[Scheduler] Enable Teachers to Schedule Special Appointments for People not Currently Their Student

[PBart0]

Problem statement:

Several times per term, it would be useful to schedule an appointment with someone who is not currently in one of my classes, yet for whom an office appointment would be the obvious move, but this must be done with work-arounds. Inevitably, one has to work from two schedules, Canvas and Outlook, instead of one.

Proposed solution:

Make it possible for the teacher/professor to book a schedule on behalf of a non-routine advisee. At a college or university, such people might include prospective students, students being advised on a special topic such as a major fellowship application, colleagues needing to talk shop, or even some members of the public seeking consulting. I usually schedule these as an "event," but it would be simpler and more rational for the teacher to be able to simply book an existing appointment time for a non-routine advisee rather than deleting one of those to make way for the "event." It's also awkward to clutter up one's roster of formal advisees with people needing one-off appointments--and it is also impossible to make someone outside the institution an advisee for any purpose, even though those purposes are many and legitimate (e.g. advising high school teachers about teaching composition).

User role(s):

admin,instructor,student,ta,observer

[PBart0]

I just had two experiences this past week in which the teacher having the ability to book a regularly scheduled appointment for someone else actually applied even to current students--and it was crazy-making! 

I have regular office hours and special tutorial hours, which are longer than regular ones.  This week--again, twice--I opened up a special tutorial time for a student who couldn't make any of the regularly scheduled ones. 

Wouldn't you know, before the intended student had booked, another student poached the special appointment.  So frustrating, and so avoidable if only teachers could go right ahead and make the booking without waiting for the student to do it.

I guess that an instructor booking would have to require that the student's email be added somewhere, so that any reminders would work.

But please, let's do this, and maybe expand/slightly change the original proposal to include instructor bookings to all cases.