or None 26 In the calendar page click the linkButton Message to open the Message List page as shown in Fig 2 14 Click
9. and reserve resources as shown in Fig 2 11 An attendee can be marked either as required person or as optional person By clicking Availability button in the meeting scheduling page the Attendee Availability page popup as shown in Fig 2 12 This page shows the availability of the meeting attendees and resources graphically Two navigator buttons above the availability table help the organizer to see the availability of the attendees in any day The meeting organizer can set the starting and ending time for the meeting from this page also By clicking Status button in the meeting scheduling page the attendee status page popup as shown in Fig 2 16 This page is a read only page It shows the attendee status and responses and also shows if the reserved resources are available or not The attendee status could be Organizer Required or Optional If the attendee is a resource the status is Resource During planning a meeting the Response column is None for all the attendees but shows Rejected or Accepted for the reserved resources The functionality of the Recurrence button Delete button and DeleteRecurrence button is the same as the Appointment page 3 2 3 Show Message List By clicking the Message button in the day or month layout page The Message List page popup as shown in Fig 2 14 This page displays all the coming meeting events for this user When a user schedules a meeting the user needs to invite some attendee to attend the
10. and so on There are 20 pages web forms and two User Control files in total in this layer The extension name of page files is aspx and user control files ascx So there are 20 files whose extension is aspx and two files ascx Each file has its correspondent Code behind file whose extension is aspx cs or ascx cs All the server controls reside in the page files and all the event handlers reside in the Code behind files All these files are discussed as the following 47 1 UserLogin aspx and UserLogin aspx cs This is the first page shown to any users who try to access the calendar It is responsible for taking the user credentials encrypting the password and then comparing them with the user credential information stored in the UserInfo table The user can login whether as a regular user or as a calendar administrator If the user tries to login as an administrator it checks the role of this user If the role of the user is administrator the AdminLogin aspx Page is sent to the user to manage the accounts of the users and the resources If the user tries to login as a regular user by click the Login button and the username and password match those stored in the SQL database the user is authorized to use this calendar system Meanwhile the UserID is returned from the UserInfo table and the system redirect the user to MainPage aspx page automatically This UserID is saved in a Session variable for retrieving the user information wh
11. event User s First Name User s Last Name User s Middle Name The subject for an event The location for an event Start date for an event 10 27 2004 Start time in that start date for an event 8 00am End date for an event 10 27 2004 End time in that end date for an event 9 00am Used to show others your availability in the time period when they plan meetings Possible values are Busy Free Tentative and Out of office Label this event is private or not Possible values are True and False If Private is true this event is not allowed to be viewed by other people Label this event is recurrence or not Possible values are True and False If Recurrence is true this event is a recurrence event and the recurrence information will be retrieved from Recurrence table Some description for this event Label this event is a meeting or just an appointment Possible values are True and False If Meeting is true that means this is a meeting event and the attendee information will be retrieved from MeetingAttendee table This table is used to record all the event information Each event is identified by EventID The user s name is used to identify the user who created this event The User s name is also acted as a foreign key which relates to the UserInfo table Table 5 4 Table 5 3 ResourceUsed Column Name _ Data Type _ NET Data Type Description EventID Int 4 Int The EventID is the same EventID as in the table of Ev
12. user identified by UserID Column Name EventID StartDate RangePattern RangeValue RecurPattern Table 5 6 Data Type NET Data Type Int 4 Int Varchar 50 String Varchar 50 String Varchar 50 String Varchar 50 String Recurrence Description The EventID is the same as that in the Event table The recurrence start date for this event There are two range pattern value 1 No End This means the recurrence will last forever 2 End Until This means the recurrence will end by a date This value is the recurrence event ending date when RangePattern value is End Until There are two RecurPattern 1 FreqRecur And the correspondent value will record in the table of FreqRecurPatn 2 WkdayRecur And the correspondent value will record in the table of WkdayRecurPatn 39 This table is used to record the recurrence event s information If the Recurrence field value for an EventID is true in Event table the recurrence information can be retrieved from this table by the condition of Recurrence EventID Event EventID Table 5 7 FreqRecurPatn Column Name DataType NET Data Type Description EventID Int 4 Int The EventID is the same EventID as in the table of Recurrence when RecurPattern in Recurrence table is FreqRecur Frequency Varchar 50 String There are four different values for the Frequency Every Every other Every third and Every fourth RepeatRange Varchar 50 String There
13. 2 Microsoft SQL Server Sybase MySQL Postgre and MS Access The choice of technology depends on the target environment For ASP NET the two most popular databases used are Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle In this project Microsoft SQL Server 2000 has been used as the database server 11 2 User Manual This dynamic web server based calendar provides some functionality that enables a calendar user to schedule meetings plan activities coordinate his or her calendar with other users calendars and let other users track his or her own calendar This user manual provides a guide to use this calendar system 2 1 Login When a user tries to access this calendar the first page the user gets is the Login Page as shown in Fig 2 1 There are two different kinds of users One is the regular users and the other is the administrative users A LoginUser Microsoft Internet Explorer lol x Fie Edit View Favorites Tools Help El Username fji Password je Login AdminLogin Fig 2 1 the Login Page 2 1 1 Administrator login After installation of the web calendar in NET web server the administrator should login by using administrator as both username and password The administrator needs to create the first account for himself or herself Since it is the first user account it must be set as an administrative type of account Type the string of administrator in both username and password fie
14. 2 2004 C No End Date End By 12 30 2004 Fig 2 17 Recurrence Pattern Select the radio button beside Recur or Recur on to choose the recurrence pattern Select additional recurrence pattern options as desired In the Range of Recurrence area click the date selector beside the starting date to open a calendar for selecting a starting date Select other Range of Recurrence options as desired Click o button to finish setting up recurrence pattern 28 After setting recurrence for an event the user can delete the recurrence at any time by clicking the linkButton DeleteRecurrence as shown in Fig 2 18 Ai Appointment Microsoft Internet Explorer RESET Set Up Recurrence Delete DeleteRecurrence Appointment Recurrence Event Private l Subject Pick up kid Location fin Datten Daycare Start Time 12 2 2004 6 00pm End Time 12 2 2004 7 00pm gt Show Time As Busy gt Notes Pick up Samuel in the daycare center Fig 2 18 A Recurrent Appointment Set up 2 6 Proxy 2 6 1 Assigning a Proxy A proxy is someone to whom a user gives access permission to the user s calendar A user can add proxies to or delete them from a user s proxy list In the calendar page click the linkButton Proxy to open the Proxy page Select the desired user as a proxy from the All Users Listbox and click either Readrite gt Read gt i ge Er _Read gt button to assign the acce
15. 5 1 Viewing the availability of attendees when scheduling meetings In Outlook calendar a user can graphically view the availability of other users when planning a meeting This feature is very useful for the meeting organizer to pick the meeting time that fits most attendees schedule iCal users can not view the availability of other users when planning a meeting In MeetingMaker a user can graphically view the availability of other users when planning a meeting Yahoo calendar users can not view the availability of other users when planning a meeting In this dynamic web server based calendar a user can graphically view the availability of other users when planning a meeting 6 5 2 Auto Updating Meeting Status In Outlook calendar when a user receives a meeting request the user can respond to the meeting organizer by clicking the responding button which includes Accept Reject and Tentative or just ignore it Once a meeting candidate responds the meeting request the meeting status is updated automatically by the server In such way the meeting organizer can monitor who is going to attend or not 61 going to attend the meeting and if the resource is available This function is extremely useful to plan a meeting efficiently iCal calendar user can not update the meeting status automatically so the meeting organizer do not know who is going to attend the meeting if not use other communication methods In Meeting
16. A Dynamic Web Server Based Appointment Calendar Graduate Project Report for MS Degree of Computer Science Jianxia Zhong jxz5355 cs rit edu Committee Chairman Prof Axel Schreiner Reader Prof Hans Peter Bischof Observer Prof Stanislaw P Radziszowski Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Professor Axel Schreiner for his inspiration encouragement and guidance during the whole period of this project at Rochester Institute of Technology I would also like to thank Professor Hans Peter Bischof Professor Stanislaw P Radziszowski for their services on my MS project advisory committee Abstract A dynamic web server based calendar has been developed It is capable of scheduling meetings at a level compared to that of the best commercially available tools such as Outlook and MeetingMaker for managing calendar It is a dynamic web application A user can use a web browser like Internet Explorer to access the calendar services and the communication between the client and the server is dynamic and secure In this project the advanced server side technology Microsoft 2003 NET Framework has been used It runs on the Windows operating system built with IIS Internet Information Services Also Microsoft SQL Server 2000 has been used as the database server for the persistence layer to handle appointment and meeting scheduling It has many new features in architecture and functions compared to the t
17. Active Controls There are two calendar layouts available by day and by month Changing layout is as easy as a mouse click Each event in the day layout is clickable object i e it can be opened by clicking on it The events displayed in the by month layout are not clickable objects Users must change to the by day layout to open an event Like MeetingMaker there is a message list button in the calendar layout By clicking on it to open the message list form all the meeting requests can be viewed and replied after opening that meeting request It is nice for the user that the user can view the meeting requests and the attendees responses The time span of each event is not graphically displayed in the calendar layout Instead each event occupies one time scale 30 minutes at the starting time 6 7 Ease of Learning Outlook calendar and this dynamic web server based calendar are easy to learn since they have Windows Look and Feel user interface No training is needed for a regular Windows OS user to use Outlook calendar and this dynamic web server based calendar iCal is a simple Mac application No training is needed to use it Yahoo calendar has a simple user interface A web browser user must looks familiar with those calendar pages and forms in Yahoo calendar No training is needed to use this calendar MeetingMaker is the most sophisticated calendar among the five Some training is needed to mast
18. ByName int FirstName string GetAllUser DataSet iddleName string CheckUserTable int LastName string GetUserInfo UserDetails UpdateUserInfo void UpdatePassword void i Save UserDetails HPhone string Remove int BFax string Login UserDetails obile string Email string BPhone string 44 EventInfo EventDetails EventID int FirstName string LastName string GetEventDetails EventDetails Be Gea DeleteEvent void ubject string DeleteRecurrence void AddEvent int UpdateEvent int loadMeetingEvent ArrayList loadEvent ArrayList loadEventByProxy ArrayList MeetingAttendeeInfo GetMeetingIDByName ArrayList GetMeetingByEventID MeetingDetails UpdateAttendeeInfo void SaveAttendee void GetStatusByNameAndEventID string GetAttendeeStatusByEventID ArrayLiSt loadAttendee ArrayList DeleteMeeting void ProxyInfo GetAssingedProxyRead DataSet AddProxy int DeleteProxy int GetPermission string 45 Location string StartDate string StartTime string EndDate string EndTime string ShowTimeAs string Private string Recurrence string Note string Meeting string Display string MeetingDetails UserID int EventID int FirstName string MiddleName string LastName string Subject string Location string Date string Response string Recurrence string Disp
