Online Scheduling

I have used ScheduleMaster and Aircraft Clubs and find that both are
excellent resources when configured properly for the situation they are
being used in.

In a flying club, where the organization is not geared primarily around
high volume instruction, the online resources work well. The
Schedulemaster program has a 1-800 phone interface, so persons without a
computer can make or change schedules (or if you are away in the plane
and need to extend your booking..etc). We have a computer and phone line
in the clubhouse for persons who dont have their own computer and choose
to book at the airport.

I also have been involved with a flight school that used the
schedulemaster program, and while the program itself was great, the
implementation by the school was problematic. The school was a small
up-start and made a big investment in computers, but persons who were
coming in to make arrangements for primary instruction were being set up
with accounts and told to book their lessons online in advance. The
instructors were there at variable times on variable days and did not
always block out their "down time" so students would book them when they
werent even going to come to the airport. Also, after hour bookings were
problematic because there was little to no after-hours access. A better
method would have been to have the instructors and the front desk
utilize the dispatch mode and schedule all dual for the students so
there is no confusion. I am not sure that a traditional flying school
would realize all the benefits of a subscription scheduling service when
perhaps a homegrown excell spreadsheet might suffice.

Dave

Greg Esres wrote:
Our flight school is currently trying to move to an online, internet
based scheduling system, using a service provided by "MyFBO".

The idea is to schedule via the internet (even when standing at the
counter at the flight school) for all flights that occur after the
current day. Every morning, the staff will print out a schedule for
the day and any changes for that day must be done to the paper
schedule.

The consensus of the flight instructors and staff is that the
interface is extremely difficult to use, and slow. There will be only
one computer available for all users to make changes to the schedule
and the internet connection is a bit flakey. While frequent users
will probably be able to learn the system, it seems unlikely that
students/renters will develop any kind of proficiency with the system.
As far as I can tell, there are no contingency plans about what to do
when the system goes down.

Does anyone have an experience with online scheduling with large
flight schools? How well did it work?

Thanks for any thoughts.