AUTOMATION OF VISITORS APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING

SYSTEM

BY
ADEWUMI ABIODUN FELIX
13/47CS/317

A PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER

SCIENCE, COLLEGE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGY, KWARA STATE UNIVERSITY, MALETE.

IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONS.) IN COMPUTER SCIENCE.

MAY, 2017

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 CERTIFICATION
This is to certify that this project work was carried out by ADEWUMI ABIODUN FELIX of
Matric Number 13/47CS/317 under my supervision and it is a fair reflection of the student input

Dr. R.M Isiaka PROF .K.A Gbolagade

(Supervisor) (Head of Department)

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 DEDICATION
This project work is dedicated to Almighty GOD, the Alpha and Omega, the Author and Finisher
of my faith for His mercy and countless blessing over me and also to my parent who persevered
and provided me with much inspiration and energy to go on.

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my most sincere appreciation to my supervisor DR. R.M Isiaka without
whose patience and critical guidance this work would not have been realized. My sincere thanks
are due to both teaching and non-teaching staff of Kwara State University for their support and
advice.
Special thanks also go to all my classmate and friends, most especially Omole Opeyemi
Olayemi for her support and encouragement through the study period.
Most of all, I am grateful to the almighty God for the strength and good health that he gave me
throughout the study. Lastly I would like to acknowledge the immense support and
encouragement, which I received from my loving mom MRS. Adewumi for been my backbone.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page
Certification 2
Dedication 3
Acknowledgement 4
Tables of content 5
List of charts 6
List of table 8
List of figures 9
Abstract 10

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.0. Background of Study 11
1.1. Problem Statement 12
1.2. Aim and Objectives 12
1.3. Scope of Study 13
1.4. Significance of Study 13
CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Appointment 14
2.1 Scheduling 14
2.1.1. Type of Scheduling 14
2.1.1.1. Time Specified (Stream) Scheduling 15
2.1.1.2. Wave Scheduling 15
2.1.1.3. Modified Wave Scheduling 15
2.1.1.4. Double Booking 16
2.1.1.5. Open Booking 16
2.2. Appointment Scheduling 17

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 2.2.1. Type of Appointment Scheduling 17
2.2.1.1. Traditional Appointment Scheduling 17
2.2.1.2. Open Access Appointment Scheduling 17

2.3. Method of Appointment Scheduling 18

2.4. Overview of Tools and Programming Languages 19

2.4.1 PHP 19

2.4.2 JAVASCRIPT 20

2.4.3 MYSQL 20

2.5 Outpatient Appointment Scheduling with Urgent Clients in a,

Dynamic Multi- period environment 21
2.6. Conceptual Design of a Web Based Appointment Management
System 22
2.7 Optimization of Online Patient Scheduling With Urgencies and
Preferences 23
2.8 Design and Implementation of Dentist Online Reservation System 24
2.9Appointment Scheduling Under Patient Preference and No-Show
Behavior 25

2.10 Design and Implementation of a Dependable Online Appointment 26

System for NHIS Outpatient in Nigeria Teaching Hospital

2.11 Smart Appointment Reservation System 27

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.0 Investigation of the Current Appointment Scheduling System 28

3.1 Design A System That Would Solve The Appointment 29

Scheduling Issues Found in the Current Scheduling System 30

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 3.2 Experimental Set Up 30
3.2.1Sequential System Approach 22
3.3 Proposed System 33
3.3.1Techniques and procedure 34
3.3.2Modules Analysis 34
3.3.2.1 Visitor Modules 34
3.3.2.2 Vice Chancellor’s Modules 34
3.3.2.3 Timing Allotment Analysis 35
3.3.2.4 Visitors Booking Recommender 35
3.4 Registration Table Structure 36
3.5 Scheduling Table Structure 36
3.6 Message Table Structure 37
3.7 Record Table Structure 37
3.8. Snapshot of the System implementation 38
3.8.1 Home Page 38
3.8.2 Registration Page 39
3.8.3 Login Page 39
3.8.4 Schedule Page 40
3.8.5 Book Appointment Page 41
3.8.6 How It Works Page 41
3.8.7 Drop Message Page 41
3.8.8 View Schedule Page 42
3.8.9 View Record Page 43
3.8.10 View Messages Page 44
3.9 System Evaluation 45

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS

4.0 Testing 46

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 4.1 Survey Method 48
4.2 Result 50
4.3 Discussion 50

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATION

5.0 Conclusion 51
5.1 Recommendation 52
References 53
Appendix 56

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1: System Architecture

Chart 2: System Flow Chat
Chart 3: System Use Case
Chart 4: Time Allotment Chart
Chart 5: Visitor Recommender Model

LISTS OF TABLES
Table 1: Registration Table Structure
Table 2: Scheduling Table Structure
Table 3: Message Table Structure
Table 4: Records Table Structure
Table 5: User Characteristics Table
Table 6: Usability Table

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Sample of Existing System

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Figure 2: Home Page
Figure 3: Registration Page
Figure 4: Login Page
Figure 5: Schedule Page
Figure 6: Book Appointment Page
Figure 7: How It Works Page
Figure 8: Drop Message Page
Figure 9: View Schedule page
Figure 10: View Record Page
Figure 11: View Message Page

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 ABSTRACT
Scheduling appointments is one of the most important administrative responsibilities performed
in the offices. Over the years, there have been high rates of missed appointment, which result
from the unorganized and unreliable way of scheduling appointment which involves the
scheduling of appointment on paper. Appointment scheduling has been in existence but there are
some limitations like presence of visitor in order to book appointment, waiting time, loss of
information. This project focused on an automated appointment scheduling of the vice
chancellors office of Kwara State University. The system was developed using developmental
tools which consist of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), PHP
and JavaScript. The effectiveness of the system was evaluated by administering usability
questionnaires. From the result analysis, in which a total of 20 students consisting of 14 male and
6 female examined the system. From the result, 69.06% agreed that the new system is a time
saving tool, 88.01% said that the new system is user friendly, 68.32% of the people said that the
new system is the style in the existing system, 77.38% agreed that the new system can be
adopted as a standard method of scheduling appointment, 91.85% said that the new system is
well structured, 79.79% agreed that the new system allows interaction.