19. Maker the responses of the invited persons can update the meeting status automatically so the meeting organizer can monitor who will and who will not attend the meeting In Yahoo calendar the responses of invited persons can update the meeting status automatically too So the meeting organizer can also monitor who will and who will not attend the meeting A user of this dynamic web server based calendar can tell the server to updates the meeting status by clicking on the correspondent button in a meeting request form the same as what is in Outlook calendar and MeetingMaker 6 5 3 Event Reminder Outlook calendar users can set reminders to their appointments or meetings The use can set different Ahead of Time for each event In that way the calendar system can remind the calendar user before the event by a pop up window and sound iCal users can also set reminders to their events The calendar system alerts the user by sending an alert message The user can open the message to see what event is coming Meetingmaker users can set reminders to their events too The calendar system sends an alert message at the preset Ahead of Time for the oncoming event When got the alert message the user can open it to view when event is coming Yahoo calendar users can set twice alerts two Ahead of Time so the calendar system alerts the user twice The alerts can be sent by email to the user s other email account calling the user s c
20. MeetingMaker server that handles communications among clients The server stores MeetingMaker data for all users processes MeetingMaker tasks and sends notifications and messages among users The client also stores calendar data of the user The data between the server and the client synchronizes periodically The MeetingMaker client software must be installed in client machines The clients communicate with the server interactively through the internet The communication between the client and the server is a two way communication MeetingMaker is a highly scalable IP based system supporting tens of thousands of concurrent users MeetingMaker users can publish their calendars on the internet or internal intranet as static HTML pages so other users can use web browser client to access the published calendar in web server a one way communication model Yahoo calendar is also a client server model of calendar The calendar server is a web server in Yahoo com Any web browser could be the client It is not documented how Yahoo calendar stores the data but all the calendar data must be stored in the Yahoo calendar server After receiving requests from the client the web server processes the requests fetches information from the database forms dynamic page and sends it back to the client The communication between the client and the server is two way communication The calendar in this project is a dynamic web server based calendar The calendar web ap
21. Net web server could be protected by SSL 7 Summary This dynamic web server based calendar has some advantages and some disadvantages comparing to some existing calendars from the above discussion The following table summarizes the comparing results quantitatively Let 1 denote poor 2 denote fair and 3 denote good Outlook iCal Meeting Yahoo This Calendar Calendar Maker Calendar Calendar Data communication amp storage 3 2 3 3 3 Multi platform 2 1 3 3 3 Without client software 2 1 1 3 3 Calendar sharing 3 2 3 3 3 Meeting scheduling 3 1 3 2 3 65 Event reminder 3 3 3 3 1 Set recurrent event 3 2 3 2 2 PDA synchronization 3 1 3 3 1 Friendly user interface 3 3 2 2 2 Ease of learning 3 3 2 3 3 Security communication 3 3 3 1 3 This calendar is strong in technique and architecture The data communication data storage and fetching are built on NET framework and MS SQL server It is highly reliable and scalable There is no need of client software A web browser in any platform can be a client of this NET powered dynamic web server based calendar The calendar is fully sharable among users and the system is secured by the ACL Access Control List feature in NET frame work The data transportation between the web browser and the web server can be secured by SSL encryption It is capable of advanced meet
22. are eight different values for the RepeatRange 1 Day 2 Week 3 Month 4 Year 5 Mon Wed Fri 6 Tue amp Thu 7 Mon Thru Fri 8 Sat amp Sun This table is used as connection with the table of Recurrence to record the needed information when RecurPattern value in Recurrence table equals to FreqRecur Table 5 8 WkdayRecurPatn Column Name Data Type NET Data Type Description EventID Int 4 Int The EventID is the same EventID as in the table of Recurrence when RecurPattern in Recurrence table is WkdayRecur WeekNumber Varchar 50 String The possible WeekNumber values are First Second Third Fourth and Last WeekdayValue Varchar 50 String The possible Weekday Values are Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri and Sat RepeatRange Varchar 50 String The possible RepeatRange values are month other month 3 months 4 months 6 months and year This table is used in connection with the table of Recurrence to record the needed information when RecurPattern value in Recurrence table equals to Wkdayrecur 40 Table 5 5 MeetingAttendee Column Name DataType NET Data Type Description EventID Mt4 Int ThisEventID is the same as the EventID in Event table FirstName Varchar 50 String First Name of the meeting attendee LastName Varchar 50 String Last Name of the meeting attendee MiddleName Varchar 50 String Middle Name of the meeting attendee Status Varchar 50 String The status of the meeting attendee po
23. ata in the related tables For instance the EventDetails data class includes all the data members that encapsulate all the data in the Event Table The design of including all the related data in one class satisfies the design concept of Object Oriented Programming The CalendarSecurity class only contains one static method of Encryption that is used to encrypt the password string and save the encrypted string in the database table The DateTimelInfo class contains some methods that are similar to those in the class of DateTime in NET Framework but they take the parameter of string that is in the short string format of the date like 10 30 2004 This short string format of the date is used in the whole web calendar system So it is convenient to have a class to take care of comparing the date retrieving the day month and year from this kind of string 5 2 3 The Presentation Layer All the features that can be accessed by the users are in the presentation layer This layer contains the major part of the web calendar system By using Microsoft Visual Studio NET it is possible to develop the web applications in much the same way as to develop the Windows based applications that have Windows look and feel GUI The Integrated Development Environment in Visual Studio NET allows the developers to create rich interactive applications by dragging and dropping the controls into web forms and then write some behind codes to handle user interaction events
24. ay that date s events are displayed in the ByDay layout From there a user can view the event details by clicking the correspondent LinkButton Loading the ByDay user control from the ByMonth user control is implemented in the calendar SelectionChanged event handler This event handler firstly gets the ByMonth user control s parent that should be the server control of panel in the Main page secondly clears the user control from this panel so the ByMonth user control is cleared from this panel and at last adds the ByDay user control to this panel 50 6 Appointment aspx and Appointment aspx cs This page is used to create an appointment It popup when a user clicks the linkButton of Appointment in the main page After finishing all the inputs of an scheduling an appointment the user needs to click the linkButton of SetUp to save all the information of the appointment in the Event table and the Recurrence table if it is a recurrent event Clicking the LinkButton of Recurrence popup the recurrence page for setting the recurrence event Clicking the Ok button in the recurrence page closes the recurrence page saves the recurrence information in the DataTable and prints the message of Recurrence Event in the Appointment page Setting a value in the parent window needs to call the JavaScript functions that is described as below Firstly create a Textbox control in the Appointment page for displaying the message of Recurrence Even
25. choose a time for a meeting that best fits all attendees and resources schedule In the calendar page such as Fig 2 4 select a date in the date navigator Click the Meeting linkButton to open the meeting page as shown in Fig 2 8 Click the To linkButton to open the Contact page to invite people and reserve resources as shown in Fig 2 11 BER File Edit View Favorites Tools Help EJ From Grow Faculty gt zhong jane j Required gt teresa li Price Gail Optional gt Resources gt Laptop1 Properties OK Remove Cancel Close Fig 2 11 Contact Page shows How to Invite People and Reserve Resources Select Faculty from the From Group Dropdown list 22 Required gt Optional gt Select a name from the List box in the left side and click the _Required gt or eh button based on the person the user selected is required or optional to this meeting The selection can be repeated many times but only allowed once a time Select Resource from the From Group Dropdown list to reserve resources for the meeting i i Resources gt Select a resource name from the List box in the left side and click the button The selection can be repeated many times but only allowed once a time OK ee Click o to save the invitation and close the contact page In the Meeting page as shown in Fig 2 8 click the Availability linkButton to open the Atten
26. cted user s name shown at the top of the calendar This is done by changing the Session variable of UserID to the selected user s UserID and saving the old UserID in another Session variable When the user clicks the linkButton of MyCalendar in the main page the Session variable changes back to the old UserID and the user s own calendar is displayed 6 Comparison with Some Existed Calendar Systems 6 1 Overall Technique and Functionality This dynamic web server based calendar is built on the NET frame work which enables a two way communication between the client and the server The Net web server can perceive the behaviors and send dynamic web page to the client s web browser The web calendar data are stored in a real related database MS SQL database server which makes this web calendar highly scalable 57 The users of this dynamic web server based calendar can make appointments and scheduling meetings effectively When scheduling meetings the availability of other users is graphically displayed so that the meeting organizers can pick a meeting time that fits most attendees schedules The response of the invited attendee updates the meeting status automatically so that the meeting organizers can monitor who are going to and who are not going to attend the meetings Sharing calendar between the calendar users is possible by assigning proxies and acting as proxies It is capable of setting recurrent events It can not set r
27. deeAvailability page as shown in Fig 2 12 e AttendeeAvailability Microsoft Internet Explorer Sj x File Edit View Favorites Tools Help Kai lt lt Thursday December 02 2004 gt gt Fem fam lw fen fn ee Pom Gem fom Pom frm gt a En SS SSS Ss SE SS oO En SS FS Ean oS LS SS FE FR es ES ESS ae SS a a ES ee ee ee ee SR RS ee el ee Ie ee ee T sag ee eee __ _o i i aS Ss a SS aes ES See SSR ae en ed ee ee Se ee Se en RR GR CR Rs fr ge O mogi m mm tt eee EE EEE 7 zz yp la a le Ee a ee Ss ee ee es RR eee ee RR RR en ee RR ees ee Fa T odors cenou eee Loptopt EF S YE Tentative E Busy Mout of Office Free Meeting Start Time 127272004 1 00pm gt SetUp Meeting End Time 12 2 2004 3 00pm gt Close Fig 2 12 Attendees Availability Table Choose a time slot which is best fit to all the attendees and resources and then select the starting and ending time in the Dropdown lists at the bottom of the AttendeeAvailability page The user can scroll 23 through different dates by clicking the scroll buttons ES or Ea at the top of the AttendeeAvailability page Click the _SetUp button to accept the chosen meeting time and close the AttendeeAvailability page Give a subject and location for the meeting select the ShowTimeAs option to tell other users of this user s availability in the period of the meeting type the details about t
28. different colors For example busy is shown as royal blue and free is shown as medium turquoise The two buttons on the top of the table are used to select different date to show the availability The selected date is shown in the text box above the table By viewing the availability for all the attendees and the resources the meeting organizer can select a time 53 frame that fits most of the attendees by using the Dropdown List boxes located right beside the text boxes After the user finishing the selection and clicking the SetUp button this page is closed and the selected time is set from the AttendeeAvailability page to the MeetingMainPage If the user clicks the button of Close it closes this page but not set the selected time to the MeetingMainPage 11 AttendeeAvailabilityRead aspx and AttendeeAvailabilityRead aspx cs This page is used for the user to view the availability of the attendees It popup when the user clicks the linkButton of Availability in the MeetingReadOnly page This page is the same one as the page of AttendeeAvailability except that the SetUp button and the selection for the meeting time frame are disabled This page is only used for viewing 12 AttendeeStatus aspx and AttendeeStatus aspx cs This page is used for the user to show the meeting attendee s status It popup when the user clicks the linkButton of Status in the MeetingMainPage The web server control of DataGrid is used to show the attendees status Th
