Some changes come from the requirements specifications of new (yet to be announced) customers, like extra views or new authenticators. Other changes are part of our ongoing efforts to make MyTimetable the best presentation solution for timetables. Currently we are stabilizing our code base in anticipation of a go live at several new customer sites, after which our software assurance customers will have the option to upgrade to the latest MyTimetable version.

In the upcoming months we will be transforming our code base to incorporate a more service-oriented approach. This will open up the opportunity for other applications to use timetable data through SOAP and REST style web services, without being tied to specific timetabling providers or databases. Also, support will be added for several new timetabling solutions, like Serco CMIS.

Below is a summary of new features, changes and bug fixes in MyTimetable 1.7.0.

• Added day view (both to timetable view as well as location view)
• Rewrote export period / week dialog to provide better user experience
• Added option to allow subscribing to staff member timetables only when authenticated
• Added a notification dialog and a notification feed for user configured system messages
• Added OpenSSO authentication provider
• Activity details dialog will now scroll if the list of locations / staff members is too large
• Number of locations or staff members shown in the list view can be limited, and the separator can be customized
• Added possibility to use different filter lists (department group / department / zone / programme of study) for the various subscription types
• PDF export support for exports on a 5 minute timescale (instead of 15)
• Added option to display a message when a day has no activities scheduled
• Error messages close 'on click' now, instead of after a certain amount of time
• Added option to override reporting database start and end times in the interface
• Reworked LDAP authenticator to provide more flexibility
• Added option to display a logo in the PDF exports

• Several timezone fixes for Europe/London timezone
• Fixed PDF downloads in Blackboard when using SSL and IE7
• Optimized RPC communication (uses native types more often, which results in less traffic and better performance)
• Improved internal caching of large resultsets (list of student sets, programmes etc.)
• Updated dependencies to latest versions (Apache CXF, Hibernate, Apache Commons components, log4j, slf4j, OpenCSV, Jackson, MySQL connector)
• Rewrote build system to use Gradle instead of Apache Ant
• Improved HTTP caching headers
• Improved session timeout detection
• Return HTTP 404 instead of HTTP 500 when the database name given by the user (in URL etc.) is unknown

To use the computer's domain credentials (and not require any configuration of credentials in the application itself), we can use the Active Directory Service Interface (ADSI), which is a set of COM interfaces, accessible using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO). For this, we need to use JNI and Jacob (Java - Com bridge), for which the documentation is quite poor. To help you out, here is some code and the right dependencies.

First of all, include the following dependencies in your project (Gradle style syntax):

dependencies {
    // Jacob and accompanying wrappers (from own at http://www.eveoh.nl/files/maven2/)
    compile 'net.sf.jacob-project:jacob:1.15-M4'
    compile 'net.sf.jacob-project:jacob-ado-wrappers:1.0' // ADO wrappers, available from the Jacob source package, under GPLv3, repacked to nl.eveoh.jacob.ado namespace
}

A small example to retrieve the employeeNumber attribute from the current AD domain:

import nl.eveoh.jacob.ado.*;
import com.jacob.activeX.ActiveXComponent;
import com.jacob.com.ComThread;
import com.jacob.com.Dispatch;
import com.jacob.com.Variant;

public class MyClass {

    private String getEmployeeNumber(String username) {
        try {
            ComThread.InitMTA(); // Init a multithread environment for COM, and close it afterwards to release all COM objects

            Connection conn = new Connection(); // Create an ADO connection to an ADSI object
            conn.setProvider("ADsDSOObject");
            conn.Open();

            Command command = new Command();
            command.setActiveConnection(conn);
            command.setCommandType(CommandTypeEnum.adCmdText);

            ActiveXComponent ax = new ActiveXComponent("LDAP://RootDSE"); // Get the default naming context for the LDAP query
            Variant v = Dispatch.call(ax, "Get", "defaultNamingContext");
            String dnc = v.toString();

            // Create the LDAP query and retrieve the result
            String ldapStr = "<LDAP://" + dnc + ">;(&(objectClass=user)(samAccountName=" + username
                    + "));employeeNumber;subtree";
            command.setCommandText(ldapStr);

            Recordset rs = command.Execute();
            Fields fs = rs.getFields();

            if (rs.getEOF()) {
                return null;
            }

            rs.MoveFirst();
            return fs.getItem(0).getValue().toString();
        }
        finally {
            ComThread.Release();
        }
    }

}

We are currently using a custom build of Gradle 1.0-milestone-7 (with a fix for GRADLE-1881, available at GitHub or as binary compile). Together with STS's quite cool Gradle support, this gives us everything we need.