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 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 BACKGROUND TO STUDY

Scheduling appointments is one of the most important administrative responsibilities performed

in the offices. Appointment scheduling can be classified into two broad categories. Static and

Dynamic. In static appointment scheduling all decisions must be made prior to the beginning of a

session, which is the most common appointment system in healthcare. In dynamic appointment

scheduling the schedule of future arrivals are revised continuously over the course of the day

based on the current state of the system. (Cayirli, Veral). Until the 1970s, people went to medical

offices expecting to wait as long as an hour or more because most physicians like to see a full

waiting room which makes them feels that their practice was healthy. Going into the new

century, people have little tolerance for waiting in an office. Lifestyles have changed and people

have busy lives. Many have to take personal time away from work to go to the offices, and they

feel that their time is as valuable as the physician’s time. Scheduling appointments correctly and

efficiently is crucial to the smooth operation of the medical office. Many factors must be taken

into consideration when scheduling appointments. The patient who has made an appointment

weeks or even months in advance wants to be seen within 15 to 20 minutes after arriving at the

medical office. The physician wants a smooth flow of patients during the time scheduled for

seeing patients. Patients who are ill or have accidents want to be able to see their physician on

the day of the illness or injury. They prefer to be given a specific time, even if it is later in the

day, rather than come into the office and wait for an open moment... Also, Schedulers are faced

with many kinds of problems. For example, it is very difficult for the schedulers to process the

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requests on paper, and there is no way to query and retrieve a request other than going through

every single one of them. (An Li, 2004).

The appointment scheduling options being offer today are time consuming, unreliable, and

unorganized. In order to schedule an appointment, visitors must walk into the office and search

the appointment book for an available timeslot; or make a telephone call and wait for the

secretary to tell them of the staff’s available timeslots. But the most wonderful and useful

advantage is that online appointment scheduling is amazingly low cost (Danielle, 2014)

1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Over the years, there have been high rates of missed appointment, which result from the

unorganized and unreliable way of scheduling appointment which involves the scheduling of

appointment on paper. Appointment scheduling has been in existence but there are some

limitations like presence of visitor to schedule appointment, waiting time, loss of

information. For this reason. Since there is a an advancement in technology, visitors can now

schedule appointment online on either a mobile device or computer system to enhance

proper management of time, people and information.

1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES

1.2.1 AIM

The aim of this project is to design and implement an automated visitor’s appointment

scheduling system for Kwara State University Vice Chancellors Office

1.2.1 OBJECTIVES

The following objectives are to be achieved.

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 i. To investigate the current appointment scheduling system of Kwara State University

Vice Chancellors Office

ii. To design an appointment scheduling system.

iii. To implement the new appointment scheduling system.

iv. To evaluate the effectiveness of the developed system.

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This project is intended to mimic the organizational structure flow and tend to study the mode of

operation between Kwara State University Vice Chancellors Office and corresponding visitor’s

log book entry thereby formulating an automated model that will inherit the technical workflow

and process to produce a web based visitor’s scheduling application. This project will employ the

waterfall approach using object oriented programming skills in PHP with also a dynamic twitter

bootstrap user interface.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

The Design and Implementation of visitors scheduling appointment system will automate official

appointments making way for easy access, accurate time meeting and also ensuring consistent

and timely appointment keeping in an office environment.

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 CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Appointment

Appointment can be define as the process of creating an arrangement to meet someone at a

particular time and place

2.1 Scheduling

Scheduling is the process of arranging, controlling and optimizing work and workloads in a

production process or manufacturing process. Scheduling is used to allocate plant and machinery

resources, plan human resources, plan production processes and purchase materials.

It is an important tool for manufacturing and engineering, where it can have a major impact on

the productivity of a process. In manufacturing, the purpose of scheduling is to minimize the

production time and costs, by telling a production facility when to make, with which staff, and

on which equipment. Production scheduling aims to maximize the efficiency of the operation and

reduce costs.

2.1.1 Type of Scheduling

The various type of scheduling we have included:

2.1.1.1 Time-Specified (Stream) Scheduling

Time-specified scheduling, also known as stream scheduling, involves scheduling appointments

at a specific time. Most offices use this method for scheduling appointments. The goal of time-

specified appointments is to minimize the waiting time for the patient and, at the same time, to

keep a steady flow of patients moving through the office (like a stream of water). The amount of

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time allotted for a time- specified appointment depends on the reason for the visit. In general, the

following times are allotted:

• New patient: 30 to 45 minutes

• Complete physical examination: 30 to 45 minutes

• Established patient: 10 to 20 minutes when using the time-specified method, the medical

assistant needs to make sure to allow time in the schedule to accommodate urgent visits, such as

ill or injured patients. There are two other terms that may be used for this type of scheduling:

fixed appointment scheduling or single booking.

