Faculty Office-Hour Scheduler

Students needing five minutes with a professor face a familiar ritual: hovering outside a cabin, knocking during a meeting, or sending emails that drown in the inbox. Faculty, meanwhile, get interrupted at random hours, and project-guidance discussions happen without preparation because no agenda was shared in advance. This project builds an office-hour scheduler that replaces corridor queues with a calendar: faculty define recurring weekly availability with exceptions for leave and meetings, students book free slots with a stated purpose, agendas reach the faculty beforehand, reminders fire on schedule, and no-shows are tracked so the system stays fair. Department heads get a view of consultation load across faculty.

1. Faculty set up a weekly template (e.g. Tue/Thu 4–6 PM in 15-minute slots) plus exceptions for leave, holidays and meetings.
2. The engine expands templates into bookable slots; leave and busy blocks remove slots automatically.
3. A student searches for the faculty member, picks a free slot, and states a purpose and agenda.
4. The booking is confirmed instantly or queued for faculty approval, per the faculty's setting.
5. Both sides receive reminders before the slot with the agenda attached; the student gets room details.
6. After the meeting, completion is logged with optional mutual feedback, feeding no-show and rating records.

Tech stack:

• Python (Django/Flask) or Node.js backend
• PostgreSQL/MySQL relational database
• HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript with calendar components
• Transactional booking logic
• Email/SMS reminder service
• ICS calendar export
• Role-based access (faculty, student, department)
• Responsive web UI

• [Faculty availability templates] Recurring weekly office hours with slot length, breaks, leave blocks and per-slot capacity.
• [Student discovery] Find faculty by name, department or subject, with live availability indicators and next-free-slot display.
• [Transactional slot booking] 15-minute (configurable) slots booked atomically — double-booking is impossible at the data layer.
• [Purpose and agenda] Every booking carries a purpose category and agenda notes the faculty reads before the meeting.
• [Reminders and rescheduling] Email/SMS reminders before the slot; one-tap cancellation or rescheduling within policy.
• [Approval modes] Faculty choose instant confirmation or approval-required booking per their preference.
• [Accountability] No-show tracking for students and completion ratings that keep both sides honest.

• Complete scheduler source code (faculty, student, department views)
• Database schema and migration scripts
• Slot-generation engine (templates + exceptions)
• Reminder scheduling implementation
• ICS export for personal calendars
• Setup and deployment guide
• Pilot plan for the buyer to trial in one department
• Project report PDF (background, scheduling model, concurrency design, methodology)
• PPT presentation for final review
• Viva Q&A preparation document (recurrence modeling, transactions, notifications)

• The system schedules meetings; it cannot make either party show up — no-show tracking is informational.
• Availability is only as current as faculty keep it; stale templates show stale slots.
• Video-meeting links for remote consultations are future scope; the base build assumes in-person meetings.
• Reminder delivery depends on the notification service and correct contact details.
• Department-level analytics describe consultation load; they do not evaluate teaching quality.
• Timetable integration (auto-blocking class hours) is future scope.