So I thought Google Calendar or even iOS calendar might be good workflow for staff adding catering orders to a calendar, to help keep it all in order and give the baking staff a quick view of what's ahead. I thought the physical order forms could be scanned and attached straight to the calendar entries but it turns out you can't do that with Google Calendar or even the inbuilt iOS calendar, you can only attach files that are already in your Google Drive or iCloud Drive. The orders are at least one day in advance, sometimes a few weeks in advance, and the bake staff make them at night.
I'm kinda scratching my head as to how to simplify this workflow. At the moment they are scanning in the forms on a PC, the staff call HQ to tell them about a new order, HQ prints the form and pins it to a board. But even with that some orders aren't being made and that system takes a lot of time too, even operating the physical scanner is a hassle for staff.
Just wondering if anyone can think of an easier way to do it. I'd like to use iPads to scan the order forms at least, to make that part of the process easier. I thought if the order forms could be attached to a calendar entry then a copy of it would be in calendar and HQ could also print it for the board, so there would be the digital calendar entry plus the form on the board and no excuses for missing an order. But needing to scan the form on the iPad, put it in the right folder in Google Drive/iCloud Drive, then create the calendar entry, and find the scanned file as the attachment, that's all just as complicated as scanning the form on a computer in the first place. Google Drive doesn't even offer a way to directly scan to PDF in the Google Drive app either, so you need yet another app to scan the page to PDF in the first place.
There has to be an easier way but I'm just not seeing it. A digital order form that customers can fill themselves is a step too far at the moment, so the order form is for staff to fill out with the customer with them. iPad would also be ideal because hopefully the iPad can be used for other things, like a modern POS with pictures for other orders instead of the old cash register.
Seems to be a mobile app limitation not allowing you to 'upload' documents.
If you use the web version https://calendar.google.com/ (even mobile via the browser) you can add a attachment via the upload tab. It will upload the document to your drive/calendar event for viewing etc.
Sounds like a easy fix then, scan on PC, then create the event and upload the document.