2.1.1.2 Wave Scheduling

With wave scheduling, three or four patients are scheduled every half hour and are seen in the

order in which they arrive at the office. The goal is for patients to arrive in “waves” so that there

is always a patient waiting to be seen. Sometimes, ill patients are seen before those with routine

appointments. This scheduling system assumes that some patients will need to be worked into

the schedule. Sometimes patients become uncomfortable when they realize that another patient

was given the same appointment time, but a simple explanation can usually reassure the patient.

The medical assistant might say, “We schedule all our patients on the hour, and then they are

seen in the order they arrive. There is always a patient to be seen, and we find that waiting time is

often shorter.”

2.1.1.3 Modified Wave Scheduling

The wave system can be changed in several ways to create a modified wave schedule. The office

may schedule patients at specific times during the first half of each hour, and keep the second

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half hour open for special circumstances. This may include working in patients, seeing patients

who arrived late, or finishing up with patients from the first half hour. Another modification to

the wave system is to schedule one appointment that is expected to take longer on the hour (e.g.,

physical examination), and to schedule three or four rechecks (follow-up appointments) on the

half hour

2.1.1.4 Double Booking

When two patients are given the same appointment time, the practice is called double booking.

Double booking means that two patients are scheduled into a single time slot. Double booking

may be used when a patient can be fitted in around a patient undergoing a diagnostic procedure

such as an electrocardiogram (ECG). It is also used when a patient with an injury or acute illness

must be added to an already-full schedule.

2.1.1.5 Open Booking

Sometimes patients are not given a specific appointment time but are told to come in during a

time range, such as between 9:00 am and 11:00 am. The patients are then seen in the order in

which they arrive. In an open- booking system, patients with an injury or an acute illness are

usually seen ahead of patients with less significant complaints. Sometimes medical offices and

clinics have walk-in hours designated for acute conditions before regular office hours. In this

situation, patients are seen in the order of arrival. Open booking works best when there is a

constant stream of patients or when a practice is not busy. Because patient flow is unpredictable,

patients often have to wait a long time.

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2.2 Appointment Scheduling

This is the process of arranging, controlling and optimizing an arrangement to meet someone at a

particular time and place

2.2.1 Types of Appointment Scheduling

The types of appointment scheduling include:

2.2.1.1 Traditional Appointment Scheduling

A patient is scheduled for a future appointment time and the number of patient granted an

appointment has an upper limit each time period. The appointment lead time could be very long

(several weeks or a month in advance), which may result in a high No-show probability.

2.2.1.2 Open Access Appointment Scheduling

The number of patients request per day is random. A patient is assigned to a time bucket within a

relatively short time period (one or two days in advance from the time they request an

appointment), since shorter appointment can help to reduce patients’ no-show probability and

reduce uncertainty in clinic operations. Robinson and Chen (2009) examined two types of open

access scheduling policies. The first policy assumes that all patients are assigned to the same day

they request an appointment, and overtime is used to cover excess demand in a time period. The

other policy assumes that some patients are assigned to other days if the demand is unusually

high. Robinson and Chen also claimed open access scheduling outperforms the traditional

appointment scheduling by different performance measurements of appointment system,

including over time and idle time of physicians, and patients’ weighted average waiting time.

However, this conclusion does not hold when the no-show probability is very small.

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2.3 Methods of Appointment Scheduling

The common methods of requesting an appointment include walk-in, call-in, and online request.

When a patient arrives at a clinic or calls the clinic to make an appointment, some clinics will

record the appointments by using a scheduling book or a simple online appointment calendar.

This is the traditional method to make an appointment, while online appointment scheduling is

more popular nowadays. One Wall Street Journal survey pointed out that the majority of adults

prefer the online appointment scheduling. Compared with other methods, the online scheduling

system has three advantages:

1) 24-hour convenience: for most clinics, phone access is only available during office hours,

while online system is more convenient for patients.

2) Time saving: clinic staff spends less time on the phone booking and patients do not need to

wait during peak hours in the clinics.

3) Patient’s satisfaction: the online scheduling system allows patients to select physicians and

time slots based on patients’ preference, which will reduce no-show probability and improve

patient health outcomes (Bowser, Utz, Glick, & Harmon, 2010, Schectman, Schorling, & Voss,

2008).

There are two most common types of online scheduling. One is patients input their contact

information and type of service requesting through an online request form. The clinic will

contact patients and provide an available slot for appointments. Another one is patients can select

a physician, type of service requesting and the available appointment slots. The system will

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automatically confirm the booking without any staff action. In this thesis, the second type of

online appointment scheduling is assumed.

2.4 Overview of tools and programming languages

This subsection describes the tools and programming languages that will be used for this

research.

2.4.1 PHP

PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for web development but also used as a

general-purpose programming language. Originally created by RasmusLerdorf in 1994, the PHP

reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. While PHP originally stood for

Personal Home Page, it now stands for the recursive backronym PHP: Hypertext Pre-processor.

PHP code may be embedded into HTML code, or it can be used in combination with various

Web template systems and web frameworks. PHP code is usually processed by a PHP interpreter

implemented as a module in the web server or as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI)

executable. The web server combines the results of the interpreted and executed PHP code,

which may be any type of data, including images, with the generated web page. PHP code may

also be executed with a command-line interface (CLI) and can be used to implement standalone

graphical applications.

The standard PHP interpreter, powered by the Zend Engine, is free software released under the

PHP License. PHP has been widely ported and can be deployed on most web servers on almost

every operating system and platform, free of charge. The PHP language evolved without a

written formal specification or standard until 2014, leaving the canonical PHP interpreter as a de

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facto standard. Since 2014 work has been ongoing to create a formal PHP specification. (Source:

Wikipedia).

PHP was selected for this research as it is one of the most successful scripting languages used for

writing web applications. PHP is scalable and friendly to use.

