Alert on Temporal Intersections of Event Periods in Courses/Groups

1 Initial Problem

Currently, ILIAS cannot alert users in situations of arising course memberships about temporal intersections with other courses they are member of, or to be more precise, of temporal intersection of the courses' event periods.
Thus, users can potentially produce situations in which they (or other users) are scheduled for two or more live events in parallel.

2 Conceptual Summary

In situations of arising course membership, the acting user (no matter whether joining a course himself or adding other users as members) is alerted if the prospective member already has another course/group membership that causes a temporal intersection of event periods.

Since version 5.1, the "Period of Event" setting can offer the necessary data to be compared (in groups since version 5.2).

Thus, an alert function ...

• identifies the courses/groups the prospective user is a member[1] of
• differentiates whether such a period has been defined in a course/group at all
• compares the event periods
• alerts if the event period of the currently joined course/group has an intersection with the period of at least one other course/group

Special cases membership vs. application or waiting list:

• Even if a user is assigned to a course (or joins it) but is already on the application or waiting list of a course that features a (fully or partially) parallel event period, an alert appears.
• Vice versa: Even if a user only joins the application or waiting list of a course but is already member of a course that features a (fully or partially) parallel event period, an alert appears.

Distinctive remark:
This feature is just about alerting the acting user: He/she might ignore the alert and complete the course assignment.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

crs/join/, crs/members/crs_member_administration
grp/join/, grp/members/grp_member_administration

3.2 User Interface Details

Alert with wording like "At least one prospective member has conflicting events in other courses or groups", buttons "Continue" and "Abort".

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

Intermediate view between the views before and after joining / assigning members, similar to the one appearing when deleting objects.

4 Technical Information

{The maintainer has to provide necessary technical information, e.g. dependencies on other ILIAS components, necessary modifications in general services/architecture, potential security or performance issues.}

5 Contact

• Author of the Request: Bromberger, Norbert [bromberger]
• Maintainer: {Please add your name before applying for an initial workshop or a Jour Fixe meeting.}
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

6 Funding

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• …

7 Discussion

Open question:
What is supposed to happen if the event period of a course is changed at later time (or stated the first time only then)?
Possible solution:
A list of event conflicts is displayed to the acting user.

8 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.