Room Booker Features

Introducing Room Booker

When it comes to managing rooms you meet with many competing interests. It is made more difficult when the availability of good data on room utilisation is hard to find. One thing is certain, speak to any room booker, and whatever the evidence suggests they will tell you that the pressure for teaching space is on. Even though a walk of the campus will often tell another story.

Whilst there are many reasons for this, an effective room booking system - one that provides good quality data - is a first step in giving managers the tools they need to improve efficiency while balancing demand. At CELCAT we are committed to giving managers these tools.

Rooms Page

Searching for room availability and making bookings couldn’t be easier. Simply use Room Booker’s well laid out web forms.

The Rooms form allows the selection of date and time for when an available room is required. To do this simply use the calendar and drop down menus. This page is also used to specify required room inventory or room seating layouts.
Once the search criteria are defined, just click the Search button and the results are displayed in a column to the left of the form. Even the way this list of suitable/available rooms is presented can be configured for ease of use.

Room Booker allows users to specify a list of favourite rooms (useful if individuals manage a small group of rooms at a site). Once this list is created users can sort the results column to display results in order of their favourite rooms and by site.

To make the booking (if permissions allow), or to submit a request, simply highlight the desired room and click the Book button. This will present an easy-to-use Booking Form.

The booking form allows the specification of some additional information, such as the nature of the booking, your name and email address, as the requester (or booker), and any additional participants in the event.

To submit the booking or request, simply click the Book button. The request is now sent to the rooming administrator for confirmation or denial, or if the requester has the access rights to make and confirm the booking, the appointment is immediately added to the database. Either way the booking appears in the timetable as soon as a suitably authorised person confirms it.

Email Integration

Once the request/booking is confirmed, an email is automatically generated. This notifies the requester that the event is confirmed. At this stage another useful feature is employed. Room Booker inserts an attachment into the email that uses the iCal standard. This links to a compliant calendar system such as Microsoft Outlook*, allowing recipients to create the appointment in their calendar with a simple click of the mouse. The attachment also acts as an invitation to other participants in the event, allowing them to insert the appointment in their calendars.

Now there is no excuse for any participants in a meeting to miss the event!

*Microsoft Outlook is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation

Usage Page

A Usage Page displays a chart of room usage by day and period. This page provides a useful overview of available rooms. Bookings can also be made from this form. To make a booking/request, simply click an empty space in the chart next to the chosen room to display the Booking Form.

Checking the Status of your Bookings

To check the status of bookings/requests simply view the Bookings Page. This form lists bookings (and requests), and it is also used to manage the bookings process. Administrators can grant or deny booking requests with this form. Users can also use this page to monitor the status of their requests.

And all of this is achieved with an eye on security. Using the Administrator functions provided in the Windows Client tool, administrators can ensure that requesters can only request cancellation and modification to their own booking requests; while those with executive access to the requested rooms may modify them.

Windows Client Bookings Form

Although Room Booker is a web tool, there is a level of integration with the Windows Client application. Rooming administrators may access the booking form within the Windows client to view and manage bookings.

Room Booker is designed to make ad hoc room booking easy and it provides the tools to do just that!

Link from Web Publisher

And if that were not enough, when web-publishing timetables, the facility exists to publish hyperlinks to the Room Booker web application.

This enables those that are viewing room schedules in Web Publisher, to submit a request to Book this room. Clicking this link will allow Web Publisher to open up Room Booker so that users can request the room.

This facility really is a powerful tool in getting staff to approach the rooming administrator with solutions to their rooming requirements, rather than just arriving with rooming problems. In a controlled environment it allows the rooming administrator to get on with other tasks.

What Next?

Room Booker has been designed as a tool to make life easier for everyone involved in managing rooming resources in universities and colleges.

So take the opportunity to discover the many benefits that can be gained from using CELCAT Timetabler, the most flexible of scheduling tools. Timetabler and Room Booker combined give you a powerful tool in managing teaching rooms at your institution.

To find out more, email info@celcat.com for local contact information. We will be pleased to arrange for a demonstration of this popular timetabling application to you and your colleagues.