Up until now our office would enter on a hard copy schedule people who qualified and reserved space in our research. We've expanded the office so going to the schedule to enter in the info is no longer a good idea. We'd like to do this on the computer; however, only one person at a time can enter info into an Excel chart of the schedule. We would like a program that gives simultaneous access to the schedule in chart form that we could all leave up on our computer. It would also be nice to have a small "instant message" box so that we can communicate with one another in the office while talking on the phone to someone who may end up being scheduled. Hope I've described this clearly. Does anyone know of an off-the-shelf program that can do this? All of our computers in the office are linked by a server. Thanks, in advance, for any suggestions.

Maybe LanTalk would be one solution.

click here

Looks to be of of good value only 870k download for the unregistered version

I assume it is designed for an "Intranet" network only the blurb does not say clearly if there is a user or message packet size limit or using the unregistered version "times out" after so many days?
Regardless of its limitations.It looks a competent program to use until something better is found.

i know nothing about messaging

but, your crazy to not use excel
for this project. there is an option
to make your spreadsheet shareable
and people can work on it simultaneously.

some how it creates two new lines
if i added to row 10
and so did you
when we are done and click close.
wha la, somehow it figures it line 11

(use the help to read more
i recommend investigating
the tracking changes option
as well, but it's more complicated)

enjoy,
happy excelling
and try my www.easyexcel.com
for fun, i'll appreciate it