29. e using whether meeting page or appointment page to display the event The EventID is used to retrieve the event details from the Event table and the Recurrence table if the event is a recurrence event 5 ByMonth aspx and ByMonth aspx cs ByMonth ascx is another user control which is loaded to the main page dynamically when a user clicks the ByMonth button in the main page This user control just consists of one server control the Calendar server control which is used to display the events of a whole month Each day of the Calendar control is a table cell and the events of every day are listed in the correspondent table cell by their subjects Different colors are used to show whether an event is a meeting or an appointment If the event is a meeting the subject is shown in red color otherwise the subject is shown in blue color There are two navigating buttons to let the user to select the calendars of other months to display Showing the events in the calendar table cell is implemented in the calendar DayRendar event handler For each calendar table cell it gets all the events for that day and create a linkbutton for each event and add the linkButton to that table cell For some reasons the linkButton can not be clicked So a user can not view an event detail by clicking the linkButton in the ByMonth layout But a user can do that by clicking the date in the table cell of the Calendar control to load the ByDay user control in the panel In this w
30. ecture Overview Implementation of the Web Calendar 5 1 The Database Design 5 2 Implementation of the Architecture of Three Layers 5 2 1 The Data Access Layer 5 2 2 The Business Layer 5 2 3 The Presentation Layer Comparisons with Some Existing Calendar Systems 6 1 Overall Technique and Functionality 6 2 Data Communication and Storage Model 6 3 Client Software and Multi Platforms 6 4 Calendar Sharing 6 5 Most Useful Features 6 5 1 Viewing the Availability of Attendees when Scheduling Meeting 6 5 2 Auto Updating Meeting Status 6 5 3 Event Reminder 6 5 4 Set Event as Recurrent Event 6 5 5 PDA Synchronization 6 6 Friendly User Interface 6 7 Ease of Learning 6 8 Secure Communication Summary of Comparisons 8 References Appendix A Deployment 33 33 34 34 35 37 37 44 44 44 47 58 58 59 61 61 62 62 62 63 63 64 64 65 65 66 68 69 1 Introduction In the real world today people rely on email and e calendar more and more It happens not only in companies universities and government departments but also in all kinds of private societies and organizations It is very convenient to track appointments and meetings by using e calendar It is especially efficient in scheduling meetings when it is possible to get online access of the availability of the attendees and resources The responses from the attendees update the meeting attendance table automatically to let the meeting organizer know who is planning to attend the mee
31. ecutable files applications from unauthorized access But they do not secure all parts of the file The NET Framework enables both developers and system administrators to specify method level security The NET Framework uses industry standard protocols such as TCP IP and means of Communications such as the Extensible Markup Language XML Simple Object Access Protocol SOAP and HTTP to facilitate distributed application communications This makes distributed computing more secure ASP NET uses the Common Language Runtime CLR provided by the NET Framework The CLR is the NET runtime which manages the execution of code The CLR allows the objects which are created in different language to interact with each other and hence removes the language barrier CLR thus makes web application development more efficient Microsoft made most ActiveX controls available in the ASP NET The ASP NET supports several kinds of language such as Visual Basic Visual C Visual C Visual J and Visual J 7 Basically any of the language can do the same implementation Visual Basic and Visual C are the most popular language among them for they are simple to use C NET will be used as the coding language in this project Databases often play an integral part in storing the information and the scripting language query of the database to create the dynamic web page Some popular relational databases which are used for the persistence layer are Oracle DB
32. ell phone The users of this dynamic web server based calendar can not set reminders currently 6 5 4 Set Event as Recurrent Event All the five calendars have the functionality of setting recurrent event A recurrent event is an appointment or a meeting that repeats in a regular pattern Outlook calendar and MeetingMaker have the most sophisticated and powerful pattern options that enable the user practically to set any recurrent patterns for an event iCal calendar Yahoo calendar and this dynamic web server based calendar have simpler recurrent pattern options 62 6 5 5 PDA synchronizations Outlook calendar can synchronize Pocket PC handhelds in real time iCal can not synchronize PDA device MeetingMaker can synchronize Pocket PC handhelds or Palm OS handhelds but there may be problems when a handheld device is synchronized with a client computer but the client have not synchronized with the server Yahoo calendar can synchronize Pocket PC handhelds and Palm OS handhelds with the web server in real time This dynamic web server based calendar can not synchronize PDA device now 6 6 Friendly User Interface The interface of Outlook calendar is very user friendly since most users are familiar with Microsoft Office and Outlook calendar inherits the UI of MS Office The calendar can be displayed by day by week by month by year by event by catalog and so on Changeing display layout is as easy as one mouse click on the corre
33. eminders for appointment or meeting This feature is popular in many commercial calendars It can not synchronize handheld devices There are only two calendar layouts In the by month layout the events displayed in the calendar can not be opened by clicking on it Instead the user needs to change to by day layout to open an event This part is not very user friendly In the by day layout an event doesn t display the time span graphically instead it only displays graphically half hour time scale at the starting time So the user does not know when the event ends unless the user opens that event by clicking it 6 2 Data Communication and Storage Model Outlook Calendar runs inside an intranet It is a client server model An Outlook Exchange server is running in a Windows OS machine to provide services Microsoft Outlook is required to be installed in the client machine that is running in Windows OS The calendar data is stored in the Exchange Server Database It is a two way communication between the client and the server The Outlook calendar in the client machine sends requests to the Outlook Exchange server in the server machine The server accesses the Exchange Server Database to fetch the requested information after receiving the requests processes the information updates the database and then sends the processed information back to the Outlook calendar the client An Outlook calendar client can access the Exchange se
34. en the user interacts with the calendar system until the user logouts Both the administrator and the user can login as a regular user 2 AdminLogin aspx and AdminLogin aspx cs This page is only used by the administrators to manage the resources and user accounts It popup when the user logins as a calendar administrator by submitting correct credentials An administrator can add or delete user accounts and resources in this page The information of user accounts is saved in the UserInfo table and the information of resources is saved in the Resource table 3 MainPage aspx and MainPage aspx cs This page is the main page of the calendar system It can be displayed in the layout of By Day or By Month The user control of ByDay ascx or ByMonth ascx is loaded dynamically There is a panel to hold these user controls Clicking the ByDay button clears the panel loads the ByDay ascx user control and adds it to the panel clicking the ByMonth button clears the panel loads the ByMonth ascx user control and adds it to the panel There is a Calendar control inside the ByDay ascx user control which is used to select the date of calendar displaying in the By Day layout The default selected date is today s date in the web calendar server In the top of this page is a row of LinkButtons which are used for different tasks Clicking them opens new windows for the correspondent tasks The JavaScript function of window open is used to ope
35. ent ResourceName Varchar 50 String The resource which will be used for this event StartDate Varchar 50 String The start date for this event StartTime Varchar 50 String The start time in that starting date for this event EndDate Varchar 50 String The end date for this event EndTime Varchar 50 String The end time in that ending date for this event This table is used to reserve resources for the meeting event The primary key is the combination of EventID and ResourceName 38 Column Name UserID FirstName LastName MiddleName Email BPhone HPhone BFax Mobile UserName Password Role Table 5 4 UserInfo Data Type NET Data Type Description Int 4 Int Auto increment field Uniquely identifies a user Varchar 50 String User s First Name Varchar 50 String User s Last Name Varchar 50 String User s Middle Name Varchar 50 String Email address for the user Varchar 50 String Business phone number Varchar 50 String Home phone number Varchar 50 String Business fax number Varchar 50 String Cell phone number Varchar 50 String User s Username should be unique for each user Varchar 50 String Password for the user to login in the system Varchar 50 String Role for the user to use the calendar Possible values are administrator or user In the Login page only the users in the Role of administrator can open the page of AdminLogin by click the AdminLogin button This table is used to store all the information of each
36. ent architectures Fig 1 3 shows a typical UI of iCal calendar In iCal different calendars are color coded and displayed all together The calendars of other users can also be displayed together with the user s own calendars It has similar functions as those of Outlook i e setting appointments meetings inviting attendees setting reminders iCal is a stand alone application that must be installed in the local computer A user s calendar can not be accessed by other users unless it was published on the web That means others do not know when you are available unless you have published your calendars on the web iCal publishes calendars on Mac or local WebDAV server so others can access those calendars using web browsers If they are iCal users they can even subscribe to your calendar and have immediate access to it from iCal eseesrpese 1 mno Fig 1 3 iCal Calendar in Day View layout Fig 1 4 shows two working models of iCal to share calendars iCal publishes calendars on a local WebDAV server so the users in the local intranet can share the published calendars as shown in Fig 1 4 a iCal publishes calendars on Mac through internet so users on the internet can access those published calendars as shown in Fig 1 4 b WebDAV server peolumoq i Q 9 Local Intranet model Internet model a b Fig 1 4 iCal sharing calendar models When a user requests a shared calendar using web browser t
37. er information stored in the MS SQL server If the connection is authenticated the MS SQL server will trust this connection and a default account ASP NET is used by the user to access the database Nine tables are created for implementing the web calendar system The primary key for each table is underlined in the Name column If the primary key is the combination of several variables all the names of there variables are underlined Each table is described in details as below and following the nine tables is a Diagram of Database Entity Relationship Table 5 2 Resource Column Name Data Type NET Data Type Description ResourceID Int 4 Int Auto increment field uniquely identifies a resource ResourceName Varchar 50 String The resource name which will be used in a meeting This table is used to store all the resources like the conference room and projector etc 37 Column Name EventID FirstName LastName MiddleName Subject Location StartDate StartTime EndDate EndTime ShowTimeAs Private Recurrence Note Meeting Data Type Int 4 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Varchar 50 Table 5 1 NET Date Type Int String String String String String String String String String String String String String String Event Description Auto increment field Uniquely identifies an
