2. Methodology

The USECASE Technical Committee regularly met in conference call to discuss the use of resources in the calendaring and scheduling domain. When we decided to draft resource use cases we each chose a perspective from which to view the use of resources. One of us chose the role of a social worker in the medical profess while another chose the role of social worker in the justice/social services field while another chose the perspective of a business man working on a construction project. Other perspectives were also chosen. The resulting use cases were then organized by number and a category supplied for each use case.

The categories selected for the use case organization reflect a grouping of resources into sets differentiated by type. Each of these categories touches on an area discussed by the Technical Committee over the course of our deliberations about resources in calendaring.

1. Person — People can properly be thought of as resources, especially given the knowledge and skills they have which may be unique to them or to the position they hold (e.g., project manager for a particular project).

2. Location — Rooms and places are a particularly important resource category and are presently found in nearly every major calendaring and scheduling product.

3. Equipment — Things or objects which can be scheduled (e.g., projectors, laptops, vans).

4. Material — Things necessary for a meeting that must be reserved or checked out (e.g., documents, personnel files, records).

5. Role — The term ‘role’ is used to cover attributes common to a collective from among the resource categories which can be used to schedule one or more from among the collective (e.g., fork lifts with a particular lifting capacity, waitresses, waiters, front desk clerks).

6. Other — Schedulable ‘things’ not covered by the other five categories (e.g., a staff in/out calendar).