webCafé Help & Support

<p>How can I create signup sheets in a <STRONG>web</STRONG><EM>Café</EM> room?</p><p><P><FONT size=2>If you are a Wharton faculty member and your signup sheet need is for a Wharton course you are teaching, contact us to ask about the Slot Signup custom course tool, which works with course enrollment data.</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>For student organizations, the course-enrollment-based signup sheet is not available, but here are steps for basic types of signup sheets you can create.  (These procedures, along with additional information about other types of calendar and database signup sheets, is available in our </FONT><A href="http://webcafe.wharton.upenn.edu/guide/signupsheet.html"><FONT size=2>Tutorials</FONT></A><FONT size=2> section.)</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2><B>Simple signup sheet using a Note</B>: </FONT></P> <UL> <LI><FONT size=2>Within the <STRONG>web</STRONG><EM>Café</EM> folder in which you want the signup sheet to appear, click <STRONG>Create</STRONG>, then choose to create a Note.<BR><BR></FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>On the <EM>Create Note</EM> screen:</FONT></LI> <UL> <LI><FONT size=2>Type a name for the signup sheet.</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>The large entry blank is where you can describe the event or resource for which people are signing up.  Include in this description a sentence directing users to click the "add a comment" button to sign up.</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>Make sure the <EM>Include space for comments and votes</EM> checkbox is checked."</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>For a Note-based signup sheet, it's best to uncheck the <EM>Include box for attachments</EM> checkbox; you can put files or other information about the event or resource elsewhere in <STRONG>web</STRONG><EM>Café</EM>.<BR><BR></FONT></LI></UL> <LI><FONT size=2>Now press <STRONG>OK</STRONG>.  The signup sheet will now be created and will be ready for use when it appears on the screen.<BR></LI></UL> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT size=2><B><I>Notes</I></B>: </P></BLOCKQUOTE> <UL> <UL> <LI><FONT size=2> <P><FONT size=2>Unless you specified </FONT><A href="http://supportcenteronline.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=658&task=knowledge&questionID=18" target=support><FONT size=2>access control</FONT></A><FONT size=2> for who can open the signup sheet, anyone who is a member of the <B>web</B><I>Café</I> room will be able to sign up. </FONT></P></FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2> <P><FONT size=2>If there is a limit or capacity for the event, don't test the signup sheet by creating an entry after setting up the sheet. This is because you'll want the first person who signs up to get sequence number 1.</FONT></P></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>Users will not be able to change other users' entries. However, they can delete their own entries or create more than one entry. You'll want to make the instructions clear as to whether users are allowed to sign up other people, sign themselves up twice or more, etc. </FONT><BR></FONT></LI></UL></UL> <P><FONT size=2><B>Basic signup sheet for first-come/first-serve individuals</B>: </FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2><I>Best used for single events that individual people will sign up for. Onscreen sequence number shows the order of signup, helping everyone to understand when/whether a limit or capacity has been reached.</I><I> Signup sheet has clear rows and columns and can be exported to a .CSV file, which opens in Excel on most computers. However, this style of signup sheet doesn't provide a way to keep users from making more than one entry; you'll need to post clear instructions so that everyone knows the rules. </I></FONT></P> <UL> <LI><FONT size=2>Within the <STRONG>web</STRONG><EM>Café</EM> folder in which you want the signup sheet to appear, click <STRONG>Create</STRONG>, then choose to create a Database.<BR><BR></FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>On the <I>Database Type</I> screen, accept the "<I>(blank)</I>" default and press <STRONG>Next</STRONG>.<BR><BR></FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>On the <I>Set Database Name </I>screen, type a name for the signup sheet. Pick your preferred color scheme, then click <STRONG>access control</STRONG> and change the bottom setting (<EM>An entry created in this database can be edited by:</EM>) to "<EM>The member who created it and the database owners</EM>." Press <STRONG>Next</STRONG>.<BR><BR></FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>On the <I>Database Fields</I> screen, type in names for least two fields.  These field names are suggested as a "starter kit":</FONT></LI> <UL> <LI><FONT size=2>Sequence (this will be an automatically-generated number for each signup entry) </FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>Name (or "Signed-Up Student," or "Member", etc.; this will show who has signed up) </FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>Enter other fields if needed -- for example, a blank for someone to type an email address or phone number. (<I>Note:</I> While <STRONG>web</STRONG><EM>Café</EM> cannot automatically fill in a user's email address within a database field, the school email address of the person who created the entry will be shown when viewing the individual page for that entry.)