38. er it 6 8 Secure Communication 64 Outlook calendar is running inside the intranet so the security of data communication totally relies on the security measurements of the corporate computer system In the case of Exchange server running in OWA mode the data communication between the web browser and the Exchange server can be secured by SSL iCal is a stand alone Mac application so it relies on the security that Mac computer in an organization Meetingmaker uses SSL Secure Socket Layers to protect the data by encrypt them in data transportation and decrypt them in the client end and server end A user name and password are required to login the MeetingMaker calendar system The user credential data are stored in the Meetingmaker server database Yahoo calendar requires a user name and a password to login the system The user credential login information is store in the web server at Yahoo com The data transportation between the web browser and the web server is not encrypted Yahoo calendar has a security issue that is stressed in its website A published event can be viewed by someone who does not have the access permission if the web address of that event was guessed right This dynamic web server based calendar requires a user name and a password to login the calendar system The user credential information is stored in the MS SQL server database The server is protected by firewall The data communication between the web browser and the
39. ere By clicking the Delete button in the appointment scheduling page just deletes the scheduling appointment and all the information is not saved in the database By clicking the DeleteRecurrence button deletes the recurrence which is already set up for this appointment The Subject and Location fields are required The starting and ending date of the appointment can be selected by clicking the date selector above the starting date The Show time as Dropdown list has four options Free Tentative Busy and Out of office It shows the user s availability in that time period to other users The user can type or paste appointment notes in the Notes text area 32 In the Appointment page there is a Private check box for the user to determine if this appointment is shown hidden or not when other users view his or her calendar If this box is checked this appointment will not be displayed when other users view his calendar 3 2 2 Scheduling Meetings A meeting is an appointment to that a user can invite people and reserve resources Scheduling meetings can be done by the steps described as the following By clicking the Meeting button from the day or month layout page the meeting scheduling page popup as shown in Fig 2 8 By clicking the Send button all the information about the meeting is saved in the database By clicking the To Linkbutton the contact page is opened for the meeting organizer to invite attendees
40. ere are three columns in this DataGrid The first column is used to display the attendee or resource names The second column is used to display the status of the attendee or resource The status could be Meeting organizer Required or Optional for the attendees and Resource for the resources The third column is used to display the responses of the attendees or the resources For the attendees the response is None because the attendees have not received this message yet at this time For the resources the response is either Accepted or Rejected based on the result of checking whether this resource have already been reserved or not If nobody reserved it the response is Accepted If the resource is already reserved by another user in this time frame the response is Rejected All the status information about the attendees and resources is saved in the MeetingAttendee and ResourceUsed tables when the meeting organizer sends the meeting request in the MeetingMainPage 13 AttendeeStatusRead aspx and AttendeeStatusRead aspx cs This page is used for the user to view the attendees status It popup when the user clicks the linkButton of Status in the MeetingReadOnly page This page is the same as the page of AttendeeStatus except that the response column shows different information The response for the resources is always Accepted because if the resource is already reserved by another user when the o
41. eteRecurrence button it clears the DataTable and the message of Recurrence Event in the Textbox If the user clicks the Delete button it closes this window and saves nothing in the database 51 7 AppointmentShow aspx and Appointmentshow aspx cs This page is used to show the appointment details when the user clicks the event LinkButton in the ByDay page The interface of AppointmentShow aspx is the same as the interface of Appointment aspx But by opening the AppointmentShow aspx page from the ByDay user control it needs to pass all the information about this event that is stored in the Event table to this page The user can modify or delete this event Since a proxy with the permission of Read can only view the event the SetUp Delete and DeleteRecurrence buttons are disabled for the proxy with the permission of Read only If the event that the user deletes or modifies is a recurrent event it just deletes or modifies the event in that day and keeps the same recurrence pattern for all the remaining days This is implemented by dividing a recurrent event into two recurrent events For the first recurrence event the EventID is the same as the original one but the ending date is changed to the day before the selected day For the second recurrence event a new EventID is created and the starting date is the next day of the selected day but the ending date is the same as the original one If a user wants to delete all the recurrent events a
42. f proxy The primary key is the combination of the assigning name and assigned name variables The calendar information is stored in these nine major tables that can be accessed by the stored procedures using SQL language In the three layers of architecture the database layer is responsible for implementing all the stored procedures There are 59 store procedures And it is the business layer to be responsible for accessing all the stored procedures 42 AssigningFirstName AssigningMiddleName AssigningLastName AssignedFirstName AssignedMiddleName AssignedLastName Resource ResourceID ResourceName ResourceUsed EventID ResourceName StartTime EndTime FreqRecurPatn EventID O Frequency RepeatRange 1 1 1 n UserID EventID FirstName AttendeeUserID LastName N Status MiddleName Response Email BPhone HPhone BFax Mobile EventID Z UserID Subject UserName Password Role Location StartDate StartTime EndDate EndTime ShowTimeAs EventID StartDate RangePattern Private RangeValue Recurrence RecurPattern Note Meeting Display WkdayRecurPatn EventID WeekNumber Weekday Value RepeatRange 0 n 0 1 Fig 5 1 The Database Entity Relationship Diagram 43 5 2 Implementation of the Architecture of Three Layers 5 2 1 The Data Access Layer There is a lot of information needed to be stored for the calendar system These include information
43. fter certain date the user can always do this by opening the recurrence page selecting the ending date of the recurrence to the date before that certain date clicking Ok to close the Recurrence page and clicking Delete button 8 MeetingMainPage aspx and MeetingMainPage aspx cs This page is used for the user to create a meeting event It popup when the user clicks the linkButton of Meeting in the main page The interface is similar to the interface of the Appointment page but there is a linkButton of TO that is used for the user to invite people to attend the meeting The linkButtons of Status and Availability are used for the user to show the availability and the status of the invited people and reserved resources when he or she creates a meeting event 9 MeetingReadOnly aspx and MeetingReadOnly aspx cs This page is used to show the meeting details when a user clicks the meeting event in the ByDay page or in the message list The interface of MeetingReadOnly aspx is similar to that of MeetingMainPage aspx but using three linkButtons to replace the Send linkButton these three linkButtons are the linkButtons of Accept Tentative and Decline They are used for the meeting attendees to reply the meeting organizer Clicking the linkButton of Accept means that this attendee attends the meeting and the ShowTimeAs option for this attendee in this event is busy clicking the linkButton of Tentative means that this attendee tentatively
44. gramming model and software infrastructure necessary to build enterprise class applications As part of the Microsoft NET platform ASP NET provides a component based extensible and easy to use way to build deploy and run web application 1 ASP NET is a compiled NET Framework based environment where applications can be authored in any NET Framework compatible language including Visual Basic C J C and JScript So unlike classic ASP in which you had to depend on interpreted VBScript and Jscript languages ASP NET provides a wide choice of programming languages 10 In addition to the usual web applications ASP NET allows developers to create other types of applications which enables you to extend your applications reach to new customers and business partners For example XML Web Services enable sharing of data across the Internet regardless of the operating system and the programming language also ASP NET provides lots of mobile controls that enable an application to target a large number of mobile web devices Besides the advantages mentioned above the NET Framework also provides another benefit to developers Direct Support for Security Window NT Windows 2000 and Windows XP have a number of security features based on Access Control Lists ACLs An ACL contains a number of entries that specify which users may access or are explicitly denied access to resources such as files and printers ACLs are a great way of protecting ex
45. he Mac or local WebDAV server delivers the shared calendar to the client s web browser But the interaction model between the web browser and the Mac or WebDAV server is static one way traffic web pages MeetingMaker is copyrighted by Meeting Maker Inc which is running across platforms such as Windows Macintosh and Solaris BI The secure communication across the internet between the clients and server is through SSL Security Sockets Layer protocol Fig 1 5 schematically shows the working model of MeetingMaker MeetingMaker server s w Seen Client s w FEE Client s w Fig 1 5 Illustration of how MeetingMaker works The MeetingMaker client software must be installed in each client computers The client computers can be a mixture of different OS platforms A MeetingMaker server is running to provide services to the clients The clients communicate with the server interactively through the internet The SSL protocol is used to provide secure communication MeetingMaker can also publish calendars on the web so other users can access the shared calendars using any web browsers but the interaction between MeetingMaker server and the client s web browser is also one way traffic i e the web server can only provide static web pages Yahoo calendar is a web server calendar which does not require any client software and can be accessed wherever a web browser exists But its capability of scheduling meetings was ver
46. he meeting in the Notes text area At last click the linkButton Send to setup the meeting and close the meeting scheduling windows See Fig 2 13 E MeetingMainPage Microsoft Internet Explorer memene Meeting Private 7 To zhong jane j li teresa Price Gail Subject Planning Christmas Part Location fin 11 Post Side Lane Pittsford NY 12 2 2004 1 00pm 12 2 2004 3 00pm hd Show Time As Busy z Come together to plan the party Fig 2 13 Scheduling a Meeting 24 2 4 3 Responding a Meeting As other users scheduled meetings and this user is invited to the meetings the meeting messages are shown in the Message List page these meetings are shown in the calendar page too The user can view and reply the meetings from the Message List page or calendar page In the calendar ByDay or ByMonth layout click the linkButton Message to open the Message List page as shown in Fig 2 14 MessageList Microsoft Internet Explorer loj x Message List Senders Subject Location Date ResponseRecurrence ane j ie Planning In 11 Post Side I I a Part Lane Pittsford NY 720 Noe F Fig 2 14 Message List Window Click the linkButton in the Subject column to open the meeting for viewing and replying as shown in Fig 2 15 Click the linkButton Accept Tentative or Decline to send the response or just close this window to ignore this meeting The user can
47. ing scheduling graphically showing the availability of the attendees marking the meeting requests to the calendar of the invited persons auto updating the meeting status according to the attendees responses and the message list page showing all the meetings It can also set recurrent events It s easy to learn and use But it is weak in features and user interface The user can not set reminders for the events It can not synchronize to any handheld device The user interface is not very friendly 66 8 References University of Cincinnati http www ucit uc edu documentation calendar pdf Scheduling with the Outlook Calendar 2002 Apple Computer Inc http www apple com ical iCal Help ver 1 5 2004 Meeting Maker Inc Meetingmaker User Guide p 17 2001 Yahoo Inc http www yahoo com 2004 MSDN Microsoft Developer Network Microsoft NET Developer Training Part No X08 43203 p 05 4 2001 Microsoft Corp online help in MSDN Library NET 2003 Farhan Muhammad and Matt Milner The Age of ASP NET Real World ASP NET Best Practices Apress p 1 2003 Chris Payne Secure You ASP NET Applications SAMs Teach Yourself ASP NET in 21 Days p 698 2002 67 Appendix A Deployment The deployment of the ASP NET application is very simple It just needs to copy all the needed files ASP NET Web pages the web config file and necessary DLLs to the deployment Web server A virtual directory is any directo