In the MyTimetable project we make extensive use of the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) for the client-side interface. When deploying to production, GWT requires a compile, where the client-side Java code is compiled to Javascript. Gradle does not provide out-of-the-box support for this compile, but it's as simple as calling the right Java program with the right arguments. There is also a complete Gradle GWT plugin available, but it's still work-in-progress and supports more than we need (like the GWT dev mode), so we decided to do it ourselves in Gradle. The following dependencies are necessary for GWT, include them in your gradle.build:

dependencies {
    // Compile GWT libs, needed for gwtCompile and the javaCompile
    // Also includes the servlet-api
    providedCompile 'com.google.gwt:gwt-user:2.4.0'
    providedCompile 'com.google.gwt:gwt-dev:2.4.0'
    
    // Needed for GWT compile and at runtime for RequestBuilder
    // Specify two artifacts as workaround for GRADLE-1934
    compile('javax.validation:validation-api:1.0.0.GA') { 
        artifact {
            name = 'validation-api'
            type = 'jar'
        }
        artifact {
            name = 'validation-api'
            type = 'jar'
            classifier = 'sources'
        }
    }
    
    // Runtime GWT libraries, should be included in WAR
    runtime 'com.google.gwt:gwt-servlet:2.4.0'
    runtime 'org.json:json:20090211'
}

In order to compile the GWT code to Javascript, we introduce an compileGwt Gradle task and let the war task depend on this task:

task compileGwt (dependsOn: classes, type: JavaExec) {
    buildDir = "${project.buildDir}/gwt"
    extraDir = "${project.buildDir}/extra"
    
    inputs.source sourceSets.main.java.srcDirs
    inputs.dir sourceSets.main.output.resourcesDir
    outputs.dir buildDir
    
    // Workaround for incremental build (GRADLE-1483)
    outputs.upToDateSpec = new org.gradle.api.specs.AndSpec()
    
    doFirst {
        file(buildDir).mkdirs()
    }
    
    main = 'com.google.gwt.dev.Compiler'
    
    classpath {
        [
            sourceSets.main.java.srcDirs,           // Java source
            sourceSets.main.output.resourcesDir,    // Generated resources
            sourceSets.main.output.classesDir,      // Generated classes
            sourceSets.main.compileClasspath,       // Deps
        ]   
    }
    
    args =
        [
            'nl.eveoh.scheduleviewer.Scheduleviewer', // Your GWT module
            '-war', buildDir,
            '-logLevel', 'INFO',
            '-localWorkers', '2',
            '-compileReport', 
            '-extra', extraDir,
            // '-draftCompile' // Speeds up compile with 25%
        ]
        
    maxHeapSize = '256M'
}

war.dependsOn compileGwt
war {
    from compileGwt.buildDir
}

The compileGwt task will be called automatically and the contents will be included in the generated war file. Also the GWT compile we only be run if the contents of the class or resource files have changed. And in case you use the Eclipse plugin, the right nature, buildcommand and classpath can be added automatically by the Eclipse task:

eclipse {
    project {
        natures 'com.google.gwt.eclipse.core.gwtNature'
        buildCommand 'com.google.gdt.eclipse.core.webAppProjectValidator'
        buildCommand 'com.google.gwt.eclipse.core.gwtProjectValidator'        
    }
    classpath {
        containers 'com.google.gwt.eclipse.core.GWT_CONTAINER'
    }
}

I hope this info is helpful, let us know if you have any suggestions, remarks or problems. Happy Gradling!

Howest was looking to replace the Scientia Web Server (SWS) timetable interface to improve timetable information for their students. Olivier Sourie, Coordinator ICTO at Howest says:

Academic year 2010-2011 was the first year we fully relied on Syllabus Plus for our timetables. The SWS viewer was available to provide timetable information. Soon it turned out we would not be able to adjust SWS to our specific user requirements.

We started looking for a more user friendly alternative and in June we encountered Eveoh. It appeared to be almost impossible to fully adjust a new piece of software to the needs of Howest and make it available before the start of the new academic year (19 September). A miracle had to happen.

