Registration support

• How much can we automate?
• How much should we automate?

Usually the above questions boil down to "How can we get 80% of the benefit with 20% of the effort?"

In terms of software design, this usually means handling the majority of cases automatically and leaving the odd situations (aka corner cases) to be worked out manually.

An example of what to omit

As a specific example, consider trying to automate partial week scheduling, the situation where a conferee wants or needs to arrive late or leave early.

1. In recent years, we've strongly discouraged partial week attendance as a matter of policy. 2. On the other hand, the Island is pushing hard to put a butt in every bed every night. 3. There will always be a very few cases where there are good reasons to overrule policy. 4. Automating (i.e. trying to automatically match partial week requests) requires

• Fields in the database to record which days each person intends to attend.
• Code to search and match the fields.
• Web forms to display and collect input from the Chairs and/or Registrar.
• Documentation and training for the Chairs and/or Registrar.
• Comprehensive testing to make sure it all works correctly.

Thus, the number of accepted partial weekers will be few (by policy) and the effort to fully automate will be large. Manual handling a few partial week situations requires nothing more than a sheet of paper or possibly a spreadsheet for the compulsive computerniks. This all argues for, at most, a yes/no "partial week" field in the database that defaults to "no" and some manual intervention by a computer-literate Registrar to flag the exceptions and create a list for the Chairs.

What to include

To be continued. Please add your ideas

Automation Through OnLine Registration

Over the past 4 yrs, if someone registered online, printed the confirmation from their browser, & mailed it in with the check, then we knew they had confirmed their family & individual information. Therefore, it was not necessary for the registrar to do anything except enter the date of registration, the amt of the ck, & the distribution of the ck amount. Buttons helped to automate the distribution &, basically, online reg had automated the rest.