48. lay string AttendeeDetails gt UserID int Event ID int FirstName int MiddleName int LastName string Status string Response string ProxyDetails AssigningFirstName string GetAssingedProxyWrite DataSet AssigningLastName string AssigningMiddleName string AssignedFirstName string AssignedLastName string AssignedMiddleName string Permission string RecurrenceInfo AddRecurrenceEvent int DeleteRecurrence void GetRecurrence RecurrenceDetails GetRecurPattern string GetWkdayRecurPattern RecurrenceDetails GetFreqRecurPattern RecurrenceDetails UpdateRecurrence int UpdateRecurrenceAndEvent int UpdateRecurrenceTable tint UpdateRecurrenceTable int SetRecurrenceEvent int getAllRecurrenceEvent ArrayList getAllRecurrenceMeetingEvent ArrayList getAllRecurrenceEventByProxy ArrayList getRecurrenceEvent bool ResourcelInfo AddResource int GetResourceIDByResourceName int DeleteResource int GetAllResource DataSet GetResourceID ResourceDetails SaveResource void UpdateResource void DeleteResourceUsed void getResourceNameByEventID string loadResourceEvent ArrayList loadResourceRecurrenceEvent ArrayList getResourceUsedTime ArrayList checkResourceUsed bool DateTimelInfo DayMonthYearDetails getDayMonthYearDetails compare int equals bool getTimeSpan
49. lds in the Login Page as shown in Fig 2 1 Click Aamin cear button to open the AdminLogin Page as shown in Fig 2 2 12 E LoginAdmin Microsoft Internet Explorer UserName FirstName Password MiddleN ame Role raed LastName ResourceNamel AddUser AddResource Cancel DeleteUser DeleteResource Close Fig 2 2 the Administrator Page Type a username and a password in the UserName and Password fields Type the string of administrator in the Role field administrator for an administrator account and user for a regular user account Type FirstName MiddleName this is optional and LastName in the correspondent fields Click the AddUser button to add an administrator account After created an administrator account the administrator may add more user accounts The Role for a regular user is user The username for each user should be unique The steps for creating a regular user account is the same as that for creating an administrator account An administrator can delete a user account in the AdminLogin page For doing so type a username in the UserName field Clicking DeleteUser button An administrator can also use this page to manage the resources Add a resource by typing a resource name in the ResourceName field and then clicking the AddResource bation Delete a resource by typing a resource name in the ResourceName field and then clicking the DeleteRes
50. lication MeetingMaker is a multi platform application Clients could be in Mac OS Windows OS Linux OS and Unix OS Information exchange between different OS is not a problem since MeetingMaker is an IP based application the communication crosses different OS platform in the internet The client and server software for different OS are available Yahoo calendar is a web based application The server is a web server and the client is a web browser It is a multi platform web application No client software is needed The dynamic web server based calendar is also a multi platform web application Since it is powered by NET frame work the server needed to be installed in Windows OS server with NET support The client could be in any platform since only a web browser is needed No other client software is needed This calendar is tested in two OS platforms and three kinds of web browsers The two OS platform are Unix and Windows and the three web browsers are Internet Explorer Netscape and Mozilla Firefox The test results show that this calendar runs smooth in Internet Explorer in both Windows and Unix but has display problems in Netscape and Mozilla Firefox It seems it is compatible to different operation systems but not compatible to different web browsers Since Microsoft Corporation claimed the web application developed by ASP NET should be compatible to other web browsers besides Internet Explorer one can expect that they will fix this proble
51. m in the new Net release 6 4 Calendar Sharing Outlook calendar users can share their calendars inside an intranet by giving access permissions to each other Different level of permissions can be set such as Create items Read items Create 60 subfolders Folder owner Folder visible That means an Outlook user can view or edit other users calendars depending on the permission level iCal calendar can not be shared unless the user published it on the WebDAV server or Mac server In that way other users can read the published calendar by a web browser or through iCal but they can not modify it The published calendar is read only MeetingMaker users can share their calendar across internet by giving access permissions to each other There are two permission levels Read only and Read Write That means a Meetingmaker user can view or edit other users calendars depending on the permission level If a calendar is published on the web it can be viewed by others through a web browser Yahoo calendar users can share their calendars across internet by giving access permissions to each other Depending on access permission level a user can view or modify other users calendars The users of this dynamic web server based calendar can also fully share their calendars across the internet A user can view or modify other users calendars depending on the access permission 6 5 Most Useful Features 6
52. mation When the user opens this page from the Contact page or ContactMainPage by clicking the Properties button the Property page is used only for viewing the selected user s information and all the text fields are read only and the Save button is disabled If the user clicks the linkButton of EditUserInfo in the MainPage The Property page is opened to show his or her own information and all the text fields except the user s name are editable and the Save button is enabled A user can edit these fields and save his or her own information in the UserInfo table within that page A user can only edit his or her own information but can view all other users information 17 MessageList aspx and MessageList aspx cs This page is used for the user to display all the meeting events either organized by the user or invited by other users Except for the recurrent meeting events it only shows those meeting events whose starting dates are equal to or greater than the date of today For the recurrence meeting events it shows the meeting events whose recurrence ending date is equal to or later than the date of today no matter that the recurrence starting date is later or earlier than the date of today The main server control for this page is a DataGrid that has seven columns but only six columns are visible to users the hidden column is used to hold the EventID that is needed for retrieving the event details when the user clicks the Subject col
53. meeting When an invited attendee receives the meeting request this attendee s calendar is automatically marked by that meeting request and that meeting request is also shown up in the Message list By clicking on the link in the Subject column a read 33 only meeting scheduling page is opened for the attendee to view the meeting details and reply from there as shown in Fig 2 15 If the attendee does not want to reply he can simply close this page He can also click the Delete button by doing so and if he is not the organizer for this meeting then this piece of event is deleted from his calendar and the Message list table If he is the organizer for this meeting then this event still remains in his calendar and the Message list table but the Subject field is appended the word Cancel in the beginning to let all the attendees know that this meeting has been canceled If an attendee reply the message the response Accept Tentative or Decline updates the Attendee Status page and the Message list page automatically 3 2 4 Management of Proxies A user can let other users to access his or her calendar by assigning proxy privilege to them By clicking the Proxy Linkbutton in the calendar layout the Proxy page popup as shown in Fig 2 19 Firstly select a name from the All Users ListBox Secondly if click on the Read Write gt button then the selected name goes to the Read Write ListBox and assigns the proxy
54. meetings for a chosen day The scheduled appointments and meetings are displayed in the table as blocks that occupy the first half hour time range of those events They are clickable for viewing details or modifying The month layout displays a whole month appointments and meetings each day s events occupy a table cell The appointments and meetings are listed in the table cells The users can distinguish the meeting events from the appointment events by the color The meeting events are shown as red color and the appointment events are shown as blue color in both the day layout and the month layout In the month layout clicking on a date in a cell opens the day layout calendar for that day 3 2 A Close Look of Some Functionalities of the Calendar Some calendar features require a more detailed explanation They are listed in the following sections 3 2 1 Scheduling Appointments Appointments are activities that do not involve other people or resources Scheduling appointments can be done by the steps described as the following By clicking the Appointment button from the day or month layout page the appointment scheduling page popup as shown in Fig 2 10 By clicking the Setup button all the information about the Appointment is saved in the database By clicking the Recurrence button the recurrence page popup The user can set an event as recurrent event by clicking on the Recurrence button and setting up various recurrent patterns from th
55. n a new window All the pop up windows are implemented by this JavaScript function There are two ways to pop up a window by using the JavaScript function in ASP NET and C NET language They are shown as below by using the LinkButton of the Appoinment as an example 48 The first way is to construct a string and register it as the attribute s value of OnClick event and then add codes to the Page_Load event handler String showAppointmentWindow window open Appointment aspx AppointmentPopUp width 750 height 700 left 200 top 150 fullscreen no resizable no Appointment Attribute Add onClick showAppointmentWindow The second way is to create a function that calls the JavaScript function window open and this function is called by the Appointment OnClick event handler private void ShowAppointment String showAppointmentWindow lt Script Language javaScript gt window open Appointment aspx AppointmentPopUp width 750 height 700 left 200 top 150 fullscreen no resizable no lt Script gt Page RegisterStartupScript ShowAppointment showAppointmentWindow private void appointment_Click object sender System EventArgs e ShowAppointment In this project the second way is used The same technique is also used to call the JavaScript functions of window alert to show a message window and window close to close a window 4 ByDay ascx and ByDay ascx cs ByDay asc
56. nd then click Next irtual Directory Creation Wizard Web Site Content Directory Where is the content you want to publish on the Web site Enter the path to the directory that contains the content Directory C Inetpub wwwroot MS Calendar lt Back Cancel Click Next in the following window and then click Finish 70 Yirtual Directory Creation Wizard Access Permissions What access permissions do you want to set for this virtual directory m m E e e A 3 Installation of the Calendar database 1 Create initial database MSCalendar Open the SQL Server Enterprise Manager Click the right mouse button on the Databases and then click on the New Database in the popup In the Database Properties windows fill in MSCalendar in the name field and then click OK 71 Database Properties MSCalendar xi General Data Files Transaction Log E Name MSCalendar Database Status Unknown Owner Unknown Date created Unknown Size Unknown Space available Unknown Number of users Unknown Backup Last database backup None Last transaction log backup None Maintenance Maintenance plan None Collation name Server default v i Cancel Help 2 Assign privileges of database access Choose the user name ASPNET in the name list of SQL database secure login which is located in Security gt
57. ndar may 17 2004 Address Monday May 17 4 May 2004 June 2004 gt SMETEN TFS SM TW TFS 2526 27 2829 30 1 123 45 224 5 67 8 6 7 8 91011 12 910 1112 1314 15 13 14 15 16 17 16 19 16 1819 202122 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 23 24 25 26 BF 28 29 27282930 1 2 3 3031 45 6 fF 8 910 DM taskPad BON ry Dir Click here to add a new Task 2 CAE BOW meeting 147 210W ick here to add a new Ta Fig 1 1 Outlook calendar in Day View layout Fig 1 1 shows a typical User Interface UI of Outlook calendar In Outlook calendar a user can set appointments schedule meetings set reminders check the availability of others check the responses of meeting requests Fig 1 2 schematically shows how Outlook calendar works Outlook Exchange server s w aa client aa Outlook Outlook Local Intranet Internet Fig 1 2 Illustration of how Outlook calendar works An Outlook exchange server is running in the local intranet and Outlook client software is running in the client computers The clients and the server have interactions to exchange information A remote Outlook client can also exchange information with the server through Internet by Virtual Private Network VPN VPN software must also be installed in the remote client to access the exchange server While Outlook Calendar running in Microsoft Windows platform iCal calendar is running in Macintosh OS platform 2 Even though their functionalities are similar they are built on differ