2.4.2 JAVASCRIPT

It is a scripting language used to enable programmatic access to objects within other

applications. It is primarily used in the form of client-side JavaScript for the development of

dynamic website.

2.4.3 MYSQL

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS), in July 2013, it

was the world's second most widely used RDBMS, and the most widely used open- source

client–server model RDBMS. It is named after co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter, My

SQL acronym stands for Structured Query Language. The MySQL development project has

made its source code available under the terms of the GNU General Public License, as well as

under a variety of proprietary agreements. MySQL was owned and sponsored by a single for-

profit firm, the Swedish company MySQL AB, now owned by Oracle Corporation. For

proprietary use, several paid editions are available, and offer additional functionality.

MySQL is a popular choice of database for use in web applications, and is a central component

of the widely used LAMP open source web application software stack (and other "AMP"

stacks). LAMP is an acronym for "Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python." Free-software-

open source projects that require a full-featured database management system often use

MySQL. Applications that use the MySQL database include: TYPO3, MODx, Joomla,

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WordPress, phpBB, MyBB, Drupal and other software. MySQL is also used in many high-

profile, large-scale websites, including Google (though not for searches), Facebook, Twitter,

Flickr, and YouTube.

On all platforms except Windows, MySQL ships with no GUI tools to administer MySQL

databases or manage data contained within the databases. Users may use the included

command line tools, or install MySQL Workbench via a separate download. Many third party

GUI tools are also available.

2.5 Outpatient Appointment Scheduling With Urgent Clients In A Dynamic, Multi-Period

Environment.

One application developed to manage patients’ appointment scheduling has used exponential

enter arrival times. This model assumes that the exponential enter arrival times could not be

directly validated by date, and it is limited due to the nature of the appointment scheduling. Since

appointments are scheduled in the future, the exact model of call arrivals will only have limited

impact on measures related to the time between the call and the appointment time. For this

reason, the challenge for making appointment system is designing a suitable system based on the

health care procedure environment. Hence, the appointment provider in the health care center

can schedule a patient into an appropriate time slot on a given day.

Klassen, Rohleder (2004).developed another method for managing patients’ appointment using

multiple schedule appointment in multiple period environments. Patients can call for any

appointment time but if the period time is full, they should replace the appointment to another

time. Moreover, various combinations for multi appointment and double booking are measured

and recommended for different operational use depending on the health care environment

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because the varying appointment request has little effect on appointment system performance,

especially maintaining acceptable performance, except when the system has the overloaded

option.

Many studies about patients’ appointment have found that there are rules or policies for

scheduling appointment system such as no scheduling for more than 20 or 30 clients and the best

schedule is to place two patients in the first appointment and spread the rest consistently over a

period based on average service times (Klassen, 2004). On the other hand, a patient can call for

an appointment without knowledge of the type of appointment and appointment queue number

and the patient is not aware whether the appointment is variable or not. Sometimes the exact

duration for each patient can be known but at other times this is unknown (Rohleder, 2004).

2.6 Conceptual Design of a Web Based Appointment Management System

Karen, siti (2007) design a web based appointment management system due to the

mismanagement of appointment with the aim of converting the traditional method of scheduling

appointment into a web based.

Based on literature review, most of the existing system were developed using ad-hoc approach

with consideration functionality only. There is a little emphasis on design and development

process. Only few appointment management systems adopt UML which is widely recognized

modeling standard to design system. Due to complexity, UML cannot perfectly achieve the goals

of web application development. Web modeling language (WebML) which is specified for web

application can reduce development efforts (cost and time) and allows a more structured

development process. The methodology used in the design of the system and development of the

system is the use of WebML because it supports both modelling web application and html form.

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The system also consists of different modules like application module, report module,

consultation module, user access module, user maintenance module.

2.7 Optimization of Online Patient Scheduling With Urgencies and Preferences.

Vermealen (2009) studied an online appointment system considering different urgency of

patients and their preferences. This paper considered the situation when a patient made an

appointment for a diagnosis test. The objective was to assign patients before their next consult

date with the physician. Non-urgent patients were assigned based on minimum access time and

urgent patients were assigned to any timeslots left over on days before minimum access time.

When considering patients’ preference, three Boolean-type preference models were considered

work/non-work hours on one day, multiple preferred days and a combination of previous two.

Three benchmark policies were proposed to make a selection based on a weighed combination of

scheduling performance (capacity utilization) and patients’ preference fulfillment. The first was

to assign patients strictly to capacity of urgent/non-urgent patients. The second was to assign

patients to capacity of equal or lower urgency. The last was to assign patients to capacity of

equal or lower urgency with dynamic overflow. An experiment was conducted to compare the

three policies above. The result showed the trade-off between schedule performance and

patients’ preferences.

2.8 Design and Implementation of Dentist Online Reservation System

Chutisant, Nwe (2012) proposed and design a dentist online reservation system to solve the poor

and inefficient way of booking appointment. Online dentist reservation system allows the

system administer to access and manage the database online, quickly pull data and create strong

reports right from the online reservation system with most practical to find the fastest

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information, instead of having to maintain and manage separate data files, folders and

spreadsheets. They simply navigate to the system just as any Web Site. The data will be housed

securely and safely online. The author started the development of the system by creating Web

Forms applications using .NET Framework 2.0 tools and technologies in visual studio 2010. The

processes include on coding activities that enhance the performance and scalability of the Web

site application. The .NET Framework provides an extensible architecture for customizing the

behavior and display of components and controls in design mode. For programming language,

C# was used for the whole system and ASP.NET master pages help to create a consistent layout

for the pages in an application. The proposed system was tested by running the system on the

Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer with the local host server. The user evaluation of the

prototype was conducted on 20 students from Rangsit University International College. Each of

them was given brief explanation regarding the usage and the user interface of the prototype, test

the system, and answer the survey questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of 10 questions to

assess the user satisfaction and to prove the usability of the proposed system. Figure 7 shows the

result and level of usability of the system based on the feedback of 20 students. The result shows

high number of users agrees that system is usable, helpful and meet the main objective of the

project.

