Development of online equipment booking at the dental materials laboratory, Faculty of Dentistry, Prince of Songkla University

Abstract

           The dental materials laboratory, Faculty of Dentistry, Prince of Songkla University has more than 20 types of scientific equipment available. In our previous equipment reservation system, applicants had to reserve books by themselves at the laboratory, which was inconvenient and a waste of time. Therefore, an equipment reservation web-based scheduling system was developed using Google applications, following Form, Sheet, and Calendar, which are free programs for users who already have a Google account. However, during the system design, it was found that Google does not have the function to send data from Google Sheet to Google Calendar. Therefore, it is necessary to find other programs that can. We found that Zapier integration is an application that can be used to send data from Google Sheet to Google Calendar. When the Google Form is filled in by applicants, data in the Google Form will be sent to the Google Sheet and Zapier integration will be responsible for submitting the reservation information to the Google Calendar. When this calendar code was embedded in the laboratory website, the booking information will be displayed on the laboratory calendar within 15 minutes. This system, therefore, facilitates both applicants and laboratory staff in managing time, work and data collection using scientific instruments to prepare statistical data to manage science supplies conveniently and quickly.