Recurring Schedules: Overview

Developers and integrators can use the Recurring Schedules toolkit to add the ability to create and use an Outlook-style recurring schedule pattern to their applications and extensions. The toolkit includes both an Outlook-style UI for the end-user to specify a schedule, as well as the calculation logic for computing future dates based on the recurring schedule. The Compliance Management and EH&S activities use this toolkit, but the toolkit is completely generic and designed for straightforward integration into any application.

The toolkit's embeddable panel presents the following intuitive user interface:

define_recurrence_pattern.png

The Recurring Schedules toolkit consists of:

  • A Web Central view panel
  • Associated javascript code (ab-common-recurring-pattern-edit.axvw, ab-common-recurring-pattern-edit.js )
  • A java class called RecurringScheduleService (located in RecurringScheduleService.java ). The java class contains a method called getDatesList to retrieve a list of dates for a given XML recurrence pattern.

You can add the panel to any region in your view or display it in a popup dialog, then use the javascript functions to display an existing recurring schedule in the panel’s controls. Subsequently, you would use another javascript function to retrieve the current recurring schedule (as an XML string) that the user set with the panel’s controls, and store the string in any text field in one of your application’s tables.

When you need to retrieve a list of all dates that match a recurring schedule stored in an XML string, you simply invoke the getDatesList function and supply the Start Date (optional, default=today), End Date (optional), and XML string as parameters to the function.

Seasonal Start and End Dates

Users can choose to limit the recurrence pattern to a portion of the year, as defined by a start and end day. This is useful for schedules that should only occur during seasons, such as the summer. The Date Range is available for the Daily, Weekly, and Monthly recurrence options, and is disabled for all other options because it does not apply.

A checkbox with the label "Seasonal" appears at the bottom of the form, along with two dates fields: "Start" and "End". The date fields are only enabled if the Seasonal checkbox is checked. These fields differ from standard date fields in that they will not accept a year; only a Month and Day will be selected, such as June 1. The year field is not included because the recurrence pattern will apply for all years. Other conditions:

  • If the Seasonal checkbox is selected, then both date fields must be completed. The form checks for this.
  • The Start day can occur after the End day to represent a seasonal date range that crosses over a new year. For example, a recurrence pattern that should only occur in the winter months could have a Season Start day of December 1 and a Season End day of March 30.
  • The Start and End values must be different from each other.

Features

  • Embeddable User Interface panel to create new recurring schedule patterns, or display and edit existing stored patterns
  • Java class to compute and return all the dates that match a given recurring schedule pattern, between optional Start Date and End Date.
  • Both the UI panel and the Java class work with recurring schedule patterns that are represented by a text string in a simple XML format. Therefore, the pattern can be stored in any text field.
  • Completely insulates external code from any details of the XML string and format, and the module enforces all pattern validation.
  • Includes API functions for performing some actions on the UI, e.g. enable/disable, read values of some controls, etc.

Components

Procedure

Add a Recurring Schedule to a View

Comparing the Toolkit with the Scheduling Features of the Hoteling and Reservations Applications

The toolkit differs from the built-in scheduling features of Hoteling and Reservations in that:

  • Both the user interface and the date calculation java method of the Recurring Schedules toolkit are generic and completely reusable by any application without modification.
  • The Recurring Schedules toolkit includes additional schedule pattern options as well as a yearly pattern that is not available in the Hoteling and Reservations applications.