FOSS4G'13

The working site for the conference committee of FOSS4G 2013

Workshop schedule

Posted by Barry Rowlingson on May 21, 2013

On the info-email:

"When can we expect the time schedule, especially for the Workshops? We’d like to register with the early bird price, but cannot do this since we do not know the schedule of the workshops."

The spreadsheet I've had from Rollo does have workshop-day-time-room assignments. Is this still correct? If it is then we should publish it - I'll put it on the web site ASAP if the workshop team can confirm.

Comments

Barry Rowlingson on May 21, 2013:

Similarly, what's happening about the extra workshops via the community vote? Thought that was happening this week?

Mark Iliffe on May 22, 2013:

I believe we're almost there, what needs to be finalised (from my perspective) is ensuring the rooms enough capacity as per the workshop request. And to assign rooms to day 2.

Barry Rowlingson on May 22, 2013:

Rollo's latest spreadsheet has the workshops all assigned to rooms with equal-to or greater-than the capacity requested in the workshop description.

So what's the problem? Is it the extra workshops/community vote? Is that happening?

I worry that we have 29 people paid up for workshop day two, and if they all want to go to W16 (QGIS Robin Hood Map, max capacity 12) then many will be disappointed. Note that the capacity of 12 is set by the workshop organiser...

We are getting emails from concerned people on the info address asking about this.

Has there been any thought towards a booking system for workshops? If we don't know any of this then we're going to be continually palming people off who enquire.

Rollo Home on May 22, 2013:

Barry, you raise some very good points. To (possibly) address some:
There are additional rooms being made available, as well as the additional days to hold the (additional) workshops, but we could also consider keeping some space back to have sessions run again.
It is worth stressing the point that the workshop provider has identified the limit - not us.

Matt Walker on May 22, 2013:

@Rollo, thanks for pulling the program together.

@Barry I've reviewed the workshop allocation and I'm happy for it to be published.

Nothing has been decided regarding booking workshops as yet, I'll get in touch with Peter Battey to see how it was done at Denver. My personal feeling is that we should scrap the concept of signing up for a specific day and instead allow delegates to sign up to a day's worth of workshops over the two days.

Barry Rowlingson on May 23, 2013:

@Matt because I've only seen spreadsheets sent from Rollo I can't be sure what is the definitive timetabling - changes may have been made, we might not be looking at the same thing at the same time, and I don't want to screw this up.

 Can you please either send me the workshop timetabling, or attach it here on basecamp. I've promised someone to get it all on the web by later tonight.

Barry

Matt Walker on May 23, 2013:

Thanks Barry, I've attached the spreadsheet that Rollo sent over via email yesterday unchanged which contains the workshop schedule for the website.

Thanks,

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on May 23, 2013:

I'll web that up and announce it later tonight.

The booking system is critical now - as workshops fill up we need to splat "full" on them. Second choice workshops might not be a choice for some people.

Sorry to sound like a broken record on this. I don't now if you could make a bunch of eventbrite events, and when someone registers with workshop tickets they get told the URLs and have to book up there? I don't really know enough about Eventbrite to know if this will be trustworthy enough.

Or do it all via google forms? People booking one day get to click one day's worth of sessions, those paying for two days get a different form, or the same form but get to click two day's worth. It all goes into a google spreadsheet and you can compute the availability (and then maybe magically update the web page and the form...). Not sure if google forms can do that much flexible verification, but I could write some JS wrapper to a google form (as I've done for the pledge page) which would mean it could be bypassed but would prevent honest mistakes. Anyone bypassing the JS checking would get caught out by the spreadsheet checking process....

Anyway, if you need help working out a system, give me a call. Apart from the IPL Cricket final I've nothing to do this weekend....

Steven Feldman on May 23, 2013:

Eventbrite is simple, reliable, allows limits on bookings/tickets and
issues tickets and downloadable emailable lists of delegates. Will do
everything we need and should take less than 5 minutes per workshop to set
up with a bit of copy and paste

BTW @mark is an expert :)

Steven Feldman
KnowWhere Consulting
www.knowwhereconsulting.co.uk
http://twitter.com/stevenfeldman

+44 (0) 7958 924101
Sent from my iPhone

Barry Rowlingson on May 23, 2013:

Great. Can we have it all set up by tomorrow?

I just know that if I send out my 'here's the timetable' email (already tweeted it) then the 'how do I book Workshop X because I don't want to book for a day and then have that workshop be full and you guys suck you should do it this way' emails will come flying in.

Barry Rowlingson on May 23, 2013:

Anyhoo, the timetable for workshops is now online, live, here:

http://2013.foss4g.org/provisional/workshops.html

could some more pairs of eyeballs check it please!

Abi Page on May 24, 2013:

Just to chip in on EventBrite - we use it pretty extensively at work, but it is only free to use if you are running a free event. If you are running a paid for event they take a cut.
If we are taking the money through another system and they find out, I don't expect they will be too impressed.
Google forms or another method is probably best, but will they be able to see how many spaces are remaining?

What will the process be - they can reserve a space then have x amount of time to pay up or their reservation lapses? (ie numbers may go up and down as those who haven't paid's spaces become available again)
Or, they pay up and can see what is available and once they have paid they get access to book a place?

What has happened at previous events?
My only experience for highly popular events has been along the lines of the first process, with date for reservations opening announced around a week before (or sometimes places released in 2 batches at different times to suit different time zones).

Barry Rowlingson on May 24, 2013:

@workshoppers: I've added some fairy dust to the workshop timetable page

@abi: people pay for workshop days when they register for the conference. I don't think there's been much thought about how workshop sessions are fought over.