A full implementation of MyTimetable was executed within the timeframe of one month. This included establishing the required infrastructure and both installing and configuring the new software.

Thanks to all the feedback received from the Howest, MyTimetable has been improved even more in usability and more functionality was added. MyTimetable now supports weekend schedules and a graphical week view in the location viewer.

Olivier Sourie is very satisfied with the results achieved:

The first version of MyTimetable for Howest was available for testing in the middle of August. One week before the actual start of the academic year the full implementation of MyTimetable was finished.

What we never dared to dream has come true in the end. Eveoh's people succeeded in delivering a decent application within a record time. They managed to take our many specific timetable requirements into account. This application now provides timetabling information to all our students and staff members in a very user-friendly way.

In short, we are very satisfied with the cooperation and successful realisation. MyTimetable is highly recommended for every university that wants to give its students and staff members a treat.

Eveoh is very satisfied with the result at Howest. The successful implementation and the positive feedback prove it is possible to create a tailored installation of MyTimetable within a very short timeframe. Projects like this one at Howest fit perfectly into our mission of providing as many students as possible with optimal information.

Contact

Follow us:

Are you a current or upcoming student or teacher at Delft University of Technology, than participate this study! In this study you are going to work with the MyTimetable version of Delft University of Technology and you will be asked about your opinion on MyTimetable. What do you like about it and what could be improved? Your opinion will be used to improve MyTimetable to the user's requirements. By participating in this study, you and your fellow students/teachers will benefit.

The study will take about 50 minutes. If you are interested in participating in this study, please submit the form below or e-mail annamarie@eveoh.nl for more information.

With the introduction of MyTimetable, students have access to a profile with their personalized timetable. Timetables can be exported to a printable PDF format, but can also be linked to, for example, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook or a smartphone. This link provides an up-to-date timetable for students, so changes in schedules are never overlooked.

Integration

MyTimetable will be integrated in both Blackboard and the Inholland Insite intranet. For Blackboard, the existing building block will be used, showing the upcoming five activities in a student's timetable. For the Insite intranet, which is a Microsoft SharePoint portal, a web part will be developed with similar functionality.

To immediately present a timetable to a student, authentication is performed via single sign-on.

Technical features

For Inholland University, some technical features are added to MyTimetable.

• Support for Syllabus Plus studentset groups
• Filtering on location and department when adding a studentset group
• Microsoft SharePoint web part to display the upcoming activities in a timetable
• Windows authentication using Kerberos
• Loadbalancing

Contact

MyTimetable now ships with a OAuth 2.0 provider to offer authorization to third-party clients. Users of MyTimetable can give external applications read-access to their personal schedule, in a way also provided by, for example, Facebook and Twitter. Users stay in control of their data, it is possible to revoke access to their data at any time.

The OAuth 2.0 mechanism is already in use by Dutch startup Calendar42, in order to give students personalized recommendations for their to be launched calendar service.

Next to our iCalendar feed, we added an XML variant of iCalendar to the MyTimetable output formats. The xCal format contains the same information as the iCalendar output and is easily parsed by third-party XML parsers.

• Added configuration of MyTimetable via the BlackBoard administration pages
• Added configurable export link to third-party applications
• Introduced settings dialog for end-users
• Fixes in BlackBoard module import
• iCal4j upgrade to latest version
• Several fixes in configuration handling and error handling
• Several fixes in the location view

For the iCalendar export of MyTimetable we use the great open source Java library iCal4j. This library provides a complete iCalendar object model and the ability to verify and write iCalendar files. Unfortunately, the iCalendar export is hard coded into the model, but it is possible to create your own outputter.

We took the liberty to implement an XmlOutputter, using StAX to generate the XML. Since we wanted to keep the code simple and easily distributable, we chose to keep all the logic in the XmlOutputter, without depending on any Java-to-XML mapping frameworks. Software engineering wise nicer solutions may be possible. Another problem is that the iCalendar data value type of components cannot be easily retrieved from the iCal4j object model (since it is not necessary for the usual iCalendar export), so that information is hard coded into the XmlOutputter.

Source of the XmlOutputter is available at http://www.eveoh.nl/files/XmlOutputter.java and can be freely used (public domain). Since we do not use every component type, we cannot guarantee all possible options work correctly. Let us know if you have any suggestions.