Virtual Meeting Planner

An online tool that convert time between different time zones to plan for future virtual meeting and offer recommendations if the time is feasible to meet in benefit of both the host and participant.

http://xhfeng5.pythonanywhere.com

November 2021 - December 2021

Han Feng - Developer

Background

As the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced the entire world, virtual meeting becomes the norms of how people communicate nowadays, especially when traveling has numerous restrictions. Therefore, converting time has been one of the most important step in scheduling a virtual meeting, as we cannot be in the same timezone together.

The common app “World Clock” is usually the most popular tool to convert time, but it only tells the time difference between locations and the current time.

Functionality

 

Virtual Meeting Planner solves this accessibility issues within "world clock" app by providing functionality to convert time between different time zones for a future date and time. Then, it will recommendation if the time is feasible to meet in benefit of both the host and participant, as the user chooses a mode for the machine to provide recommendation upon.

(Click on the image to navigate to the website)

Screenshot from: http://xhfeng5.pythonanywhere.com

Implementation

 

The website functionality was coded in Python, with access to 2 existing APIs:

  • Abstract Timezone API (https://www.abstractapi.com):

    • Accepts the two locations name and the targeted date time as parameters

    • Return responses in json that includes key information about the time conversion

  • Sunrise/Sunset API (https://sunrise-sunset.org/api):

    • Accepts the longitude and latitude of a location and the desired date as parameters

    • Return responses in json that contains the sunrise and sunset time, in UTC

The website style is formatted with Jinja (https://palletsprojects.com/p/jinja/), a template that combine HTML website formatting with python coded functionality, and easier to process user’s input on the website.

HTML was primarily used to develop the website style inside the Jinja Template, with some CSS involved to make adjustment on the visualizations.

 

Video Demonstration

This video walks through the detailed functionality of Virtual Meeting Planner, with live demonstrations of how to use the Virtual Meeting Planner with different inputs and settings

 
 

Reflection and Looking Forward

This is a project within my Interactive System Design and Technology course. Therefore, the project was developed on a very constrained timescale that needs to be working at minimum functionality by the end of the course. However, I have gotten very high evaluations and compliments from the instructors that I have built everything, with immediate application of the course knowledge, within about 3 weeks on top of other coursework.

With the additional feedback from the instructors, I have decided to take this project forward! In the next step, I will mainly focus on deeper internal functionalities, such as:

  • Allowing user to input multiple availability of the day for conversion

  • Provide better clarification about how different suggestions was configured and indicating the day of the week in a more clear way to avoid user confusions

  • Potential complications about suggesting meeting time for someone is far north/south that experiences extreme day length.

  • ……

As there are so many further improvement could be done, with my deep enthusiasm in coding and data processing, I believe this project will be promoted at another level! Stay tuned!