Because of the link with the AGI conference we've used their system for reservations, and I think in the past Claire has sorted out AGI reservations for things, but this looks a bit more complex.

Some of the python/django conference management systems I've been looking at handle all of this in an integrated fashion (as well as presentation submission and reviews and all that) but it might be too late to get everyone onto that now.

Barry Rowlingson on June 1, 2013:

Volunteers wanted: who has some time tonight or tomorrow to test the workshop booking system? Or maybe I should write the documentation first?

It's sitting here just waiting for people to log in....

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/

Need people to pretend to be users and people who may need to admin the system. Admin is mainly just creating new users.

Rollo Home on June 1, 2013:

Go on then - send me some login details....

Matt Walker on June 1, 2013:

We're away this weekend with nothing more than a mobile but should be able to test tomorrow night or Monday.

Abi Page on June 1, 2013:

I'm around tomorrow if you want to send me details

Rollo Home on June 2, 2013:

Barry, I've spent my credits in numerous ways and have yet to find anything other than a fully working, logical process.

The only thing that I can think of that I've not been able to test is when a session becomes full. Because you don't publish the number of places available (which is sensible) I'm not sure how to test this other than to suggest that we all attempt to book W1 (or something with a low number of slots)....

I'm assuming that Claire will get a full list of delegates and sessions (to aid with registration at the front desk)? And that we will share these lists with the session leaders? Yes, I thought so.....

Barry Rowlingson on June 3, 2013:

I'm pretty sure the maximum occupancy constraint works.

I'm ahead of you on the delegate list - people with admin rights on the booking system have a link to a summary page.

I've added Matt and Abi as workshop attendees and promoted Rollo to admin...

Abi Page on June 3, 2013:

Hi Barry, that looks great - seems fairly fool-proof and worked well for me.

Rollo Home on June 3, 2013:

Cool. I've been promoted :-)

How do I access the admin stuff? I see no new options with my login.

Barry Rowlingson on June 3, 2013:

Some slight changes to make:

1. Alter permission system for admin users
2. New workshopper form: ask for delegate number and create username from that
3. New workshopper form: radio buttons: 1 day/2 days

will change/test/deploy tonight.

Matt Walker on June 3, 2013:

Hi Barry,

As you've probably see I did some testing earlier and the system worked well. I should be able to test again this evening once you've deployed the changes.

Thanks,

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on June 4, 2013:

I've made a few changes that are only really visible to admin (ie Rollo at the moment).

I made the new workshopper form a bit neater and all new workshop registrants should get a username of delegateXXXXX where XXXXX is their delegate number.

I really don't see why we can't make this live today! Is Claire around to supply the current list of workshop attendees?

Matt Walker on June 4, 2013:

That's great Barry. I've drafted the following email to go out to those
that have already signed up for workshops which tries to explain the system:

Thanks for signing up to attend workshops at FOSS4G 2013 in Nottingham. We
have two days of workshops scheduled for 17th and 18th September, the full
program can be found here: http://2013.foss4g.org/provisional/workshops.html
.

To book yourself in to individual workshops please login to
http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/ with the following details:

Username: xxxxxxxx
Password: xxxxxxxx

While you may of signed up for a specific day of workshops during
registration the booking process allows you the flexibility to book
workshops on either day. If you signed up for a single day during
registration you have 4 credits to use while those that signed up for both
days have 8. A 2 hour workshop is worth 1 credit, 4 hour 2 credits and 8
hour 4. We've tried to make it clear how many credits are required for each
workshop and to help you to avoid booking workshops that clash.

Claire Gilmour on June 4, 2013:

Here is the document with the workshop attendees and whether they are going for 8 hours or 16 hours.  A lot of these havent been told that their workshop registration has been changed from a certain day to the new format.  Are you contacting them or should I?

Barry Rowlingson on June 4, 2013:

Claire - does the registration system give them some kind of delegate number? Its not in that spreadsheet. I was planning on using that to give workshop attendees a unique identifier, to save having to make one up from their name and hope there's not more than one John Smith.

Matt Walker on June 4, 2013:

@Claire they have not been informed as yet. I don't see it being a problem as we're providing additional flexibility and they are getting the first pick of workshops. Jo has just provided a slight rework (posted below) of the message I posted earlier. If we're happy with this could you send it out to delegates when we're ready to launch the booking system?

Thanks for signing up to attend workshops at FOSS4G 2013 in Nottingham. We have two days of workshops scheduled for 17th and 18th September, the full program can be found here: http://2013.foss4g.org/provisional/workshops.html.

To book yourself in to individual workshops please login to http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/ with the following details:

Username: xxxxxxxx
Password: xxxxxxxx

While you may have signed up for a specific day of workshops during registration, the booking process allows you the flexibility to book workshops on either day. If you signed up for a single day during registration you have 4 credits to use, while those that signed up for both days have 8. A 2 hour workshop is worth 1 credit, 4 hour 2 credits, and 8 hour 4. We've tried to make it clear how many credits are required for each workshop, and to help you to avoid booking workshops that clash.

Rollo Home on June 5, 2013:

Can I amend the final paragraph (if not too late) to:

While you may have signed up for a specific day of workshops during registration, the booking process gives you the flexibility to book workshops on either day. If you signed up for a single day during registration you have 4 credits to use, while those that signed up for both days have 8. A 2 hour workshop is worth 1 credit, while a 4 hour workshop counts as 2 credits, and an 8 hour workshop is 4 credits. The form makes clear how many credits are required for each workshop, and prevents you booking workshops that clash giving you the most flexibility possible!

Matt Walker on June 5, 2013:

Thanks Rollo, if it's not too late then I'm happy with that.

Barry Rowlingson on June 5, 2013:

I'm still waiting to find out from Claire if the delegates do get some identifying delegate ID and if she can include it in the spreadsheet. Otherwise I'll need to recode things to generate an ID automatically. I just don't want people to have yet another ID number!

Claire Gilmour on June 5, 2013:

There is an ID number that Regonline generates which is 9 digits long.  I dont use this number for anything.  I think it would be better if your system generates a separate ID number.

Barry Rowlingson on June 5, 2013:

A common ID number system is generally better since we can then easily identify the same person in both systems. But 9 digits is a bit overkill...

I'll have to change the system tonight and create the initial users but I'm pushed for time this evening and then away until Sunday. Do we want to push the Early Bird back another week?

Steven Feldman on June 5, 2013:

Apologies for being late to this

A 9 digit ID is a bit long but I would go with it rather than delaying any more.

I'm not sure that having the workshop reservation up should be a criteria for changing the end of the EB, what was your thinking on this?

Barry Rowlingson on June 5, 2013:

I'm not going to get the 9 digit IDs from Claire today so I can't add the users tonight.

Which means it won't get done until Sunday at the earliest.

If I go with creating new user IDs then I can do the coding and add them tonight and the announcement can be made to those people tomorrow. This should only need one bulk email since they can get their username and reset their password using teh password recovery system.

Steven Feldman on June 5, 2013:

Go for it

Thanks v much

Barry Rowlingson on June 5, 2013:

I went for it. It was gone.

Go for what exactly? new User IDs yeah? I can also probably send the emails out from the system too. Will use boilerplate posted here earlier.

Barry Rowlingson on June 5, 2013:

Okay, everything is rewritten and set, but its late and if I try and add users now I'll screw up. Hold off the raging hordes until Sunday and I'll do it then.

Steven Feldman on June 8, 2013:

Do we have the results of the community voting for the extra workshops?

It would be good to publish as soon as we can. Presumably we need Rollo and Matt to take the top x and schedule into the program in one or two of the labs. I suggest that we don't schedule any workshops on the Thursday morning or Saturday afternoon.

I don't think publishing extra workshops impacts on the close f the early bird but if we can get them up in some way before the 14th it won't do any harm

Matt Walker on June 8, 2013:

We've not had the results yet, if I've not heard from Paul on Monday then I'll send a mail to ask when we might get them.

Cheers,

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on June 9, 2013:

All the users from the document Claire posted above have now been added to the system.

I have informed one of the users who emailed the info mail a while ago about booking, and so he is the guinea pig. The rest of them can be informed tomorrow (Monday).

The users will have to get their username/password by the recovery link on the Login page - there's no need to send individual emails with separate usernames and passwords in. They should only ever need to contact us if they lose their email address.

Adding further users: how are they coming in? do we wait a week and then I add them in bulk? There is an easy form on the system for adding users, but any more than five in one go is probably a hassle.

Barry Rowlingson on June 10, 2013:

My guinea pig user has now booked his workshops! He also told a former colleague who wants to book his and his colleagues too...

Is Claire around to send a bulk email to those workshoppers from the spreadsheet? Here's the text - note the username and password is not included in the email. This can go out now:

Thanks for signing up to attend workshops at FOSS4G 2013 in Nottingham. We have two days of workshops scheduled for 17th and 18th September, the full program can be found here: http://2013.foss4g.org/provisional/workshops.html.

To book yourself in to individual workshops go to http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/conf/accounts/password/reset/ and enter your registered email address. You will get an email with a password reset link and a username which will be something like 'delegate99'. Follow the link and choose a new password.

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/ is the address for booking workshops when you have successfully logged in.

While you may have signed up for a specific day of workshops during registration, the booking process allows you the flexibility to book workshops on either day. If you signed up for a single day during registration you have 4 credits to use, while those that signed up for both days have 8. A 2 hour workshop is worth 1 credit, 4 hour 2 credits, and 8 hour 4. We've tried to make it clear how many credits are required for each workshop, and to help you to avoid booking workshops that clash.

Barry Rowlingson on June 10, 2013:

Have just sent the email out to 59 people from the spreadsheet, so no need for Claire to do that now.

Let's see those workshops fill up...

Steven Feldman on June 10, 2013:

I think Claire may be on holiday until tomorrow

Claire Gilmour on June 11, 2013:

I have 74 on my list for workshop registrations.  Barry - can you send me the list of who the email went to and I will send to the rest?

Barry Rowlingson on June 11, 2013:

I've only created accounts for the 59 listed in the spreadsheet you attached earlier (June 4th). If you can upload an updated spreadsheet I'll create accounts for the 15 new users and then you can email the lot (people often complain that my email goes in their spam boxes so it won't hurt if you send another message to everyone).

Claire Gilmour on June 11, 2013:

Here is the updated list...

Claire Gilmour on June 11, 2013:

Barry Rowlingson on June 11, 2013:

I've just added those extra 15 people. Could you send the announcement above (the one in the message where I start "My guinea pig user.." but without that bit) to all the workshop registrants.

Ooh, email to c.harrod@poole.gov.uk bounces, I contacted the Poole GIS team and her email is chloe.harrod@poole.gov.uk - update your records.

How are we going to do further additions? Adding them from your spreadsheet was a bit awkward because the new ones were mixed in with the existing ones and I had to trawl through to strip them out, a process that could go wrong.

Claire Gilmour on June 12, 2013:

Have updated the email.

Here is the spreadsheet with just the latest bookings.

I send another update tomorrow.

Barry Rowlingson on June 12, 2013:

Have now added those 8 to the system. Can you email them?

There was a mistake in the email text I did earlier with a bad link in it. One user emailed to spot it, I think I corrected it in the email I sent out. Here's the corrected version:

Thanks for signing up to attend workshops at FOSS4G 2013 in Nottingham. We have two days of workshops scheduled for 17th and 18th September, the full program can be found here: http://2013.foss4g.org/provisional/workshops.html.

To book yourself in to individual workshops go to http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/accounts/password/reset/ and enter your registered email address. You will get an email with a password reset link and a username which will be something like 'delegate99'. Follow the link and choose a new password.

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/ is the address for booking workshops when you have successfully logged in.

While you may have signed up for a specific day of workshops during registration, the booking process allows you the flexibility to book workshops on either day. If you signed up for a single day during registration you have 4 credits to use, while those that signed up for both days have 8. A 2 hour workshop is worth 1 credit, 4 hour 2 credits, and 8 hour 4. We've tried to make it clear how many credits are required for each workshop, and to help you to avoid booking workshops that clash.

All the workshops except "W1: OSM-GB Services and Data Workshop : Amir Pourabdollah" have at least 3 people signed up, some workshops are half-full already.

QGis plugin dev (W9) already has 15 places out of 20 taken!

Barry Rowlingson on June 13, 2013:

I've just sent the email to these 8 people. I think my messages are getting through now!

Barry Rowlingson on June 14, 2013:

The Qgis /python programming workshop is now full. I should probably change the workshop timetable list to update from the bookings app.

Barry Rowlingson on June 15, 2013:

The QGis plugin dev workshop is now not only full but we've had two enquiries about it: a) one person wanting to go on a waiting list, and b) someone else pleading for whether we can expand the size of the workshop.

My gut responses are :

a) no.
b) no.

My measured responses are:

a) I've had a thought about waiting lists, but managing them is incredibly complicated. I could have done the booking system so that people expressed a preference over potentially all workshops, and then the system assigns people to workshops based on preference, taking into account first-come first-served and clashes with other workshops. But that's just way too complicated. The best I think we can do with minimal overhead is to check attendance on the day and tweet "there's 2 no-shows for workshop X, first-come first served". Of course that cascades, since if two people from workshop Y jump to X, then there's now two spaces in Y....

b) the limit was set by the workshop presenters and is constrained by the room timetabling, so we can't change this unilaterally.

I also think we need an explicit procedure for dealing with people who book workshops and then find the workshop is booked - refunds will be demanded, and I think we should give them.

By the end of the weekend I should have the workshop timetable page updating availability status from the booking system, which should lower the incidence of this happening.

Ideally I plan to have everything out of the 'provisional' URL before not too long. We can't stay beta for ever. The pages in '/provisional' can be links to the real thing.

Abi Page on June 15, 2013:

My thoughts -

if the limitation is the room capacity then we can't do anything

if the limitation is the number the presenter has expressed and there is still a little more space in the room then could possibly contact the presenter and see if they can accommodate (but this is extra work, so if this might be the situation for any of the workshops - ie the room is bigger than the capacity the presenter stated - I suggest a bulk email to all asking if they can contact us if they feel that can increase capacity if they have high demand).

I agree that having a waiting list seems overly complicated.

I would suggest that each  morning at a specific time a list of any workshop spaces is put up near reception on a board for sign up - eg for the workshops without prior registration and for any workshops where spaces have become free - this could also be updated during the day.
I could add a volunteer role to do this?

This would make it available for anyone who is on site on first come / first served and we can make this arrangement clear in the programme booklet... ie workshop lists will be posted on the board at 9am or whatever.

If someone asks for a refund because they haven't been able to view the availability then we need to offer this imo, but once the availability is shown online and the time between payment and getting a log-on is reasonable (ie not days) then I don't feel we should
Rational being that otherwise folk may use non-availability of a workshop they weren't really interested in as a way to back out paying for the extra day as they have changed their mind for other reasons and poor Claire will have to deal with all the admin....

Barry Rowlingson on June 15, 2013:

Could someone from the Workshop Team jump in here and 

 a) work out which workshops have spare room capacity and contact the workshop organisers in those rooms to see if they are willing to take any more people up to that capacity

and/or

 b) deal with the emails from people with workshop booking problems. Because this bit is beyond my time right now.

Barry Rowlingson on June 15, 2013:


FYI the queries are:

Victor Mensing:
Thanks for your email. I booked my workshops for wednesday. For the afternoon I preferred workshop W9, which is booked full for now. I booked W15 now.
Is it possible to add my name on a waitinglist for W9 in case of some people do not show up at wednesday? In that case I'm very grateful.

and the more pleading Andres Maneiro:

I've booked already my full 8 credits of workshops, but I cannot help
but being a bit dissapointed with the choices I was left. Please, let me
explain my case to see if we can arrange a better deal.

I had in mind to attend 0 to 3 workshops, depending on the availability.
My choices were: W4 on tuesday and W9/W10 on wednesday. Although the
other ones seem also interesting, they didn't fit my needs right now, so
I didn't want to pay for them. As in the process of booking I didn't
know the availability of my choices, I had to pay for the maximum number
of hours (16h / 8 credits) in order to get the possibility of attending
to the ones I liked. I knew in advance that I might have not the
opportunity of choosing those if they were full and I would waste my
money (I mean, not really waste because all options are high-quality,
but wasting in the sense of they not being addequate for my needs). But
I didn't have any other option. So I bought the full 8 credits.

So, when I was booking my spot in the workshops (10 minutes away), there
was no place left in W9. This is very inconvenient for my case because
on Wednesday afternoon there are only 3 possibilities: W9 (the one I
liked), W7 (which doesn't make sense for me to attend as I will attend
to W10 in the morning which is the same but more developer- focused) and
W15 (which seems fine, but if I could choose, I'd rather not pay for
it). So, I had to book W15.

Well, that's my case. What I'd like to ask you as organizers is if there
is any option that fits me better: could I change my place in W15 later
if it turns up to be a new spot in W9? could you put me in touch with
the delegates in W9 to let them know I'd be willing to attend if anyone
couldn't make it? could I change my inscription to W15 with other person
more willing to attend? could I be returned the money back for W15 if
none of the later is possible? Please, let me know what do you think.

Last but not least, I'd like to thank you again for your patience to
organize such a bigger event with so many details to care about. I know
you are working hard to make it happen. But I do hope you understand
also my position and we both can find a better deal.

and:

From: Attila Berenyi [mailto:Attila.Berenyi@senergyworld.com] 

I'd like to attend the W9: QGIS Plugin Developement with PyQt4 and PyQGIS workshop, however, it is already full. Could you increase the number of participants by any chance?

Ian Edwards on June 15, 2013:

I've ran workshops in the past where attendees have paid good money but not
wanted to be there.

We're aiming to make W15 accessible to all attendees - but it is a
specialist workshop (NetCDF and WCS) that is unlikely to appeal to the
masses if they end up there just to use credits they wanted to spend
elsewhere.

Sorry that was unconstructive. This is useful feedback for me as I can try
to make the workshop also appeal more to someone who really would rather be
learning how to write plugins. I don't know if the same issue may be raised
by other organisers.

Matt Walker on June 16, 2013:

Hi Barry,

Just catching up with this thread, I'll deal with those two mails tonight if you can forward them over. I'll also review the capacity as you suggest and make contact with the hosts if there is spare capacity.

Cheers,

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on June 16, 2013:

amaneiro@icarto.es and victor.mensing@sovon.nl are the two that contacted me. I've already told them that the workshop team will be in touch...

Matt Walker on June 16, 2013:

Thanks Barry, I'll contact them this evening when I'm back home.

Barry Rowlingson on June 16, 2013:

FYI I've created an obscured URL to access the current state of workshop bookings:

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/g4ssof/bookreport

Don't circulate beyond the conference committee. Alternatively I could username/password protect all this and give you all usernames,

Matt Walker on June 16, 2013:

I've responded to Victor and Andres explaining that the delegate limit has been set by the presenters and saying that we are looking to contact presenters of workshops  scheduled in rooms with additional capacity to investigate increasing numbers.

I've also updated my copy of the program format that was used to publish the schedule on the website to include details of room capacity, current attendees and percentage booked and I've emailed those presenters that are assigned to rooms with extra capacity and who's workshops is over 60% booked to see if they can accommodate additional delegates. They are currently:

W16: QGIS, OpenData & Cartographic Design; Create a Robin Hood tourist map of Nottingham
paul.naylor@ordnancesurvey.co.uk
limit 12; room capacity 20; booked 8

W12: PostGIS 3D Workshop
olivier.courtin@oslandia.com
limit 20; room capacity 30; booked 13

W18: Introduction to Mobile Web Development Using FOSS4G
mark.bishop@envitia.com
limit 20; room capacity 30; booked 13

Both enquiries where about W9: QGIS Plugin Development which is fully booked at 20 places in a room with a capacity of 20 which is unfortunate. However W9 is running at the same time as W7: GeoNode, A complete SDI which is currently in a 52 capacity room and only has 8 attendees booked of 54. I feel it may be appropriate to swap these two and propose we do so unless anyone can see an issue.

@Rollo is there a definitive version of the programme format spreadsheet, perhaps as a Google doc that you could share with me so that we're all in sync?

Thanks,

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on June 16, 2013:

The programme pages final home now has a start:

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/programme/

currently the workshop programme linked there includes the booking info and it all comes from the Django database - I think we need to consider that as the definitive source of workshop info as of now. I'm going to take out the other workshop timetable pages (in /provisional) real soon now. (okay, tomorrow, its late)

there's some additional info needs adding - most of the presenter affiliations are missing but that's easy once you've got django admin accounts.

I've also created a semi-secret obscure spending report:

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/g4ssof/spendreport

which lists emails of people who haven't spent all or any of their allocation. Regular email reminders to these people might be a good idea.

if anyone wants any other reports let me know and I'll see about coding them.

If anyone changes their workshop spend by buying more or getting a refund that has to be done in the django admin interface, might have repercussions with Claire's spreadsheet updates though...

Am beginning to think this is all easier to do with pen and pencil though.

Matt Walker on June 17, 2013:

Hi Barry,

I've heard back from Paul Naylor (W16) who is keen to stick with the limit of 12 for W16.

Olivier Courtin (W12) on the other hand is happy to increase the limit from 20 to 30, can you please update the booking system.

Do you have a view on my proposal to swap the rooms used for W7 and W9 to allow greater capacity for the super popular QGIS Plugin workshop W9? I'm going to contact Dr. Horst Düster now to see if he would be happy to accommodate more delegates if we do swap. 

Thanks,

Matt.

Matt Walker on June 17, 2013:


Also could the spendreport and bookreport pages be password protected to avoid any potential embarrassment.

Barry Rowlingson on June 17, 2013:

Okay, those pages password protected, and W12 now set to 30 capacity.

report pages have sensible URLs now:

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/spendreport
http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/adminreport

Putting W7 in GGL would mean capping its max to 20 from the 45 the presenter said he could take. It currently has 11 but it might hit 20, so the presenter would need to know we're capping him because of room constraints and the popularity of Qgis. All immaterial if Horst won't take more than 20 anyway for Qgis.

Matt, have you used the Django admin before? Email me off list and I'll sort out a username etc for you.

Barry Rowlingson on June 18, 2013:

I've just sent a reminder out to 45 people who are yet to spend any workshop credits. Will probably do that weekly or so.

Matt Walker on June 19, 2013:

I've been in contact with Horst who is running the QGIS Plugin workshop and he is happy to accommodate additional delegates if we move him to a larger room.

I think the rumour may of got out as I think Horst contacted a few people to ask if they could assist him with running a larger workshop and at least one of them tweeted about it...

Looking at the workshop schedule again, we don't have to limit the GeoNode workshop as one half of the Sir Clive Granger Building B29 is currently not in use. This means we can swap the GeoNode workshop to the 45 delegate side of the room and run the QGIS workshop in the other side with capacity for 52. I'll confirm with Horst that he's happy then we can make the change and then we can announce.

Barry Rowlingson on June 19, 2013:

W18 : Introduction to Mobile Web Development Using FOSS4G (20 delegates) is full - and we have more people wanting to book.

Is it worth asking Krisztian Olle if he can take more? What's the room cap there?

Matt Walker on June 19, 2013:

The room capacity is 30, I emailed Mark Bishop who's the contact for the workshop a few days ago, I've just chased him as I've not heard back.

Barry Rowlingson on June 20, 2013:

has Horst confirmed how many he can take for his Qgis workshop?

People are starting to comment/whinge on the public mailing list now.

Matt Walker on June 20, 2013:

Nothing further from Horst yet, I've just sent a follow up.

Steven Feldman on June 20, 2013:

Agree we need to reorganise rooms if we can. Someone should post on the list that the limits were set by presenters not us and we are trying to change.

BTW the initial "commenter" is the same guy who "commented" about our web site and other stuff previously, could be a pattern. Abi should invite him to be a volunteer :)

Matt Walker on June 20, 2013:

Good news, I've heard from Horst and he is happy to up the limit to 52
which is the capacity of the room. Can we coordinate an announcement and up
the limit tomorrow?

I'd like to email those that took the trouble to get in touch 30 mins prior
to a public announcement to give them a chance. Seem reasonable?

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on June 21, 2013:

I don;t think I quite understand the room arrangements.

The 'two sides' of Clive Granger are A and B? So W9 just moves into the empty slot?

(note the grid timetables in the workshop programme page are static and won't change if the database changes)

So
  • T-0: change room and capacity for W9. At that point anyone who notices can book and it could fill up (but unlikely with another 32 spaces)
  • T+1s: email people who asked about that workshop
  • T+30m: email foss4g public list and tweet
I'm not sure if 30m is enough if ppl are in a sleepy timezone. Oh well. I'll also collect the list of people to email in advance and post it here.

Barry Rowlingson on June 21, 2013:


BCC to:
thomas.baumann@geosysnet.de, amaneiro@icarto.es, kari.mikkonen@paikkatietokonsultit.fi

Text to send:

Dear FOSS4g delegate,

 Horst Duster, the presenter of the QGIS Plugin Development workshop, has kindly agreed to take on another 30 places in his workshop. We have rearranged the room allocation to accommodate this and since you are one of the people who already expressed disappointment because that workshop was full, you now have a chance to register before we announce it.

 Use the reservation booking system as before, but you may have to unbook yourself from another workshop to free up enough credits to register for W9.

 - foss4g committee

Jo Cook on June 21, 2013:

Sounds good- what about Jonathan (trouble-maker) Moules- is this applicable to him as well?

I think we should give people in a different time zone a bit longer to respond.

Jo

Matt Walker on June 21, 2013:

@Barry you're making me doubt myself now ;-). That's correct Clive Granger A and B are two sides of the same lab. I'm proposing we move W7: GeoNode, A complete SDI into B which has a capacity of 45 and W9: QGIS Plugin Developement into A with a capacity of 52.

I think the text you've proposed sounds good. Regarding timing, it looks like those that will be notified early are from Europe. Maybe give them a few hours?

This does affect Jonathan Moules and I've also seen Matt Travis tweet on the topic but my feeling is we should keep the prior notice to those that contacted us directly?

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on June 21, 2013:

Okay, I'll make those room and capacity changes at midday today (off to a seminar now) then send the announcement to the three listed above.

Shall we leave the general announcement until 2.30? Although what's the betting it leaks out and is all over twitter by 12:30?

Ian Edwards on June 21, 2013:

Matt Travis told me a few months ago that he is extremely keen to do QGIS
plugin development. It would be good to include him if possible (if he's
not already registered)?

Worse case scenario someone else tweets the news before we do - but that
wouldn't really be a problem for us, it's better that we avoid more
complaints by giving all the people who have commented in one way or
another a chance to register.

Jo Cook on June 21, 2013:

I'd include Matt and Jonathan- there's no harm in being nice and helpful. Leave the general announcement for a few hours- we can't help what happens on twitter in the meantime.

Jo

Matt Walker on June 21, 2013:

OK cool in that case I think we need to email:

Direct enquiry:
thomas.baumann@geosysnet.de
amaneiro@icarto.es
kari.mikkonen@paikkatietokonsultit.fi
victor.mensing@sovon.nl
Lara.Marx@sovon.nl

Twitter:
matt.travis1@gmail.com

List:
jonathanmoules@warwickshire.gov.uk
mariusjigmond@hotmail.com

 I'm sure you're right about twitter :-)

Steven Feldman on June 21, 2013:

Good plan - thanks everyone :)

Barry Rowlingson on June 21, 2013:

Plan is a go. workshops have been moved, capacity of qgis plugin updated, email to privileged few sent with added request that they don't shout about it.

suggest we shout about it after tea break this afternoon.