2.9 Appointment Scheduling Under Patient Preference And No-Show Behavior.

Feldman (2012) considered an electronic appointment booking systems with patients’

preferences and no-show probability. The objective of this paper was to maximize the expected

net “profit” for each day. The profit was the difference between the cost of number of patients

that schedule an appointment and show up. They assumed a single physician in the clinic. It was

also assumed that one patient can make an appointment on an available day or leave without any

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appointment if the preferences cannot be met. To estimate the no-show probability, it was

assumed that patient choice behavior was followed by multinomial logit choice model. They

developed static and dynamic appointment scheduling optimization models to solve the problem.

The static model did not consider the state of the booked appointments and the result pointed out

this model is suitable when patient load is high. For dynamic model, it considered the state of

booked appointments. An approximate method was proposed by applying a Markov decision

process formulation. A simulation study was conducted to compare the four policies. The first

and second policies were based on the static and dynamic models respectively. The third policy

was a capacity controlled implementation of open access. The last policy was a complement of

the third policy offering all days in the scheduling horizon. The criteria were based on expected

profit per day and percentage gap between the expected profit per day for the second and other

policies. The result pointed out the second policy-dynamic model was a better policy among all

policies.

2.10 Design and Implementation of a Dependable Online Appointment Booking System for

NHIS Outpatient in Nigeria Teaching Hospital

Adebayo, Olajide, Kehinde (2014) design an online appointment booking system due the number

of missed appointment in healthcare institutions in Nigeria. Appointment scheduling system lies

at the intersection of providing efficiency and timely access to health services. This research

presents an online National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Outpatient Medical Appointment

Booking System where NHIS patients can access and view any available personnel or doctor

schedule in order to book an appointment with the corresponding time as specified by the

available doctor. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, the researchers personally

went to three Nigerian teaching hospitals within south western Nigeria with focus on NHIS

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patients and observed the appointment schedule in those hospitals. Also as a follow up, the

researchers interviewed 4 physicians and 10 patients in each of the teaching hospitals in order to

assess the manual appointment and booking method. In addition, data on appointment booking

and schedule were collected through structured and unstructured personal interview. Some of the

forms used in the outpatient clinics on appointment booking were also collected and were used

as a guide in order to develop the online medical appointment booking system for NHIS patients

in Nigeria.

Database was developed using MySQL for the system. In the process of developing medical

appointment booking system for NHIS patients, records were stored in the database. MySQL in

wampserver was used to create and populate the database. The medical appointment booking

system for NHIS patients in Nigeria was implemented using dream weaver, and PHP. Apache

was used as the server to provide basic functionality of the web GIS. PHP was used as a scripting

language to program the server side that manipulates the knowledge in the database. The system

delegates some administrative work to the patients by allowing them to manage their own

appointment and personal profiles. Time will not be wasted on converting paper-based

appointment record into electronic-based. The system further helps to reduces healthcare

personnel workload by allowing them to generate medical reports easily. They could now

maximize their competence and allocate more time to maximize service quality.

2.11 Smart Appointment Reservation System

Gowthem, Kaliyamurthie (2015) design a smart appointment reservation system due to the live

queues at consulting rooms resulting from the fact that reservations are made on paper. Paper

registration allows work for one operator only and in single workplace. This restricts efficiency

of work and results in queues at reception desks and blockages of telephone lines. Expediency of

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such system is low and fails meeting needs of both users of health care services (the patients) and

suppliers of these services (physicians, reception desk personnel and administration staff). Most

elements of the reservation system are ineffective, and therefore too much time of human

resources, patients and employees is consumed for usual operations, and material costs are too

high as well. The methodology used in developing the system is the use of .NET Framework 4.0

tools in developing the web form and technologies in visual studio 2010. And the SQL Server

2008 to obtain the building of the system. The system helps the administrators and staff can

conduct their tasks more efficiently and accurately, while customers and clients have the ability

to book their appointments and reservations quickly and more conveniently.

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 CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This is a procedural system development phase of the system which is in accordance to the

objectives stated in Chapter one.

3.0 Investigation of the Current Appointment Scheduling System

The current appointment scheduling system of the Kwara State University Vice

Chancellors Office was studied and it was found that the process involve the use of the

manual way of appointment where a visitor will have to fill a log book and wait till the day

he gets a call or message that the Vice Chancellor is ready to see him/her. It involves a lot

of paper work which make it tedious and also another disadvantage is that the secretary in

charge of the office can terminate an appointment or strike a name on a slot and put in

another name due to personal reasons. Another disadvantage is that even if the visitor has

been giving a time to see the Vice Chancellor, and he/she is there to see him, a person with

high priory than the visitor will go in even without booking an appointment and this lead to

high rate of people waiting at the reception.

Below is a pictorial representation of the existing system which involves the process where

a visitor walks into the vice chancellors office reception to obtain a visitors form which

contain the name, address, phone number, purpose of visit date/time of visit and signature

of the visitor. it also contain the vice chancellors comment and signature and date. After the

form is being completed by the visitor, it is being submitted to the personal assistance of

the vice chancellor who will figure out the day the vice chancellor will be available to see

the visitor. He also contacts the visitor before the day.

