Skedda-Autoscheduler

Python work-around to schedule a recurring events X weeks + Y days in advance. Code here is used by Raspberry Pi 3B and executed when scheduled by crontab.

Overview

This is a refactored code to work around the Skedda scheduling system. Some elements are hardcoded but should be fairly easy to change and modify. The point of this project is to avoid having a person schedule Caltech Ballroom Dance Club's weekly swing social. The limits to scheduling are that it must be between 2 to 30 days in advance. Anything outside of this range is rejected. Since we're a student run club, we aren't that disciplined to take care of it weekly so I made this!

I've updated this such that it should be fairly simple to have up and running with docker.

Set up

• Install docker. (https://docs.docker.com/install/)
• Clone this repo (git clone https://github.com/nunezpaul/Skedda-Autoscheduler.git)
• Build the base and final docker images by bash path/to/build_docker_images.sh

Any updates will be to the final docker image so that all images do not need to be rebuilt. The building process for the intermediate docker image can take a while.

Run

docker run -it -rm skedda python3 skedda/skedda_scheduler.py \ --username $SKEDDA_UN --password $SKEDDA_PW --submit --num_days_away 0 --num_weeks_away 4 --debug

Explanation of the args:

• -it creates an interactive session that attaches to your terminal. This way you can observe the outputs. I send the the outputs to an email so that I can double check that it's working.
• -rm removes the container associated container from an image. If not removed then you will continue to create new containers. In the future, I will attempt to re-use the last created container.
• --username email that is associated with the skedda account
• --password password that is associated with skedda account
• --submit is the boolean flag that will determine if the results are to be submitted or not. Useful for debugging
• --num_days_away how many offset days from the current day will the event be scheduled. (This is added to the offset weeks. Default is 1.)
• --num_weeks_away how many offset weeks from the current day will the event be scheduled. (This is added to the offset days. Default is 4.)
• --debug will take screenshots of the scheduling process at select key points. This is currently necessary since some elements will not show unless a screenshot is taken. To recover the screenshots for debugging purposes then you must remove -rm to keep the resulting container and files. To transfer to the host find the id of the container. Create the env CONTAINER to contain the ID then run:

for i in {1..13}; do docker container cp $CONTAINER\:/test$i\.png ./; done

You will find that there are 13 files called test(1-13).png which are the screenshots. You can change the location where they are sent by replacing the ./ with path/to/desired/directory

Setting Up Recurring Scheduling

In terminal:

sudo crontab -e

below all the commented information about crontab enter

SKEDDA_UN={delete brackets. insert your username}
SKEDDA_PW={delete brackets. insert your password}
PATH={delete brackets. enter env into the CLI and copy-pasta the value for PATH you have on your machine}

0 12 * * 2 python ~/path/to/file/scheduleMon.py

Save changes and exit.

Now your system will use pre-determined settings to make the bookings every Tuesday at noon and 5 passed noon for Monday and Wednesday 27 and 29 days in advance, respectively. If you would like to change the time or how many weeks in advance the scheduling is suppose to happen then you can modify skedda_scheduler.py.