[Design] A calendar that tracks people and locations

[Callum Macdonald]

Hi Guys,

New on the list, I've done a quick search and I don't see anything on
this thread, so thought I'd start it off.

I have this idea that my calendar should be smarter. Specifically, I
think it should be aware that my appointments are in *locations*. That I
need to physically move from one location to another, spending time in
*transit*. Those locations might be in different *time zones*.

In terms of comparing my availability with others, our locations should
be taken into account. If I'm in Bangkok and I'm scheduling a meeting
with someone in New York, I can't squeeze them in for lunch between my
bank manager in the morning and my daughter from school in the
afternoon.

For example, I schedule an appointment with a client. My calendar knows
my default location is in Bangkok between 9 and 5. I schedule the
appointment for 9am, so my calendar prompts a 30 minute transit time
before the meeting from my home location to my appointment and then a 30
minute transit time from my appointment to my office location.

After a few hours in the office, I'm flying to Europe for a meeting the
following day. I enter my flight as a transit appointment, and add a
timezone change of -6 hours into the GMT+1 timezone. While I'm at it, I
enter my return flight as a transit appointment and return to my normal
time zone.

I set up a few appointments in Europe and enter those. My calendar
automatically prompts me to enter them in local time and visually shows
the appointments in local time on my daily calendar. It shows my transit
time as a squashed / expanded transit appointment as I move timezones.
It also shows me my appointments in my home timezone time alongside
their local times. Just so I know what time my body will think it is!

My availability is publicly available through my calendar published on
my web site / server. My calendar doesn't show my appointments, but
based on my rules, it shows my availability and if I've set the transit
appointment to be public, it shows my location on a given day.

Thus my colleagues in Europe can check my schedule and suggest
appointments at times when they know I'll physically be in the region.

I see this as a natural development from the basic calendaring
functionality that has existed for years.

Before I get carried away, is this already in the design plan for
Chandler? Has it been considered and thrown out for a very good reason I
haven't thought about? Am I going stark raving mad, would this be about
as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike?

Any and all comments would be gratefully received.

Kind regards,


Callum.

Blog: http://www.callum-macdonald.com/