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We've had to do the same with our local core facilities (not just for our
microscopes, but other bookable equipment too!). If you don't make the
users accountable for missed bookings they will abuse the system by booking
"speculatively" on the off chance they *might* need the system. Billing
no-shows solves this issue and ensures the equipment is more fairly
available.

Craig

On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 10:27 AM Cromey, Douglas W - (dcromey) <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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> address, go to:
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> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
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>
> We had an issue with users hoarding time that got very bad on our inverted
> confocal. Available time would be booked up to three weeks out and our
> users were getting frustrated. The core manager was frustrated because she
> would have 50-60 hours of reserved time in a week and yet the actual
> billable hours often came to about 10 hours per week.
>
>
>
> Eventually, with the approval of our faculty oversight committee and
> administration, we implemented an official policy that people must cancel
> at least 24 hours in advance or they will end up paying for the time they
> reserved. This is only for the central optical microscopy core (we were
> considered a test case). The official policy document is in the header of
> every iLab schedule for our core <
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Aiw3Ap3-Ml7-GsGMdLEKib8FkqLZrDz5/view>
>
>   *   Cancel appointment more than 24hrs in advance = no charge, time is
> available on the schedule for anyone else
>   *   Cancel appointment less than 24 hrs in advance, or use less time
> than you originally scheduled. Cancelled or no show appointments can be
> scheduled over by others.
>      *   Cancel/No show (and the time is not used by someone else), then
> pay the full time reserved.
>      *   Cancel/No show, but all or some of the time is used by someone
> else, then only pay for the time that wasn’t used.
>
>
>
> This changed people’s behavior and has opened up the schedule while
> lowering frustrations. It has made billing a little more complicated for
> the core managers (we can’t bill for the same time to two different
> accounts). We do have a one-time “get out of jail free” option, but we
> track this in iLab to avoid repeat offenders. I can’t say it’s been revenue
> neutral, but it does not appear as if it has made a noticeable difference
> in our annual revenues.
>
>
>
> Doug
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Douglas W. Cromey, M.S. | Researcher/Scientist IV
> Core Facilities, Research, Innovation & Impact, University of Arizona
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>  |  520-626-2824
>
> Life Sciences North, Room 463
> 1333 N. Martin Ave, Tucson, AZ  85721 USA
>
> UA Microscopy Alliance - http://microscopy.arizona.edu/
> A collaborative effort to bring information about shared microscopy
> facilities to the University of Arizona and the community.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Confocal Microscopy List <[log in to unmask]> On
> Behalf Of Stanislav Vitha
> Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2024 9:01 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [EXT]Re: Portal rules for slot bookings in confocal
>
>
>
> External Email
>
>
>
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>
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>
> *****
>
>
>
> Our facilty uses the iLab system for scheduling and billing for our
> optical and electron microscopes and the supporting equipment as well as
> sample preparation and imaging  services.
>
> Booking is allowed only for users that have been trained by our staff.
> Typically, users can book  2 or 3 weeks in advance. Depending on the
> instrument, they can book minimum 30 minutes;  maximum depends on the
> microscope (for some, 6 hours in one block, for other where they may need a
> long time lapse experiment, it is more.
>
> On the confocal instruments, users are required to take the somewhat
> useless online laser safety course, even if all of our confocals have
> enclosed/fiber coupled beams, and of course the light coming out of the
> objective is no longer a collimated beam.
>
>
>
> Billed time is tracked by the "kiosk" session in iLab: when there is a
> reservation, users come,  log into iLab to start the session to beging
> counting billing time. When they finish the session, they stop the kiosk
> session. Some of our microscopes are on a hardware interlock, where users
> have to start the "kiosk" session, otherwise the monitors for the
> microscope computer are off.
>
>
>
> Overall the iLab software is OK, but I have no idea how much our
> university is paying for each license.
>
> We were the first facility here to start using it and it was not an easy
> start - it has gotten better.
>
> But, it is not as flexible as I would like - for one of the instruments,
> we needed to have a group of priority users who should be able to book the
> microscope more in advance and for longer blocks of time than the rest of
> the trained users.  iLab cannot do it.
>
> Also, the iLab system is usually rather slow to respond, I spend time
> waiting for the screen to refresh after I clicked a button.   Shopping on
> Amazon is much faster.
>
>
>
> Stan Vitha
>
> Texas A&M University
>
> Microscopy and Imaging Center
>