28
3.01. Sample of Existing System

Figure 1: Sample of Existing System.

29
 3.1 Design of the System That Would Solve the Appointment Scheduling Issues Found In

the Current Scheduling System.

3.1.1 SYSTEM ARCHITECHTURE

START

APPOPINTMENT
SCHEDULING
SYSTEM

VISITOR VICE CHANCELLOR

GENERATE
REGISTER LOGIN LOGIN
REPORT

BOOKAPPOINTME TIMERECOMENDE CONFIRM

ALLOTETIME
NT R BOOKED TIME

Chart 1: System Architecture

30
3.1.2 System Flow Chat

START

SYSTEM USERS

VISITORS VICE CHANCELLOR

NO
REGISTER LOGIN
IF VISITOR
REGISTER
YES
SCHEDULE ON
LOGIN DAILY BASIC

BOOK
APPOINTMENT

NO IF TIME NOT ALLOTTED TIMING

CHECK FOR FREE
ALREADY SCHEDULE
UNALLOTED TIME
ALLOTED (Hour Basics)

YES

ACCEPT
APPOINTMENT

STOP

Chart 2:System Flow Chart

31
 3.1.3 System Use Case

REGISTRATION GENERATE
REPORT

r
LOGIN
REPORT

RECOMMEND ALLOTE TIME

TIME

BOOK
CONFIRM
APPOINTMENT
BOOKED TIME

SEND MESSAGE VIEW MESSAGE

VC’S
VISITOR
PERSONAL
ASSISTANCE

Chart 3: System use case

32
3.2 Experimental Set Up

The development of the Vice chancellor and visitors scheduling system will take into account a

sequential and procedural style of development using latest trend tech tools and technologies.

The system will adopt the use of developmental tools which consist of HTML (Hypertext

Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), PHP and JavaScript. The HTML and CSS is

used for the design of front end user interface while JavaScript is used for scripting and

development of the modules sections while it also send communication to a SQLite (Structured

Query Language) Database for the back end integration while the PHP is server side scripting

language that relates queries into the database and also output formatted queried results to the

user.

3.2.1 Sequential System Approach

1. Front End Design

2. Client Side Scripting

3. Database Modeling

4. Server Side Scripting

3.3 Proposed System

The proposed system has the following advantages

1 The automated system is widely available to all visitors at any location due to its server

based centrality.

2 Secured.

33
 3 It Gives appropriate timing scheduling

The system development modules and analysis is shown below for extensive breakdown

3.3.1 Techniques and procedure

The visitor scheduling systems will be an online automated system to be developed in an

object based oriented programming PHP and MySQL backend tool. The system application

will consist of the following modules.

3.3.2 Modules Analysis

The visitor scheduling system is divided into two modules namely, Visitor module and Vice

Chancellor’s module.

3.3.2.1 Visitor Modules

The user module will enable the following functionalities

1. Login Details

2. Registration Details

3. Timing Schedule Details

4. Book Appointment

3.3.2.2Vice Chancellor’s Modules

1. Login Details

2. Registration Details

3. Timing allotment Dash Board

4. Booking Timing Confirmation panel

34
 5. Generate Report

3.3.2.3Timing Allotment Analysis

In order to create a well intuitive and interactive timing allotment process, an automatic

dash board panel will be developed for the user to automate timing and periods for

visitors. The Timing Chart is modeled below.

Time Allotment key

On
Timing Period
Off
8-9am
Time Allotment key
On
Timing Period
Off
9-10am
Time Allotment key
On
Timing Period
Off
10-11am
Time Allotment key
On
Timing Period
Off
11-12am

Chart 4: Time Allotment Chart

The timing allotment is going to follow the modeled above thereby creating a dynamic creation

of time schedule by the staff.

3.3.2.4Visitors Booking Recommender

The booking recommender informs the visitors the time that are not yet being scheduled and

available, it also gives the user the time that are already scheduled.

35
 Booking Recomender
Timing Period Available
8-9am
Booking Recomender
N.Availabl
Timing Period
e
9-10am
Booking Recomender
Timing Period Available
10-11am
Booking Recomender
N.Availabl
Timing Period
e
11-12am

Chart 5: Visitor Recommender Model

3.4 Registration Table Structure

The table shows how the internal registration part of the system which consist of the field, type,

null, default, and comment. The field consists of records within the table. The type consist of the

data variety of the record within the table .it also have a specific length i.e. if the record entered

has reached the declared length, it stop the intake of record.

Table 1: Registration Table Structure

36
3.5 Scheduling Table Structure

The table shows how the internal scheduling part of the system which consists of the field, type,

null, default, and comment. The field consists of records within the table. The type consist of the

data variety of the record within the table .it also have a specific length i.e. if the record entered

has reached the declared length, it stop the intake of record.

Table 2: Scheduling Table Structure

3.6 Message Table Structure

The table shows how the internal message part of the system which consist of the field, type,

null, default, and comment. The field consists of records within the table. The type consist of the

data variety of the record within the table .it also have a specific length i.e. if the record entered

has reached the declared length, it stop the intake of record.

Table 3: Message Table Structure

37
3.7 Records Table Structure

The table shows how the internal record part of the system which consist of the field, type, null,

default, and comment. The field consists of records within the table. The type consist of the data

variety of the record within the table .it also have a specific length i.e. if the record entered has

reached the declared length, it stop the intake of record.

Table 4: Records Table Structure

3.8 Snapshot of the System

3.8.1 Home Page

The home page (index page) which displays immediately the application is launched is shown

below. It has three main navigation panels’ namely home page, VC login and visitor login.

Figure 2: Home Page

38
3.8.2 Registration

This page allows a new visitor to register with his/her personal details in order to gain access to

the application.