</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>Press <B>Next</B> when you are done entering field names.<BR><BR></FONT></LI></UL> <LI><FONT size=2>On the <I>Database Field Types</I> screen, set:</FONT></LI> <UL> <LI><FONT size=2>the first field to <EM>Autonumber</EM>;</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>the second to<I> </I><EM>Member List</EM>;</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>and usually you will want any others to be <EM>Plain Text</EM>.</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>Press <STRONG>Next</STRONG>.<BR><BR></FONT></LI></UL> <LI><FONT size=2>On the <I>Database Field Options</I> screen, specify the following settings:</FONT></LI> <UL> <LI><FONT size=2>For the first field, leave the <I>Number entries: in the order they're created</I> option selected.<BR><BR></FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>For the second field, look for the the <I>Initial value </I>blank and click the <IMG src="https://supportcenteronline.com/dmfiles/632/658/webCafé%20Library/My%20Images/AccessButton.gif"> button shown to the right of that blank. On the <I>Choose Members</I> screen which appears next, select <B>(creator)</B>, then press <B>OK. <BR><BR></B></FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>Press <STRONG>Next </STRONG>when you are done entering field names.<BR><BR></FONT></LI></UL> <LI><FONT size=2>On the <I>Database Summary Options</I> screen, click the "entry title" button for the second field (<I>Name</I> or whatever you are calling the member list field) .  Press <STRONG>Next</STRONG>, then skip the Dashboard Options screen by pressing <STRONG>Next</STRONG> again. </FONT> <P></P> <LI><FONT size=2>Write ground rules in the first Database Instructions blank advising that to sign up, users should press the <STRONG>new entry </STRONG>button.  This is also a good place to put any information about the event and its capacity or location which did not fit in the title of the signup sheet. Here is a "starter kit" for the ground rules: <BR><BR><EM>To sign up, click "new entry." Signups are first-come/first-serve and will be numbered so that everyone can see the order in which entries were made.</EM><BR><BR>The second instructions blank is optional; if you want to include information that would be seen when someone is creating an entry, say something like the following:<BR><BR><I>Please</I> <I>create only one entry</I> <I>for yourself, not multiple entries or entries for other people. </I><BR><BR>When you're happy with the instructions, press <STRONG>OK</STRONG>.</LI></UL> <P>The signup sheet will now be created and will be ready for use when it appears on the screen.  Each entry created by someone signing up will be assigned a unique sequence number after they press <STRONG>OK</STRONG> on the <EM>Create Database Entry</EM> screen, thus making the order of signup apparent and making the signup process first-come/first-served when people follow the ground rules. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P dir=ltr><EM><STRONG>Notes:</STRONG></EM></FONT> </P></BLOCKQUOTE> <UL> <UL> <LI style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT size=2>Unless you specified <A href="http://supportcenteronline.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=658&task=knowledge&questionID=18" target=support><FONT size=2>access control</FONT></A><FONT size=2> for who can open the signup sheet, anyone who is a member of the <B>web</B><I>Café</I> room will be able to sign up.<BR></FONT></FONT></LI> <LI style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT size=2>If there is a limit or capacity for the event, don't test the signup sheet by creating an entry after setting up the sheet. This is because you'll want the first person who signs up to get sequence number 1.<BR></FONT></LI> <LI style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT size=2>Users will not be able to change other users' entries. However, they can delete their own entries or create more than one entry. You'll want to make the instructions clear as to whether users are allowed to sign up other people, sign themselves up twice or more, etc.<BR><BR></FONT></LI> <LI style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT size=2>To confirm that an entry was created by the person shown in the "Name" field, you can click on the name in the signup sheet to go to the individual page for that entry.  There, you'll see near the top of the page, these words:<BR><BR><EM>a database entry created by <BR><BR></EM>along with a name and a date.  Clicking the "person's head" icon shown to the left of the name provides a way to email the creator of the entry or to see his/her email address on the <STRONG>web</STRONG><EM>Café</EM> Member Information screen. </FONT></LI></UL></UL> <P><FONT size=2><STRONG>Should I use Word or Excel for signup sheets?</STRONG></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>Doing signups through a Word or Excel file stored in <STRONG>web</STRONG><EM>Café</EM> will not work well.  Inevitably one user will accidentally reserve the whole sheet for editing and then forget to save the revision back to <STRONG>web</STRONG><EM>Café</EM>.  At that point no one can edit the spreadsheet other than room coordinators, so your signup process could come to a halt.</FONT></FONT></FONT></P></p><h3>Alternate Questions/Keywords</h3><p></p><br><br><br><br><a target='_new' href='http://www.parature.com' style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10px;color:999999;'>Help Desk and Customer Support Software by Parature</a>