58. nt for the meeting organizer it just cancels that day s meeting and keeps the remaining day s recurrence pattern The algorithm for this is the same as the algorithm for deleting an appointment event but it needs to create a new event in that the subject attaches a string of Cancel for the deleting date In the meanwhile the reserved resources iss released for that day and the reservation for all the remaining dates is kept For an invited attendee deleting that day s meeting just deletes this attendee from the MeetingAttendee table in that day and keeps all other remaining recurrent events The implementation of this is very complicated but the main idea is the same as the one of deleting a recurrent appointment event the involved database tables are MeetingAttendee ResourceUsed and Event table 10 AttendeeAvailability aspx and AttendeeAvailability aspx cs This page is used for the user to show the availability of the meeting attendees and the reserved resources when the user organizes a meeting It popup when the user clicks the linkButton of Availability in the Meeting page The availability of all the meeting attendees including the resources are shown in a web server control of Table Each raw of the table shows the information of one attendee or one resource and the first column displays the name of the attendee or the resource The other columns are used to display the availability for the attendees or resources using
59. open the Property page as shown in Fig 2 6 16 2 Property Microsoft Internet Explorer Name Phone Number Last Name fi Business 585 265 2443 First Name iing Home 585 566 7610 Middle Name Business Fax Email jli_1101 yahoo com Mobile 585 305 9816 Close Fig 2 6 the Property Page for Editing User Information Add the information in the correspondent fields Click the Ml button to finish the modification 2 2 3 Viewing other Users Information A user can view other users information at any time if the information is available But all the fields are read only In the calendar page click the linkButton of Contacts to open the Contact page as shown in Fig 2 7 17 Contact Microsoft Internet Explorer File Edit View Favorites Tools Help From Group Faculty gt Required gt Optional gt Resources gt Gail Price Properties Remove Close Fig 2 7 Contact Information Page Click a user name in the left side Listbox Properties Click the Properties button to open the Property page as shown in Fig 2 6 Click Close button to close the Property window A user can also view other users information when scheduling a meeting In the Meeting page as shown in Fig 2 8 18 3 MeetingMainPage Microsoft Internet Explorer Meeting Private 7 To 2 2 2004 8 00am 12 2 2004 8 00am Show Time As Busy x Fig 2 8 Meeting Scheduling
60. ource button Click Close button to close this page 13 2 1 2 Login as a regular user A user needs to login to use this calendar system Cookies need to be temporally allowed when a regular user logins in the first time or logins right after changing the password To enable Cookies in Internet Explorer follow the procedures as in IE menu bar click Tools gt Internet Options gt Privacy and then move the slider to medium as shown in Fig 2 3 2x General Security Privacy Content Connections Programs Advanced Settings Move the slider to select a privacy setting for the Internet Zap zone P gt _ Medium i i Blocks third party cookies that do not have a compact i _ privacy policy i Blocks third party cookies that use personally identifiable i 7 information without your implicit consent Restricts first party cookies that use personally identifiable i _ information without implicit consent Import Advanced Default Web Sites To override cookie handling for individual Web sites click the Edit button Edit Fig 2 3 Change the Privacy Level to Enable Cookies For other browser users refer to the browser user manuals to enable the Cookies Login Type the username and password in the Login page as shown in Fig 2 1 and click the button to login the calendar system Fig 2
61. people or resources Scheduling appointments is easy using this calendar In the calendar page such as in Fig 2 4 select a date in the date navigator Click the Appointment linkButton to open the Appointment page as shown in Fig 2 10 3 Appointment Microsoft Internet Explorer Ol x Set Up Recurrence Delete DeleteRecurrence Appointment Private Subject Go fishing Location Hemlock Lake Start Time 12 1 2004 12 00pm 7 End Time 12 1 2004 3 00pm gt Show Time As Busy gt Notes I will pick up you at 11 30am Fig 2 10 Scheduling Appointment Page In the Appointment page type a subject and location in the correspondent fields click the date selector to select a date if needed set the starting and ending time for this appointment make a choice in the 21 ShowTimeAs option that tells other users of this user s availability in the period of the appointment type the details about the appointment in the Notes text area and click the linkButton SetUp 2 4 2 Scheduling a Meeting A meeting is an appointment to that a user can invite people and reserve resources Resources include objects that a user may typically use in a meeting such as conference rooms overhead projectors or laptop computers Both people and resources may or may not be available for a meeting but a user can use the AttendeeAvailability page to check the availability of the people and resources and
62. plication is running at an ASP NET powered web server and the users only need a web browser client to access it The ASP NET web server based calendar application can perceive the client behaviors and take correspondent actions i e the server sends dynamic web pages to the clients according to the clients behaviors It is a real time two way traffic model of communication between the server and the clients Within NET framework the dynamic web server based calendar makes use of the Active Control functionalities and thus enables powerful appointment and meeting scheduling across internet The calendar data is stored in MS SQL database server that can handle large volume of concurrent users and provide fast data searching It supposes to be highly scalable 59 6 3 Client Software and Multi Platforms Outlook calendar is a single platform application in its regular mode Microsoft Outlook must be installed in clients running Windows OS The Exchange server is installed in a Windows OS server Outlook calendar in regular mode is only available to Windows OS users But when the Exchange server runs in OWA mode even through the server must be installed in Windows OS server the client could be in any OS platform since the client is just a web browser So in OWA mode Outlook calendar is a multi platform application iCal calendar is exclusively an stand alone Mac application that is only available in Mac OS So it is a single platform app
63. raditional calendars This project has been implemented using a logical 3 tier architecture namely Presentation Layer Business Logic Layer and Data Access Layer One benefit of using such architecture is a clear separation between user interface business logic and data access layers And it would make the business logic code more reusable too Table of Contents Acknowledgements Abstract 1 2 Introduction 1 1 The Existing Calendars 1 2 The Dynamic Web Server Based Calendar 1 3 The Technology Used in This Project User Manual 2 1 Login 2 1 1 Administrator Login 2 1 2 Login as a Regular User 2 1 3 Logout the calendar System 2 2 User Information 2 2 1 Changing Password 2 2 2 Editing User Information 2 2 3 Viewing Other Users Information 2 3 Navigating the Calendar 2 4 Scheduling Appointments and Meetings 2 4 1 Scheduling an Appointment 2 4 2 Scheduling a Meeting 2 4 3 Responding a Meeting 2 4 4 Check Meeting Responses 2 5 Set Recurrent Events 2 6 Proxy 2 6 1 Assigning a Proxy 2 6 2 Acting as a Proxy Functional Specifications 3 1 Overview of the Functionalities of the Dynamic Web Base Server 3 2 A Close Look of Some Functionalities of the Calendar 3 2 1 Scheduling Appointments a a N 10 12 12 12 14 15 16 16 16 17 19 21 21 22 25 26 27 29 29 30 31 31 32 32 4 5 6 7 3 2 2 Scheduling Meetings 3 2 3 Show Message List 3 2 4 Management of Proxies 3 2 5 Security Login Archit
64. re stored in a MS SQL server SSL could be used to encrypt the data transportation between the client and the server 34 4 Architecture Overview This project is implemented with a logical 3 tier architecture namely Presentation Layer Business Logic Layer and Data Access Layer One benefit of using such architecture is a clear separation between user interface business logic and data access layer And also this makes the business logic code more reusable Implementation using this architecture is based on the basic steps 1 Data Access Layer create all needed tables which models all required data for this project and build stored procedures to encapsulate database access 2 Business Logic Layer build some custom classes which are responsible for connecting to the database to access data and also for applying business logic if needed 3 Presentation Layer build a user interface to access the system Some examples of these three layers are shown below Data Access Layer CREATE PROCEDURE GetUserIDByName UserID int OUTPUT FirstName varchar 50 MiddleName varchar 50 LastName varchar 50 AS SELECT UserID UserID FROM UserInfo WHERE LastName LastName AND FirstName FirstName AND MiddleName MiddleName This is a stored procedure which is used to retrieve the userID of the calendar user and is called from the business logic layer Business Logic Layer The p
65. rganizer creates this meeting it would not let the organizer to save this resource in the database The responses of the meeting attendees can be Accepted Tentative or Declined based on the attendees replies It is None if the 54 attendee has not replied yet The information of the status and responses of the attendees is retrieved from the MeetingAttendee table and the resources name is retrieved from the ResourceUsed table 14 Contact aspx and Contact aspx cs This page is used for the user to invite people to attend the meeting and reserve the resources for the meeting It popup when the user clicks the linkButton of TO in the MeetingMainPage There is a Dropdown list in the top of the page and the user can select either Faculty or Resource from this list There is a Listbox in the left hand and if the user selects Faculty from the Dropdown list this Listbox shows all the users names There are three Listboxes in the right hand and they are used to display the required attendees optional attendees and resources for the meeting respectively If the user selects a user s name in the left hand Listbox and clicks the Required gt button the name is copied to the required Listbox Otherwise if the user clicks the Optional gt button the name is copied to the optional Listbox If the user chooses a resource name from the left hand Listbox and clicks the Resource gt button the resource name is copied
66. rver remotely through Virtual Private Network The Exchange Server Database is extremely scalable The database size is limited only by the storage capacity and the IO speed is sufficient in the world s largest enterprise Since Outlook Exchange Server 2000 the OWA Outlook Web Access has been built in the exchange server By configuring the Exchange server as an OWA server an Outlook calendar user can access the Exchange server across the internet by using a web browser client In OWA mode the communication between the web browser client and the Exchange server is still a two way communication iCal is a stand alone application that must be installed in the local computer A user s calendars can not be accessed by other users unless they are published The calendar data is stored in the local computer 58 It is best to be described as a personal appointment scheduler It is not scalable When scheduling a meeting the planner does not know the availability of the attendees unless their calendars are published The published calendars can be stored in a WebDAV server in intranet or Mac server in internet When access the published calendar the iCal application acts as the client and the WebDAV or Mac acts as the server When receiving requests the server sends static web pages to the iCal application a one way communication model MeetingMaker is a typical client server model of calendar It requires one workstation to function as a
67. ry that is not contained in the home directory but that appears to Web clients as though it were To run ASP NET pages two things are needed on the machine Internet Information Server IIS and the NET Framework Software Development Kit SDK ASP NET is a server side technology which implies that it need a Web server on the machine Once it is properly set up and is running visitors can request pages from this machine over the Internet Besides the Web server it needs the NET Framework SDK to run ASP NET pages as well as supplying the NET objects and classes The Home Directory is default to be c inetpub wwwroot which is also known as root folder When a visitor accesses a Web site the visitor is viewing the contents of this folder And this is where all of the ASP NET files are placing A virtual directory is a folder on the machine that can be accessed through the Web site as though it were inside c inetpub wwwroot A 1 System requirements 1 Microsoft Windows 2000 professional or Windows XP professional 2 IIS 5 0 or above installed FrontPage server extension installed 3 Microsoft NET framework 1 1 or above installed 4 Microsoft SQL server 2000 or above installed A 2 Installation of the web calendar server 1 Create a directory to hold the web calendar server codes and directory structure Copy the source codes into any place of the target web server computer For instance Copy the entire folder MSCalendar and Pas