Figure 3: Registration Page

3.8.3 Login Page

This is the page where both the VC and the VISITOR input their details to gain access to the

website.

39
 Figure 4: Login Page

3.8.4 Schedule Page

This is the page where the VC inputs the hours in which he will be available to be visited.

Figure 5: Schedule Page

40
3.8.5 Book Appointment Page

This is the page on the user panel where the users will be able to book appointment with the Vice

Chancellor.

Figure 6: Book Appointment Page

3.8.6 How It Works Page

This is the page on the user panel where the users will be able to read the detailed instruction on

how the software works.

41
Figure 7: How it Works Page

3.8.7 Drop Message Page

This is the page on the user panel where the users will be able to drop personal message for the

vice chancellor.

42
Figure 8: Drop Message Page

3.8.8 View Schedule Page

This is the page where the Vice Chancellor is able to view the list of visitor that booked

appointment

Figure 9: View Schedule Page

3.8.9View Record Page

This is the page where the Vice Chancellor is able to view the detail of visitors that booked

appointment.

43
Figure 10: View Record Page

3.8.10ViewMessages Page

This is the page where the Vice Chancellor is able to view the personal message sent to him by

each users.

Figure 11: View Message Page

44
3.9 SYSTEM EVALUATION

Evaluation or result and discussion on the performance and usability of the system to ascertain it

effect on learning is chosen to be a whole chapter, and is done in chapter four.

45
 CHAPTER FOUR

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

4.0 TESTING

This is a stage of the project where by the developed system is being used by the public to know

how effective the system is. During this process, a random selection of 20 people which consist

of (14) male and (6) female were selected and made to use the system, their feedback and

thought about the system were reported. Below are tables that describe the obtained result.

TABLE 5

FREQUENCY PERCENTAGE (%)

GENDER

Male 14 70

Female 6 30

AGE

18 – 40 11 55

41 – 60 6 30

61 – 80 3 15

Do you access the internet

Yes 16 80

No 4 20

How do you access the

internet

46
Mobile Phone 13 65

Computer System 7 35

Have you ever booked an

appointment

Yes 15 75

No 5 25

How often do you book

appointment

Never 5 25

Daily 0 0

Weekly 7 35

Monthly 2 10

Occasionally 6 30

How was your experience

with the existing system

Good 3 20

Bad 12 80

Table 5: User Characteristics Table

47
4.1 Survey Method

In this study, the system was tested using questionnaire and direct usability of the system.

Therefore in order know the user thought about the visitor’s appointment scheduling system, a

questionnaire was created to extract their opinion.

Table above shows the characteristics of the randomly selected users which consist of their age,

Internet access, how they access internet, if they ever book appointment, how often they book

appointment, experience with existing system, and experience with current system.

Total number of 11 people is between the ages of 18-40 years old, 6 people are between the ages

of 41-60 year old, while 3 people are between the ages of 61- 80 years old which consist of 70%

male and 30% female. 80% of the people access the internet while 20% of the people do not.

65% use mobile devices to access the internet while 35% uses the computer system. 75% of the

people have booked appointment before while 25% have not booked appointment before. 25%

have never booked an appointment, 0% book appointment on daily basis, 35% book appointment

on weekly basis, 10% book appointment on monthly basis while 30% book appointment

occasionally. 20% have a good experience with the existing system, while 80% have a bad

experience with the existing system.

48
TABLE 6

S/N USABILITY OF AUTOMATED

VISITOR APPOINTMENT MALE FEMALE MEAN

SCHEDULING SYSTEM

1. This visitor appointment scheduling 71.43% 66.67% 69.06%

system can serve as a time saving tool.

2. This visitor appointment scheduling 92.86% 83.33% 88.01%

system is user friendly.

3. This visitor appointment scheduling 53.33% 83.33% 68.32%

system can eradicate the existing

system.

4. This visitor appointment scheduling 71.43% 83.33% 77.35%

system can be adopted as a standard

method of scheduling appointment.

5. This visitor appointment scheduling 83.71% 99.99% 91.85%

system is well structured.

6. This visitor appointment scheduling 92.86% 66.67% 79.77%

system allows interaction

77.60% 80.54% 79.07%

AVERAGE TOTAL

,Table 6: Usability Table

Table 6 shows the efficiency and effective usability of the new system, and following are the

summary of the result. 69.06% agreed that the new system is a time saving tool, 88.01% said that

49
the new system is user friendly, 68.32% of the people said that the new system is the style in the

existing system, 77.38% agreed that the new system can be adopted as a standard method of

scheduling appointment, 91.85% said that the new system is well structured, 79.79% agreed that

the new system allows interaction.

4.2 Results

From the above table analysis, in which a total of 20 people were chosen to test the system, that

consist of (14) male and (6) female, shows that the system attained successful measure.

4.3 Discussion

This project will be put to an end because, it has been able to achieve it intended purpose based

on the result obtained on it usability.

50
 CHAPTER FIVE

RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION

5.0 CONCLUSION
A successful implementation of the visitor’s appointment scheduling system will aid easy, efficient and

well organized way of appointment between any visitor and the Vice Chancellor of Kwara State

University. In an office of such, appointment should not only be organized, it should also be timed and

scheduled and that gave rise to the idea of the appointment scheduling system. Not only does this

method help in time management, but helps the administrative body to keep records of all visitors that

registered. It takes the place of what is popularly called ‘Visitors Log Book’ and performs its operation

electronically and even does much more.

