System Overview

The DutyMan software is built around a list of members and a list of events with their associated duties. An understanding of how these lists interact will help you implement and maintain DutyMan.

Members

The list of members is like a card file with one index card per person. On each card is recorded the person’s name and email address and, optionally, further contact details and any additional items of information that you decide to include.

The members list is established in DutyMan usually by uploading a computer file of member details. Thereafter the list can be kept up-to-date either on-line using pages available to DutyMan Administrators or by further uploads.

Events and Duties

Events, in DutyMan terms, are groups of related duties – a race team, a training session, a service, a working day, a shift. In reality there is likely to be more to an event than simply its duties but duties are what DutyMan is interested in.

Each event has its own list of duties. The list of duties is also like a card file with the details of one duty on each card. These details include the duty date, time and type and the event to which the duty applies. Think of events as a group of duty cards clipped together.

Events and duties can be viewed, created, updated and deleted on-line. Events tend to be in sets covering a period of time such as year or a month. When that period of time has elapsed the events and their associated duties are normally deleted from the list and replaced with a new set.

A list of duties can also be upload to DutyMan as a computer file. This automatically creates the corresponding events and assigns duties to them.

Connecting Members and Duties

An easy way to visualise the connection between members and duties is to imagine a set of post-it notes each with a member’s name on it. Sticking a note on a duty card links that duty to the corresponding person’s card. There can be more than one note per person, not all duty cards need have a note attached and, within DutyMan, there is a rule which prevents more than one note per duty.

The Duty Roster, Duty Swapping and Volunteering, Reminders

When DutyMan displays a duty roster it shows all the cards in the duty list. If a card has a post-it note attached it also shows information about the person whose name is on the note. This information is retrieved from that person’s index card.

When asked to swap two duties DutyMan in effect exchanges the post-it notes. Volunteering for a duty is like someone attaching their own post-it note to the duty.

To send reminders DutyMan selects cards for duties which are in the near future and which have a post-it note attached. It then emails all the people on the notes with details of the corresponding duty.