68. spondent button Each event include appointment and meeting in any calendar layout is a clickable object i e it can be opened by clicking on it The time span of each event is graphically displayed in the day layout and week layout It is easy to access the contact information of other users It is easy to display the calendars of other users iCal calendar is very simple in user interface Any user familiar with Mac computer will like it The iCal calendar user can set more than one sub calendars to categorize the user s calendar items All these sub calendars can be displayed in the same calendar layout with color keyed The user can also import other user s published calendars and display them with the user s own calendar in the same layout with color keyed There are two calendar layouts in iCal By day and by month The by day layout in iCal looks like the by week layout in Outlook where a week s events are displayed in seven columns Each column displays the events of a day Changing layout is as easy as a mouse click Each object in any layout is clickable i e it can be opened by clicking on it The time span of each event is graphically displayed in the day and week layout It is easy to access the contact information of other users MeetingMaker has a relatively complex user interface It can display calendar by day by month by event or by to do list The by day layout can be set
69. ss permission as shown in Fig 2 19 The user can change the access permission of his or her proxies at any time by removing and then re assigning proxies 29 3 Proxy Microsoft Internet Explorer FEE Ele Edit view Favorites Tools Help EJ All Users Read Write zhong jane j li teresa li teresa li jing Price Gail Read Write gt lt Remove Read Besa ii Gail Property ActAsProxy Save Proxy Cancel Go Main Page Popes ActAsProny Saep Carce GaWanPaad _ Done Internet Ai Fig 2 19 Proxy Operation If the user wants to remove a proxy from Read Write or Read Listbox select the proxy name from the Read Write or Read Listbox and then click the lt Remove button Click the Save Proxy button to save the changes of proxy Click the So hen kage button to go back to the calendar page 2 6 2 Acting as a Proxy If a user assigns another user as his proxy then the second user can access the first user s calendar Based on the access permission that the first user assigns to the second user the second user can either just view the first user s calendar or view and modify the first user s calendar But as a proxy the second user can not access the events marked as private in the first user s calendar In the calendar page click the linkButton Proxy to open the Proxy page as shown in Fig 2 19 Select a user name in the All User Lis
70. ssible value are Meeting organizer Required and Optional Response Varchar 50 String The response of the meeting attendee possible value are None Accepted Tentative and Declined This table is used for the meeting events FirstName LastName and MiddleName are used to identify the attendee who will attend to the meeting EventID is used to retrieve the information from the Event Table Table 5 1 The primary key is the combination of EventID and the first last and middle name of the attendee There may be several attendees to attend a meeting Table 5 9 Proxy Column Name Data Type NET Data Type Description AssigningFirstName Varchar 50 String The First Name of the person who assigned a proxy to another person AssigningLastName Varchar 50 String The Last Name of the person who assigned a proxy to another person AssigningMiddleName Varchar 50 String The Middle Name of the person who assigned a proxy to another person AssignedFirstName Varchar 50 String The First Name of the person who was assigned a proxy by another person AssignedLastName Varchar 50 String The Last Name of the person who was assigned a proxy by another person AssignedMiddleName Varchar 50 String The MiddleName of the person who was assigned a proxy by another person Permission Varchar 50 String The permission for a proxy possible values are rw and r 41 This table is used to record the information for the functionality o
71. t when the event is set as a recurrent event It displays nothing when the event is not a recurrent event Secondly pass the Textbox ID to the Recurrence page in the Recurrence OnClick event handler The string for calling the javaScript function is shown as below String showRecurrenceWindow lt Script Language JjavaScript gt window open Recurrence aspx control recurrenceBox ID amp StartDate startTimeDate Textt RecurrencePopUp width 700 height 700 left 220 top 165 fullscreen no resizable no lt Script gt It passes not only the Textbox ID but also the start date information to the recurrence page when the recurrence page is opened by clicking the Recurrence button Thirdly call the javaScript function to set the text value of the Textbox as Recurrence Event in the OnClick event handler of the Ok button in the recurrence page The string for calling this JavaScript function is shown as below String closeWindow lt Script Language JjavaScript gt window opener document all item controlt value text window opener document Forml submit window close lt Script gt The text in this string is a string variable whose value is set to be Recurrence Event Before clicking the SetUp button in the Appointment page all the information for the recurrence is saved in the DataTable temporarily so if the user clicks the Del
72. t Query Tools Window Help x 3 select from dbo sysobjects where id object ics drop procedure dbo CalendarEvent ddd xists select from dbo sysobjects where id object _ic procedure dbo CalendarEventDetail xists select from dbo sysobjects where id object ic procedure dbo CalendarGetUserByUserName select from dbo sysobjects where id Choose database MSCalendar in the data base diesel Execute query Now a NET web server based calendar and the related MS SQL server are installed and the deployment is finished 76
73. tbox 30 ActAsProx i i Click the ActAsProxy button to display the selected user s calendar If the selected user did not assign any permission to this user then the selected user s calendar can not be opened and an error message window popup Sorry No Permission to Act Proxy Click the linkButton My Calendar to return to the user s own calendar 3 Functional Specifications This web calendar can be used to enter and track appointments and meetings for the user It can also be used for the user to access other user s calendar based on what permission the other user assigns to this user The following sections show all the functionalities of this web calendar in the detail 3 1 Overview of the Functionalities of the Dynamic Web Based Calendar This web calendar can be displayed in two layouts By Day and By Month as shown in Fig 2 4 and 2 9 There are two rows of LinkButtons The top row consists of some Linkbuttons that are for the different tasks The first button Appointment opens the appointment scheduling page The second button Meeting opens the meeting scheduling page which is used for the user to propose meetings The third button Message opens a page to show the list of incoming meeting requests The fourth button Go to Today displays today s calendar The fifth button Contacts opens a page to display the accessible users The Proxy button opens a page for giving privilege to other users to access
74. te it into C Inetpub wwwroot Thus the folder C Inetpub wwwroot MSCalendar holds the source codes and directory structure of the web calendar server 2 Create a virtual directory pointing to the web server directory Open the Internet Information Service click the right mouse button on the Default Web Site highlight New and click on Virtual Directory 68 action view gt i o DB S oe Internet Information Services 8 Default Web Site Runni a g Fr Default Tree Web Site Explore Open Browse Start Stop Pause Virtual Directory All Tasks Server Extensions Web Refresh Server Extensions Administrator In the Virtual Directory Creation Wizard window click Next irtual Directory Creation Wizard Welcome to the Virtual Directory Creation Wizard This wizard will help you create a new virtual directory on this web site Click Next to continue Give an alias name such as MSCalendar and then click Next 69 Yirtual Directory Creation Wizard Virtual Directory Alias You must give the virtual directory a short name or alias for quick reference Type the alias you want to use to gain access to this Web virtual directory Use the same naming conventions that you would for naming a directory lt Back Cancel Find the target directory and fill in the following windows a
75. tes all the information needed in the calendar system for a user 36 Besides the classes used to access the database the business logic layer also includes some classes that have the functions needed by the implementation of event handlers in the presentation layer The classes of CalendarSecurity and DateTimelInfo are such classes Presentation Layer The presentation layer is the layer that is used to display the user interface This layer consists of some ASP NET pages that have some ASP NET Server Controls or user defined Controls and also some event handlers The Visual Studio NET environment let the developer work on the pages using the Web Forms Designer and write code using Code behind module This separation makes the UI design code implementation and maintenance much easier 5 Implementation of the Web Calendar 5 1 The Database Design To implement the web calendar a database is needed to hold all the required information For example we need information of the users and information of the attendees and resources for a meeting we also need information of an event etc In this project Microsoft SQL Server 2000 was used as the database server that can be in the same IP address or different IP address as the web server machine In this project the web server and the database server are in the same machine When a connection request to the web server is made ASP NET authenticates the user provided credentials with the us
76. the linkButton in the Subject field for the meeting you want to check the responses to open the meeting viewing page as shown in Fig 2 15 Click the linkButton of Status to open the AttendeeStatus window to check the attendees responses as shown in Fig 2 16 2 Appointment Microsoft Internet Explorer oj xj Eile Edit View Favorites Tools Help Attendee Status Fig 2 16 Attendee Status The user can also check the attendees responses for a meeting from the calendar page In the ByDay layout click the meeting that the user wants to check and then click the linkButton Status to open the AttendeeStatus window 2 5 Set Recurrent Events Appointments or meetings can be set as recurrent events Recurrent events occur at the same time on regular interval 27 When creating a recurrent event the user must give a recurrence pattern There are two types of recurrence patterns to be chosen from Each recurrence pattern has its own options Every pattern requires a starting day It could have an ending day or be endless In Appointment page or Meeting page as shown in Fig 2 8 or Fig 2 10 click the Recurrence linkButton to open the Recurrence page as shown in Fig 2 17 E Recurrence Microsoft Internet Explorer iol xl Recurrence Pattern C Recur Every gt Month gt Recur on First Thu of the month every month x Range of Recurrence Start 12
77. the user s calendar The user can also access other user s calendar from there The My Calendar button displays the current user s calendar The EditUserInfo button lets the user to edit his or her information such as phone number and email address etc The ChangePassword button lets the user to change his or her login password at any time The Logout button lets the user to logout this calendar system The second row has two Linkbuttons which are used for different display layout These two Linkbuttons are the Linkbutton of By Day and the linkButton of By Month Clicking the By Day button opens the day layout calendar Clicking the By Month button opens the month layout calendar On the right side of the layout buttons a text box displays today s date A calendar control is on the right side of the calendar with the current month displayed by default The days in the calendar control are clickable It opens the correspondent calendar of that day by clicking on a day in the calendar control Two navigation buttons are on the top of the calendar control to let the user to choose any month and year 31 All The buttons and features are common to the two layouts The only difference between the two layouts is the scheduling field The calendar control is used only for the day layout because the month layout does not need a calendar control to navigate the date In the day layout calendar the scheduling field displays the appointments and
