webCafé Tutorial: Creating Signup Sheets

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Signup Sheet Setup Procedures for Student Organizations

Note: These instructions are aimed at coordinators of webCafé rooms for student organizations. Faculty may feel free to contact us about tools which work with your course enrollments and that provide signups for class project teams, timeslots, cases, etc.

While webCafé wasn't designed specifically as a signup sheet tool, over the years students have pressed it into service for that task. Here are some alternatives to consider for using webCafé's features to create a signup sheet for student club activities. Each method shown below has its benefits and drawbacks, but all can be considered preferable to signups conducted using an Excel or Word file stored in webCafé. With file-based signup, Inevitably one user will accidentally reserve the whole sheet for editing and then forget to save the revision back to webCafé. At that point, no one can edit the spreadsheet other than room coordinators, so your signup process will come to a halt. To avoid that circumstance, try one of the following procedures instead of using a file.

1. Simple signup sheet using a note:

Within the webCafé folder in which you want the signup sheet to appear, click Create, then choose to create a Note.
On the Create Note screen:
- Type a name for the signup sheet.
- 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.
- Make sure the Include space for comments and votes checkbox is checked."
- For a Note-based signup sheet, it's best to uncheck the Include box for attachments checkbox; you can put files or other information about the event or resource elsewhere in webCafé.
Now press OK. The signup sheet will now be created and will be ready for use when it appears on the screen.

Notes:

Unless you specified access control for who can open the signup sheet, anyone who is a member of the webCafé room will be able to sign up.
If there is a limit or capacity for the event, make sure you delete any test comments you posted. This is because you'll want the count of comments to match up to the available timeslots or resources, etc., and it will be less confusing for everyone when "test entries - please ignore this" are not included.
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.

2. Basic signup sheet for first-come/first-serve individuals: 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. 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.

Within the webCafé folder in which you want the signup sheet to appear, click the create button.

Then choose to create a Database.
On the Database Type screen:

accept the "(blank)" default and click Next.
On the Set Database Name screen, type a name for the signup sheet:

Pick your preferred color scheme, then click access control and change the bottom setting (An entry created in this database can be edited by:) to "The member who created it and the database owners." Click Next.
On the Database Fields screen, type in names for least two fields.

The following field names are suggested as a "starter kit":

Sequence (or "Number", "Entry", etc.; this will be an automatically-generated number for each signup entry)
Name (or "Signed-Up Student", "Member", etc.; this will show who has signed up)
Enter other fields if needed -- for example, a blank for someone to type an email address or phone number. (Note: While webCafé does not 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. For more on database entry pages, see the Notes below.)
Click Next when you are done entering field names.

On the Database Field Types screen, set:

the first field to Autonumber;
the second to Member List;
and usually you will want any others to be Plain Text.
Click Next.

On the Database Field Options screen, specify the following settings:

For the first field, leave the Number entries: in the order they're created option selected.
For the second field, look for the the Initial value blank and click the button shown to the right of that blank. On the Choose Members screen which appears next, select (creator), then click OK. This is the option for having each entry automatically filled in with the name of the person who submitted it.
Click Next to save the database field options and go to the next screen.

On the Database Summary Options screen, click the "entry title" button for the second field (Name or whatever you are calling the member list field) . Click Next, then skip the Dashboard Options screen by pressing Next again.
Write ground rules in the first Database Instructions blank advising that to sign up, users should press the new entry 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:

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.

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:

Please create only one entry for yourself, not multiple entries or entries for other people.

When you're happy with the instructions, click OK.

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 OK on the Create Database Entry screen, thus making the order of signup apparent (and making the signup process first-come/first-served when people follow the ground rules).

Notes:

Unless you specified access control for who can open the signup sheet, anyone who is a member of the webCafé room will be able to sign up.
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.
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.
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:

a database entry created by

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 webCafé Member Information screen.

3. Using a database with prebuilt rows for each timeslot or offering: Least secure of all methods, but best for showing all possible timeslots or resources "at a glance" before people sign up. Only method described here which uses the "pencil-point" button, which seems like the most intuitive way to use a signup sheet (as opposed to the new entry button in procedure #2 above, or the join or change teams button you might see in course-related team signups).

Start by clicking Create, then choosing to create a Database.
You'll be asked to choose a database type. Choose (blank), then click Next.
On the Set Database Name screen, type a name for the signup sheet. Pick your preferred color scheme, then click access control and change the bottom setting (An entry created in this database can be edited by:) to "Everyone who can open the database."c Click Next.
Now create one or more fields to describe the time slot or resource, and include a field for the person or people signing up. Click Next.
Specify the types you want for each field (most should be Plain text; the person-or-people-signing-up may be either Plain Text or Member List.) Click Next.
Set the desired database field options (including Allow multiple choices on a member list field, if you used one and if you want multiple people to be able to sign up for an entry), then click Next. To skip the dashboard options page, click Next again.
On the Database Instructions page, in the first blank explain that to sign up, users should click the pencil-point button to edit an existing entry. 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. The second instructions blank can be used if you want to include information that will be seen when someone is editing an existing entry. When you're happy with the instruction blanks, click OK.
At this point the signup database is created. Next you will create entries for each resource, time slot, or other "thing" for which people will be signing up. To create the first thing:

press the new entry button.
Enter the appropriate information for each time slot, resource, etc., in the fields on the Create Database Entry screen.
Press Add Another button to create more entries, or press OK when you have created all entries.

People can now sign up by editing one of the existing entries using the pencil-point button provided in each row.

webCafé: database members
As noted above, this is the least secure type of signup, but it's easy to use. People can wipe out each other's time slots or create additional entries. You can export a spreadsheet of signups using the database's export button shown below the database summary (rows and columns) table.

4. Tracking signups on a Calendar (dates and times are clear; comment signup is first-come/first-serve; no spreadsheet export or "at a glance" view of who is signed up)

Go to the top level of your webCafé room. Start by clicking the create button at the bottom of your screen.

Click on the Calendar icon.

Click on the new event button.

The Create Event button will appear:

Fill in a time, date, and duration (or use the repeating button to set up a recurrence). VERY IMPORTANT:

Do not fill in Participants or check "Include box for attachments"
Do leave "Include space for comments and votes" checked
Use the access control button if you want to restrict the people who can open the event (and sign up) to a subset of room members.

Now, authorized users can click on the event, then sign up for it using the add a comment button (just as with procedure #1 above, the Note-based signup).

This provides signup on a first-come, first-serve basis. However, this doesn't give you is a spreadsheet of signups or any "at a glance" view of signups in all slots.

One potential pitfall is that anyone who can open the calendar can create an event in it; someone could potentially make an event that looks like your signup event. The "event created by" line shows who set up the event, so a workaround for the pitfall is to treat only the events you create as "official" signups.