First release

First release

This is the first release of roombooker, which automates the process of uploading timetable data in a CSV file to https://www.schoolbooking.com

schoolbooking.com has its own interface (using the Zinet client) to push data from a student records system to an institution's instance of the web app. However, this method only supports a limited number of student records systems and those are only school-based systems.

Sadly, colleges and others have to struggle with the manual upload of CSV data. This is a simple, but time consuming task, especially if your timetable changes a lot.

That's where roombooker comes in! It can automatically navigate its way through your instance of the school booking web app and upload your CSV file. It can take user input each time its run or you can set up a configuration file, allowing it to be run by scheduled job.

We're not affiliated with https://www.schoolbooking.com in any way. We just needed an automated method of uploading timetable data that would work for our setup.

Dependencies

roombooker requires chrome driver (http://chromedriver.chromium.org/) to be in an accessible directory.

You will also need Google Chrome installed https://www.google.com/chrome/ on the machine that will be running roombooker

Quick start

We've attached a .exe file, which can be run by:

double clicking the icon
typing nightsawayforms.exe into cmd when located in the same directory. When using this option, there are a number of switches. Use -h for more information.

It will ask you for a series of inputs:

the file path the chrome driver
the URL to your instance of schoolbooking.com
the file path to your CSV file containing your timetable data
a username and password with permissions on your instance of schoolbooking.com to upload timetable data
It will launch an automated instance of chrome, log into your instance of schoolbooking.com, navigate to the upload page and upload your timetable data. It will then log out and close the browser.

You may wish to use the -c command line switch to set up a local configuration file. roombooker will then read this when its run instead of asking for user input. You also have the choice of storing credentials or not.

If roombooker can't find or read the configuration file for any reason, it will ask for user input instead.

If you've set up a configuration file, but wish to run a one-off upload using different details, use the -n command line switch. This runs the application without using an existing configuration file.

We recommend using the -q command line switch if running on a server as part of a scheduled job. This suppresses any prompts for user data that would otherwise hold up the process. Instead it will just close gracefully if it encounters any errors. It will still print an error message to the terminal though, to aid with debugging. Make sure you've set up a configuration file first, including stored credentials.

Don't forget to generate a new CSV file before running roombooker, especially if running as part of a scheduled job.

More information

For more details take a look at our github repo: github.com/PoignantWizard/roombooker