78. ting The reminder function of the e calendars prevents the users from overlooking any events 1 1 The existing calendars Several commercial e calendars are available such as Outlook calendar iCal and MeetingMaker These traditional calendars are widely used today Although it is made easy to set appointments and meetings these calendars require unique software be installed in the users computers It is sometimes very inconvenient such as in travel and in remote access Outlook calendar is an application of Microsoft Office Suite It has the largest user population because over 90 of personal computers have Microsoft Office Suite as the major office software Both the Outlook exchange server and clients are running in local intranet Outlook exchange server and database server must be installed to provide email service and calendar service they can be in the same machine or different machine Users in the same intranet can use Microsoft Outlook as the clients to access these services Users outside the intranet can remote access the Outlook Exchange server through Virtual Private Network or by using a web browser if the server is configured as an OWA Outlook Web Access server Calendar Microsoft Outlook B 0j x File Edit View Favorites Tools Actions Help Type a question for help f Te New 8x pax Ei Month E Schedules IB hd a lt b Back o gt fe HE a Ez Eel Day Week Month Em sa gt Cale
79. tion Services H Management H A Replication 2 Security Eg Logins fa Server Roles 7 Linked Servers tg Remote Servers oR Sunnart Services Double click the user name ASPNET to open the SQL Server Login Properties window Click the Database Access tab Check the square beside the database MSCalendar to grant access permission to user ASPNET In the lower portion of the windows make sure the public and db owner are also checked 74 SQL Server Login Properties JING HOMESASPNET General Server Roles Database Access Specify which databases can be accessed by this login Ah o oee AspNetForums JING HOMENASPNET Commerce JING HOMESASPNET CommunitySt ASPNET z K KI aa I IM a MSCalendar ASPNET T Northwind i amp Portal JING HOMESASPNET m eS Penh omhl ob x Database roles for MSCalendar Permit in Database Role public db owner amp db_accessadmin amp db_securityadmin db ddladmin x Properties OC ODO RKI KI 3 Modify the database MSCalendar by execute the SQL script MSCalendar sql Open the SQL Query Analyzer by click Start gt Programs gt Microsoft SQL Server gt Query Analyzer Load SQL script file MSCalendar sql by clicking amp choosing file MSCalendar sql and then clicking Open 75 rl SQL Query Analyzer File Edi
80. to display either the work days or seven days In the by day layout the time scale is 15 minutes which is finer than the 30 minutes scale of the former calendars Changing layout can be done by select the correspondent sub menu item Each event in any 63 calendar layout is a clickable object i e it can be opened by clicking on it The time span of each event is graphically displayed in the day layout and week layout The contact information of other users can be accessed by selecting the correspondent sub menu item There is no difference to display the calendars of other users by acting as a proxy There is a message list menu item that lists all the meeting requests It is very nice for the user that the user can view the meeting requests and the attendees responses Yahoo calendar has six calendar layouts Day Week Month Year Event Lists and Tasks Each event include appointment and meeting in any calendar layout is a clickable object i e it can be opened by clicking on it The time span of each event is graphically displayed in the day layout and week layout It is easy to access the contact information of other users It is also easy to display the calendar of others The time scale in the day layout is 1 hour which is the coarsest time scale in the five calendars The user interface of this dynamic web server based calendar has the Windows Look and Feel since it is built on NET Framework that embedded Windows
81. to the Resource Listbox Three DataTables are used to hold the contents of these three Listboxes If the user selects a name from a Listbox in the right hand and clicks the Remove button it removes that name from the selected Listbox If the user selects a user s name from the left hand Listbox and clicks the Property button it popup the Property page and shows the selected user s information in this page When the user clicks the OK button the three DataTables that hold the three Listbox contents are saved in three Session Variables and the attendee s names are set in the To text field in the MeetingMainPage Those three Session variables are used in the AttendeeStatus and AttendeeAvailability pages 15 ContactMainPage aspx and ContactMainPage aspx cs This page is used for a user to view other users information It popup when the user clicks the Contact linkButton in the MainPage The interface is the same as the Contact page except that all the selectable controls are disabled except the Properties and Close buttons Actually since displaying the user s property is part of the functionality of the Contact page this part of functionality was inherited from the Contact page and saved in another name Showing the properties of a user in this page is the same as that described in the Contact page 55 16 Property aspx and Property aspx cs This page is used either to display a user s information or to edit the user s infor
82. umn to view the meeting details The other six columns name are Sender which is the meeting organizer s name Subject which is the meeting subject and bounded to a linkButton Location which is the meeting location Date which is the meeting starting date Response which is the user s reply to this meeting and Recurrence which shows whether this meeting is a recurrent event or not When the user wants to view or reply a meeting he can click the Subject and then the MeetingReadOnly page popup The eventID is retrieved from the EventID column and this eventID is used to get the meeting details from the Event table and the meeting details are displayed in the MeetingReadOnly page and the user can reply the meeting from here 18 Recurrence aspx and Recurrence aspx cs This page is used for the user to create recurrent events both appointments and meetings It popup when the user clicks the linkButton of Recurrence in the Appointment or MeetingMainPage page The server controls of RadioButton and DropDownList are used to let the user define the recurrence patterns Three tables are created to store the recurrence information The three tables are described in Chapter 5 1 56 The Recurrence table is used to store the general recurrence information such as the recurrence starting date recurrence pattern and recurrence ending date The other two tables are used to store two different recurrence patterns Three DataTables are used to hold
83. urpose of business logic layer is to separate the User Interface from the Data Layer The following is an example of one of the classes in the business logic layer 35 namespace MSCalendar BusinessLogicLayer public class UserDetails public int UserID public String UserName public String Password public String Role public String FirstName public String MiddleName public String LastName public String Email public String BPhone public String HPhone public String BFax public String Mobile public class public public public public public public publica public public public public Calendar_User UserDetails g tUserByUserName string userName UserDetails getUserByUserID int UserID string getPasswordByUserID int UserID int getUserIDByName UserDetails _userDetails DataSet GetAllUser int CheckUserTable UserDetails GetUserInfo UserDetails _userDetails void UpdateUserInfo UserDetails _userDetails void UpdatePassword UserDetails _userDetails UserDetails Save UserDetails userDetails int Remove String userName UserDetails Login UserDetails userDetails This is one of the classes in the business logic layer which includes all the operations to access the user s information in the database The class of UserDetails does not contain any operations it is just a data structure that encapsula
84. web server based calendar It is a two way traffic model of communication between the server and the clients Dynamic web server s w Internet Explorer Internet Explorer Fig 1 6 Illustration of the dynamic web calendar model This dynamic web server based calendar is very convenient to use since it can be accessed wherever there is the Internet Explorer It is also a powerful appointment and meeting scheduling tool The meeting organizer can view the availability of the meeting candidates graphically so he or she can pick the best meeting time to fit most attendees schedules The meeting request is marked in the attendee s calendar as a meeting event The response from the attendee updates the meeting status database table automatically through the web server so that the meeting organizer or the attendees can monitor the meeting attendance 1 3 The technologies used in this project To implement the dynamic web server based calendar model in Fig 1 6 ASP NET is the right tool for creating feature rich and dynamic Web sites The NET Framework is a platform for building and running applications its chief components are the Common Language Runtime CLR and the NET Framework Class Library FCL The CLR abstracts operating system services and serves as an execution engine for managed applications The FCL provides the object oriented API that managed applications write to ASP NET is a web development platform that provides the pro
85. with Read and Write permission to this user The user with this permission can not only view the assigning user s calendar but also create events for that user If clicking on the Read gt button then the selected name goes to the Read ListBox and assigns the proxy with Read only permission to this user The user with this permission can only view the assigning user s calendar but can not modify or create events for that user A proxy can be removed By selecting the name from Read Write or Read ListBox and then clicking the lt Remove button the assigned proxy for this user is removed Clicking the button of Save Proxy saves the names along with the assigned permission in the database By selecting a user s name from the All Users ListBox and clicking the ActAsProxy button then the user can view the selected user s calendar or create events for the selected user if the user has the correspondent permission 3 2 5 Secure Login ASP NET provides two kinds of authentication methods Windows Authentication and Form 8 In Windows Authentication the user submitted credentials are compared to the Authentication operating system s identities through IS In the Form authentication the user submitted credentials are compared to the permissions in a database which gives more flexibility This web server based calendar is assumed to be used by a large user poll so Form Authentication is used to secure the login process The user credentials a
86. x is a user control that is dynamically added to the main page when the user clicks the ByDay button This user control consists of one Table server control and one Calendar server control The Table control is used to display the events on a selected date and the Calendar control is used to select a date The default selected date is the date of today When the user selects another date the events of that date are loaded from the Event table and displayed in the Table server control The event locations in the ByDay layout are determined by the starting time of the events The selected date is saved in a Session variable which is used in many places such as scheduling an appointment organizing a meeting showing message list etc 49 The LinkButtons are used to display events in the web calendar i e a LinkButton is created when an event is loaded and displayed in the calendar Different background color is used to show whether an event is a meeting or an appointment If the event is a meeting the background color of that LinkButton is red otherwise it is blue The Linkbutton s Text is used to display the subject of the event and the CommandArgument is used to hold the EventID of the event and the information of whether this event is an appointment or a meeting These information is needed when a user click this LinkButton to show the details of that event The information of whether the event is a meeting or an appointment is used to determin
87. y low when I started the proposal of this project For instance the server can not take the response from the meeting attendees automatically because of which the meeting organizer did not know who accepted and who rejected the meeting request the meeting organizer could not check the availability of the attendees These two shortages kept Yahoo calendar off the effective meeting scheduling tools Yahoo calendar was too simple to be used in the places where functions and efficiency were critical Yahoo calendar made improvement in meeting scheduling recently Now the server will take the responses from the meeting attendees to update the meeting status so that the organizer can monitor the responses of the meeting attendees But the meeting request will not get written into the attendees calendars so the invited attendees can not see the meeting request in their calendars There are also security issues of data communication between the browser and Yahoo server that will be discussed in the last chapter of this report 1 2 The dynamic web server based calendar A new calendar model was proposed in this project to overcome some weakness of the existing calendars The web server based calendar is running in a web server and a user can use a web browser to access it if the user has the access permission The web server based calendar can perceive the client behaviors and take correspondent actions Fig 1 6 shows the working model of the dynamic

A Dynamic Web Server Based Appointment Calendar

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