Also it makes use of the information received in order to maintain an office environment around

the Vice Chancellors office compared to the old system where there are lot of people wait to see the vice

chancellor without a specific time allotted to them. This will eliminate the use of paper forms to lessen the

expenses in supplies. The University should invest in upgrading and improving these type of processes

since it will be very helpful not only to the Vice Chancellors office but to all major offices in the

University

The software was develop with the object based oriented programming PHP and with the MySQL

database management system to keep records of all information input into the software.

The visitor appointment scheduling system was develop to review the existing scheduling method of the

vice chancellors office. This system will also help to reduce queue rate as visitors are aware that such

system exists and more so, this system helps the visitor to drop messages. Also, the system helps the

administrative body which is the vice chancellor to delete, update schedule and view messages from

51
visitors. It will also eliminate the manual way of scheduling which is very time consuming because of the

large amount of visitors.

5.1 RECOMMENDATION

This work is going to be of great benefit to Kwara State University by improving the appointment

scheduling system and also aids easy management of visitors. The software will also be of a great benefit

by eliminating the manual method of booking and scheduling of appointment. Other institutions with their

view of improving their student crime monitoring system are not left out of these benefits.

52
 REFENCES

Adebayo Peter Idowu (Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo
University,Ile-Ife, Nigeria), Olajide Olusegun Adeosun (Computer Science &Engineering
Dept,LadokeAkintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, Nigeria), and Kehinde
OladipoWilliams(Department of Physical and Computer Sciences, College of Natural and
Applied Sciences, McPherson University, Ajebo,Ogun State, Nigeria). (2014).
Dependable
Online appointment booking System for NHIS outpatient in Nigerian Teaching Hospitals.

An Li. (2004). Faculty of the School of Information and Library Science of the

University

of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Bowser, D.; Utz, S.; Glick, D.; Harmon, R. (2010). A systematic review of the relationship of
Diabetes Mellitus, depression, and missed appointments in a low-income uninsured
Population. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 24 (5), 317-329.

Cayirli, T. & Veral, E. (2003). Outpatient scheduling in health care: A review of

literature. Production and Operations Management, 12 (4), 519-549.

Danielle Hayday. (2014). Online Appointment Scheduling system.

Feldman, J., Liu, N., Topaloglu, H., & Ziya, S. (2012). Appointment scheduling under patient
Preference and no-show behavior. Retrieved September 10, 2012, from
http://www.columbia.edu/~nl2320/doc/patient_scheduling_under_choice.pdf.

53
Karen Ming Lu, Siti Ab Hafizah Hamid. (2007).Conceptual Design of a Web Based
Appointment
Management System. Department of Software Engineering, University of Malaya,
Malaysia.

Klassen, K. J., T. R. Rohleder. (2004). Outpatient appointment scheduling with urgent clients in
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Dynamic, Multi-period environment. Internet J. Service Indust. Management 15(2)
167–
186.

Matthew Cameron, Yuriy Goldman. (2013). Design of an Automated Employee

Scheduling System. Faculty of California Polytechnic State University, San

Luis Obispo

Robinson, L. W., & Chen, R. R. (2009). A comparison of traditional and open-access policies for
Appointment scheduling. Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, 12 (2),
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17.

S. Sri Gowthem (Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science Engineering, Bhar

University, Chennai, India), K.P. Kaliyamurthie (Professor & Head, Department of

CSE, Bharath University, Chennai, India). (2015). Smart Appointment Reservation

System

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Schectman, J., Schorling, J., & Voss, J. (2008). Appointment adherence and disparities in
Outcomes among patients with diabetes. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 23 (10),
1685-1687.

Vermeulen, I. B., Bohte, S. M., Bosman, P. A., Elkhuizen, S. G., Bakker, P. J., &La Poutré, J.
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(2009). Optimization of online patient scheduling with urgencies and preferences. In
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5651 Notes in Computer Science (pp. 71-80).

55
 APPENDIX

QUESTIONNAIRE ON THE USAGE VISITOR APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING

SYSTEM.AND EFFECTIVENESS OF AUTOMATED

Dear respondent, this questionnaire is design to obtain your view on the above subject matter as

part of the requirements for the award of the B.Sc. Degree in Kwara State University, Malete. It

is purely for research exercise; kindly provide your sincere answers to the questions to enable the

researcher arrive at a logical conclusion. Your response will be treated with strict confidence.

Thank you.

INSTRUCTION: Please tick (˅) in the boxes that correspond to your responses to the following

questions.

SECTION A: USER CHARACTERISTICS

Sex: Male ( ) Female ( )

Age: 18-40 ( ) 41-60 ( ) 61-80 ( )

DISCIPLINE: _______________________________________

SECTION B: INTERNET

1. Do you access the internet? YES ( ) NO ( )

2. How do you access the internet? MOBILE PHONE ( ) COMPUTER SYSTEM ( )

56
SECTION C: USABILITY OF THE VISITORS APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING

SYSTEM

The below table is prepared to obtain the effectiveness and usefulness of the application

KEY

SA = Strong Agree

A = Agree

U = Undecided

D = Disagree

SD = Strong Disagree

Kindly tick as necessary.

57
S/N USABILITY OF MOBILE LEARNING PERFORMANCE SUPPORT SYSTEM

S/N : USABILITY OF THE VISITORS SA A U D SD

APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING SYSTEM

01. This visitor appointment scheduling system

can serve as a time saving tool

02. This visitor appointment scheduling system

is user friendly.

03. This visitor appointment scheduling system

can eradicate the existing system.

This visitor appointment scheduling system

04. can be adopted as a standard method of

scheduling appointment.

05. This visitor appointment scheduling system

is well structured.

06. This visitor appointment scheduling system

allows interaction

58