The Meeting Scheduler System

Project Description

The purpose of the "Meeting Scheduler System" is to support the organization of meetings - i.e. to determine, for each meeting request, a meeting date and location so that most of the intended participants can effectively participate. The following section gives a brief overview on how meetings are typically arranged. This is a simplified version of a typical meeting scheduler.

How to Schedule Meetings

Meetings are typically arranged in the following way. A meeting initiator (one of the participants or some representative, e.g. a secretary)  asks all potential meeting attendees for the following information based on their personal agendas within a certain date range (i.e. between a given start date and end date)

• A set of dates & times on which they cannot attend the meeting in the given date range (hereafter referred to as the exclusion set)
• A set of dates & times on which they would prefer the meeting to take place in the given date range (hereafter referred to as the preference set)

A meeting date is defined by a pair (calendar date, time period). The meeting date is contained in some time interval of the exclusion and preference sets of the various participants in the date range specified by the meeting initiator.

Ideally, the meeting date should belong to none of the exclusion sets and to as many preference sets as possible. A date conflict occurs when no such date can be found. 

• A conflict is strong when no date can be found within the specified date range and outside all exclusion sets.
• A conflict is weak when dates can be found within the date range and outside of all exclusion sets but no date can be found at the intersection of all preference sets.

A date conflict can be resolved in several ways:

• The initiator extends the date range.
• Some participants remove dates/times from their exclusion set.
• Some participants withdraw from the meeting. Unless the participant withdraws from the meeting, it is assumed that his/her participation is required for the meeting and the meeting cannot proceed without it.
• Some participants add some new dates/times to their preference set.

Project Requirements

The system should follow the general guidelines outlined below

• The exclusion and preference set should be easily specified by the participants.
• The meeting date should be as convenient as possible to all participants.
• The meeting should be planned under the constraints expressed by the participants.
• The system should support conflict resolution according to the policies stated.
• The number of interaction among participants (i.e. number and length of messages, amount of negotiation required) should be kept as small as possible.
• The system should have the ability to re-plan a meeting dynamically. The participants should be allowed to modify their exclusion set and/or preference set which should re-plan the meeting. Similarly, external constraints like changing the meeting date and/or date range should also dynamically re-plan the meeting.
• Information about the scheduled meeting should be made available to all participants as soon as possible.

The following aspects should also be taken into account

• The system should have the ability to specify multiple meeting requests.
• Physical constraints cannot be broken, i.e. a person cannot attend two different meetings at the same time.
• The system should be able to accommodate partial attendance - a participant can only attend part of the meeting.

The following assumptions can be made

• All participants will act immediately to any negotiation and conflict resolution process message.
• The participants have no malicious intents. They will change their exclusion and /or preference dates as soon as they find out about it.

Participant Status: The participant status captures the hierarchical importance of a participant with respect to the others independently of any meeting that he/she is expected to participate in. The status is typically determined by some super user.

Meeting Significance: The meeting significance represents the importance for a specific person to attend a particular meeting relative to other meetings or meeting requests. Meeting significances are typically determined by the participants concerned. This information should be kept confidential.

With this additional knowledge, the system can be extended further in the following way

• Best meeting dates and locations can be determined by considering participants with higher participant status first.
• If no date can be found to organize a meeting, the scheduler system could propose a participant to cancel (or to withdraw from) another meeting having a lower meeting significance.

Acknowledgement

This assignment is based on the problem statement developed for the "Meeting Scheduler System" by Axel van Lamsweerde, Robert Darimont and Phillipe Massonet at Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium.