Extensions to the iCalendar Data Model: Hierarchical Schedules and Temporally Related Events

Abstract

Computer calendaring has matured to the point where people's calendars are easily synchronized across devices, shared among other people and organizations, and used to coordinate and schedule mutually agreeable meeting times. These and other advances have made computer calendaring indispensable in people's personal and professional lives. Despite the recent advances in the scheduling capabilities of computer calendaring software, there are still areas of scheduling that are not so well accomplished -- or even possible -- in today's computer calendaring state of the art. Non-fixed date template schedules, used in military exercise and contingency plans (e.g., Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M)), are examples of schedules that are highly flexible and reusable. Because of their unique scheduling properties and relationships, however, they cannot be modeled in mainstream computer calendaring tools. As a result, when applying these types of schedules to a computer calendar, a great deal of human calculation, manual manipulation, and data entry are required to get the schedule information into the calendar. This thesis explores extensions to the iCalendar data model. These extensions will enable schedule hierarchies and temporally related events to be modeled in mainstream calendaring applications. The results will show considerable savings in human processing effort, and that reduction in data-entry errors is possible.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2012
Accession Number
ADA567501

Entities

People

  • Lesley W. Chiu

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Case Studies
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Computing Devices
  • Electronic Mail
  • Engineering
  • Gantt Charts
  • Mobile Devices
  • Personal Digital Assistants
  • Project Management
  • Scheduling (Production)
  • Spreadsheet Software
  • Web Browsers
  • Word Processors
  • Xml

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Operations Research
  • Systems Analysis and Design