Barry Rowlingson on June 21, 2013:

J Moules isn;t interested in Qgis and wonders if any of the others might open up - although he's also not interested in GeoNode, which just leaves W15 Big Data/Ian Edwards. That is fully booked and in a full room. So the clear answer is 'no'.

BUT it does bring up the refund question. Can we have a definitive refund policy? There's still a lot of people who have paid and not booked anything. I think we should at least refund unspent whole days, if not unspent half-days if its not too much additional trouble. Otherwise it looks very bad ON US. I appreciate there's an admin burden here, although I can't appreciate how much of a burden that is, or when we decide to do refunds (I say last minute, because ppl will probably turn up having not reserved and expect to walk into something) or how you get the money ppl have paid back to them.

Steven Feldman on June 21, 2013:

I so don't want to go don the refund route unless we have to. It would be a minefield for Claire and Maureen and has potential for error. On the other hand I'm not sure what we do.

I guess it depends on the number of people who are stressed about maybe not getting their last cent of workshop time. We have made it more flexible by allowing them to spread across the 2 days.

My first response is we only give refunds when there are no workshop spaces left (i.e we have over sold) and then it's an 8 hour only no parts. But maybe that is too hard nosed (could be we should decide this in a week or two rather than just respond to an individual)

Jo Cook on June 21, 2013:

Originally I was going to say that I didn't think people have the right to ask for refunds for workshops, if basically they weren't quick enough to book what they wanted. However, since (for various reasons, and not criticising anyone) we didn't get the workshop timetable up that early, we did ask people to take a risk booking them.

On that basis, I think the only way we could offer refunds is just to refund the whole workshop component- so people just attend the conference. I think anything else will be too complicated (what if people want day 1 but not day 2?).

Matt Walker on June 21, 2013:

@Barry not sure if you were going to post to the lists or you where expecting me to?

Barry Rowlingson on June 21, 2013:

Computing who might be due a refund is easy, I can modify my spending report to list exactly how many credits each person has unspent. If someone wants to convert that into pounds and hand them beer tokens at the registration desk I'm sure they'll be happy.

Matt, you can have the pleasure (as workshop committee person) of emailing the good news to the  foss4g public list and cross-posting to osgeo-discuss!

Jo Cook on June 21, 2013:

I don't think it's hard to compute the refund- but I do think it's hard to know what to do with the lost souls who might be wandering around for an afternoon with nothing to do, on (say) the morning of Day 2 because we've refunded them that slot. How will we check they haven't snuck into something they shouldn't, without needing a whole lot of extra policing on our part? How will we prevent them from getting some lunch which they probably aren't entitled to, etc etc.

I also think there should be a limit to our generosity- I personally wouldn't expect to get a partial refund for something I'd taken a risk on if I simply didn't fancy what was on offer. That's the risk you take.

Barry Rowlingson on June 21, 2013:

Each workshop will have a registered list so one volunteer could do a simple runaround and headcount at five minutes past "for administrative purposes".  Probably a good idea to do that anyway, just to see how many people actually turn up - do the same for presentation sessions?

Whether they could elbow people out of the room if they aren't on the list without causing a fight though...  I doubt it will come to that.

Who is entitled to lunch on workshop days? Anyone doing a workshop on that day, even if its just half or quarter of a day? In which case at registration people will have to have some kind of pass for one or both days, and that will identify them for lunch.

The 'sneaking in' problem arises without refunds - someone booked for one day but reserved for two workshops on different days could sneak into two full days worth of workshops. They'll also (legitimitely?) get two lunches.

This does make computing the lunch numbers slightly complicated, since its the total number of different people at the workshops over the whole of a day - the morning people could be a completely different lot to the afternoon people...

If I book a seat on a train and its full and reservations are cancelled and I end up standing outside a stinky toilet for three hours I'd like a refund...

Am happy to leave the decision to Steven, but I'm just dreading the kind of arguments that will appear on the mailing lists if we don't refund - wah wah wah your reservation system sucked wah wah wah I can't spend all my credits wah wah wah why can't you put workshop X on day Y that's so much more sensible wah wah wah...

 Weigh that against the financial and administrative costs.

Barry Rowlingson on June 28, 2013:

I've written a refund report page here [django login required]:

http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/booking/refundreport

it computes the possible refund based on units, half-days, or full days unspent.

There's still a *lot* of people with unspent workshop credits, some from a long time ago. I suspect some rage from them shortly when they return from wherever they've been. The workshops are getting full. I'll send out another 'you've not booked any workshops' email early next week.

One side effect of announcing refunds is that people may unsign from workshops that they've signed up for purely to get their money's worth, thus freeing up space for people who genuinely want to go to that workshop. That will probably only work if we do half-day or unit refunds.
 
Did any of the workshop organisers specify a minimum attendance? W1
: OSM-GB Services and Data Workshop : Amir Pourabdollah has two signups at the moment.

Claire Gilmour on June 28, 2013:

If we are going to give refunds to workshops then it will have to be either the 8 hour or 16 hour cost.  If I try to tell Maureen that she will have to be making other refunds she may either resign or kill me and with all the work she is doing on refunding and reinvoicing every delegate at the moment I think the resignation would be the worst outcome! 

Steven Feldman on June 28, 2013:

Let's hope that we don't have to do workshop refunds. If we do it could be via beer tokens at the event (assuming we can agree with EMCC)

Matt Walker on July 12, 2013:

Hi Rollo,

Just checking you saw my proposed schedule for the "Community Workshops" in the Google Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/a/astuntechnology.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqjoM30msjG9dFp4SDY3WU9IblVsWml3M3VJUjFLckE&usp=sharing

Could you please give it a sanity check & make sure we've not got a clash of presenters against the main schedule it would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt.

Abi Page on July 14, 2013:

Can we get this finalised ASAP please for the programme booklet? Cheers.

Barry Rowlingson on July 16, 2013:

Clash! Just had a quick look and Simone giannecchini (sp?) has a presentation at 9 on the 20th, and you've scheduled one of his workshops for 9:30.

Will check the rest later, this is just a 'heads up, you have at least one clash' message...

Barry Rowlingson on July 16, 2013:

Matt, you've got clashes everywhere! Some might not be a problem where the workshop presenter is *co*presenter on a presentation, but they might be expecting to be there.

Here's my analysis: first the workshops by person, then the commitments I have for that person where S99 is Session 99, then 'CLASH' if there's a clash with the session.

Check the current session timetable:
http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/programme/time1

And presenter+copresenter here:
http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/programme/proof

14:00 19th W19    Simone Giannecchini
09:30 20th W20    Simone Giannecchini
 Presenting: S20: 9:00 20th, S58: 11:00 21st
 Copresenting: S43: 14:00 20th, S56: 11:00 21st
 CLASH W20 w S20

9:30 21st W21    Victor Olaya
 Copresenting: S55: 11:00 21st
 CLASH W21 w S55

14:00 20th W22    Peter Baumann
 Presenting: S7: 12:00 19th, S42: 13:30 20th
 CLASH W22 w S42

11:30 20th: W23    Sam Smith
 Nothing

16:00 20th: W24    Robert van Seeters
 Nothing

16:00 19th: W25    María Arias de Reyna
 Nothing

09:30 21st W26    Jeroen Ticheler
 Presenter: S39: 13:30 20th, S40 13:30 20th

14:00 19th W27    Francois Prunayre
 Presenter: S27: 09:00 20th

09:30 20th W28    Markus Neteler
 Copresenter: S42: 13:30 20th
 CLASH W28 w S42

Matt Walker on July 16, 2013:

Thanks Barry, I'll take a look tonight or first thing tomorrow.

Matt.

Matt Walker on July 17, 2013:

Barry & Rollo,

I've just had a stab at rescheduling in the "Community Workshops - Reschedule" worksheet of https://docs.google.com/a/astuntechnology.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqjoM30msjG9dFp4SDY3WU9IblVsWml3M3VJUjFLckE&usp=sharing

I've added a comment to the one item we've still got an issue with:

W28 - Markus Neteler - Advanced spatial data analysis with GRASS GIS 7 which is 6 hours and will only therefore fit on the Friday but Markus is co-presenting S42: 13:30 20th. Would moving S42 to Thu or Sat be feasible?

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on July 17, 2013:

Email Markus and ask if he really needs to be present for that presentation. Sometimes co-presenters are co-contributors and don't need to be there, just need to be in the credits.

Steven Feldman on July 17, 2013:

Note Markus was one of the most vocal people when we did not select his workshop in the first cut

#justsayin

Matt Walker on July 23, 2013:

I think I've now resolved all clashes and have heard back from Markus who has agreed to cut his workshop to 4 hours so that it can be scheduled on the 19th.

The current version is available here: https://docs.google.com/a/astuntechnology.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqjoM30msjG9dFp4SDY3WU9IblVsWml3M3VJUjFLckE#gid=7 ("Community Workshops - Reschedule" worksheet)

The only possible change is moving one of Simone Giannecchini's workshops to the Friday. I've emailed him to see what he wants to do. 

Could someone please give it a once over before we give Abi the go ahead to include it in the programme?

Matt Walker on July 24, 2013:

Hi Barry,

Would you be able to update the Workshop Programme on the website to display the co-presenters. I've added co-presenters for all of the workshops that I'm aware of.

Also what do you think we should do regarding getting the community workshops on the website? What do you think about adding them to the workshop programme page with some text to explain that they run alongside the main programme and are on a first come first served basis?

Matt.

Barry Rowlingson on July 24, 2013:

Adding copresenters to http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/programme/workshops shouldn't be a problem.

 How are you going to run the 'first-come first-served' thing. Is it really going to be counting people in at the door and saying "sorry we're full"? Will people want to be queueing beforehand to guarantee a spot?

I've not had any detailed plans about how to put everything in timetable form yet, including presentations, plenaries, community workshops and other oddities like the unconference. I'm not sure how much detail needs to go on one page.

I think I'll probably have a new class for community workshop that uses the Persons class and then I can somehow integrate it into the timetabling.. but as I say, not had a chance to detail this. I was hoping my mail to the discuss list about what people like on timetable pages would start some discussion that would help me prioritise web design, but nothing useful from that yet (wait for the rest of the world to wake up...)

ideas, url schemes, mockups all welcome...

Abi Page on July 24, 2013:

In the brochure text we have said that booking sheets for the free workshops will be near the Conference Desk for sign up, from the morning of the day that workshop is on (gives an opportunity for those with day passes to get the chance to "book").

If not correct need to know very soon.

Barry Rowlingson on July 24, 2013:

Can we get that info on the web pages now then? I see nothing about the community workshops on the programme menu, and we should at least have a description of what they are and the booking process even if we don't have a databased timetable page of them at the moment.