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Workplace Services / Reservations

Create Room and Resource Reservations

From the Create New Room Reservation task, you can:

• Create a room reservation for a unique event that will occur on one day
• Create a room reservation for a recurring event
• Reserve resources at the same time that you create the reservation for the room. These resources can include equipment and services and catering, and are linked to the room reservation so that you can mange them together.
• View attendees availability based on their Outlook calendars if you have configured Exchange integration. If Exchange integration is not configured, you view attendees availability based on the other reservations they have in Web Central.

If you do not need to reserve a room, but need only to reserve a resource, you do so using the Create New Resource Reservation task. For information, see the Create a Resource Reservation topic.

Viewing Room Availability by Time Period

When creating a room reservation, you have a choice about how to specify the time for the meeting. The method you use depends on how flexible you are about the meeting time:

• If you have a specific time when the meeting must occur, select the date from and calendar and enter the time in the From and To fields in the filter. This ensures that only rooms that are available during that time frame appear in the Rooms pane when you apply the filter. After specifying a From and To field in the Filter, if do not see any rooms, try removing the From and To times to see if the rooms are booked for that entire day, or select a different day to see how that affects availability.
• If you would rather specify the meeting time after reviewing available time slots, select the day from the calendar, and leave the From and To fields blank. This means you will see all rooms matching your criteria, including any confirmed reservations (shown in blue) these rooms have. You can then decide on the time for your meeting after reviewing the available time slots.

Other Factors that Affect the Rooms that are Shown

In addition to a room already being reserved, for the general user (including the AFM user), the following variables determine whether a room arrangement will appear after you conduct your room search. Consult your business process owner for information on how these variables have been defined.

Note: Restrictions vary based on your role. For more information, see Understanding User Roles.

• The room must be defined as reservable.
• The user who is reserving the room arrangement must be a member of the group that is allowed to reserve the room arrangement.
• The group size (capacity) that you are requesting must be below the maximum capacity that is defined for the room arrangement and above the minimum required value.
• You must be reserving the room arrangement after the arrangement's Maximum Days Ahead value.
• The room arrangement's Announcement # of Days Ahead and Announcement Time - the cutoff date/time to make a reservation - must be later than the current date/time at the site where the room is located.
• If you are reserving on the final day a reservation is allowed, you must be reserving before the deadline reservation time (Announcement Time) value.
• If you are inviting external guests, the room has to be defined as allowing external guests.
• If you select a room, if the room does not allow certain resources, you will not see them when selecting resources.
• For rooms that have multiple configurations, some room configurations might not be available if another configuration for that room is booked. For example, if a configuration that includes the entire room is booked, then a configuration that includes only part of the room is unavailable.To access more information about a reservation for a configuration, double-click on it in the timeline and review the information in a pop-up window. See Understanding Room Configurations.

Attendee Availability

When you select attendees for a reservation, the application shows the attendees availability on the timeline.

Note the following about attendee availability:

• If you add an attendee to the timeline and they have a conflicting meeting, note that even though they are shown on the timeline in blue (not green), they are being added to the new meeting despite the conflict. All selected attendees are added to the reservation, even if they have conflicting meetings.
• If some attendees are busy during the time frame you select for the reservation, the Busy icon appears at the top of the Attendees pane. If the attendee is scheduled for an existing confirmed reservation, it is shown in blue.
• If your organization has configured Exchange server, to avoid performance issues, the application limits the number of dates it checks for attendee availability. By default, this is set to ten, but your application administrator can change this as needed. See Configuring Parameters for the Reservation Application.
• If you have configured Exchange integration, the application warns you that it can't retrieve availability for non-Exchange users, as it only searches in the Exchange server.
• If you have configured Exchange integration, and the Exchange server is unavailable when you are adding attendees to a room reservation, the top of the Attendees timeline panel includes the message "No information." Mouse over that message to see the list of emails for which information could not be retrieved .You can make the reservation without knowing the attendees availability, or you can wait for the Exchange server to be available before making the reservation.

Using the Timeline

You can use the graphical timeline to specify a time period (start time and end time) for a room arrangement. To select a time period in the timeline, you click and drag your mouse over the time period. When you click and drag, the From and To fields in the Filter fill in with the start and end time for the reservation.

The time period for the room arrangement that you selected is highlighted by green and yellow. For detailed information on using the timeline, see Understanding the Timeline.

• The green area specifies the time of the actual meeting.
• The yellow areas before and after the meeting time specify the setup time before the meeting and the cleanup time after the meeting.
• The gray areas in the timeline define times when the room arrangement is not available.

Setting Up Recurring Room and Resource Reservations

You can create a recurring room or resource reservation that will occur at regular intervals over a given time period. For example, you can request a room or catering every Tuesday morning from 10:00 to 11:00 AM in the month of April.

You set up a recurring meeting by clicking Define Recurrence... in the filter of the Create Room Reservation form. The application then opens a dialog in which you can enter the recurrence pattern. The recurrence pattern is applied to the filter, so it determines the room arrangements that are shown in the Rooms pane; if a room is not available for even one of the recurrence dates, it is not shown in the results.

Note the following about defining recurring reservations:

• As with all reservations, if you do not enter a From and To time in the Filter, the application shows all resources matching the criteria you enter, and shows the existing confirmed reservations for the resource. This enables you to assess what is the best time to set up your recurring reservation based on the available time slots.
• If you specify both an end date and a number of occurrences, the most limiting of the two is applied when you click ‘Apply’ in the Define Recurrence Pattern dialog.
• The MaxRecurrencesToCreate application parameter limits the number of occurrences that can be created. By default, this is set to 250. See Configuring Parameters for the Reservations Application.
• If you try to save a recurring reservation that has a number of occurrences that exceeds the MaxRecurrencesToCreate Reservations application parameter, or that has no end date entered, you get the message: "Continue without reservation?"
  • If you click OK, the location is removed from the appointment, and the action you initiated (Save, Save & Close, or Send & Close) proceeds.
  • If you click Cancel, whatever action you initiated is aborted, the appointment is not saved, and the location is not removed. The Plugin refreshes the list of available rooms. You can now create a reservation that does not exceed the MaxRecurrencesToCreate application parameter.

  Note: There is a limit of 500 occurrences applied to all types of recurring reservations (daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly). The number of occurrences can be limited by this overall limit, the end date or maximum occurrences you enter when defining the reservation, or the number entered for the application parameter MaxOccurrencesToCreate. The most restrictive limit on the number of reservations is the limit that the application uses, but the application will never create more than the number specified in the MaxOccurrenceToCreate parameter.

• When setting up recurring reservations, to avoid performance problems, an application parameter (AbWorkplaceReservations-MaxRecurrencesToCheckFreeBusy) limits the number of dates that are checked for attendee availability. By default, this is set to ten, but you can change this as needed. See Configuring Parameters for the Reservations Application.
• After you define a recurrence pattern, a description of the pattern is shown on the filtering panel below the time filter.

The steps to create a recurring room and resource reservation are included in the below procedure.

Procedure - creating a room reservation with or without resources (recurring or regular)

You can set up a single or recurring room reservation, and reserve resources at the same time as described in the following procedure.

1. From the Process Navigator's Reserve Rooms and/or Resources process, select the Create New Room Reservation task.

   The Define Reservation form appears.

2. Select a date.

   Use the calendar to select the date of the event.

   The Rooms pane updates to show any existing reservations for the selected date for rooms using the default capacity and building entered in the filter. When you select a date, it appears on the form to the right of the calendar. By default, the current date is selected, but you can change this to any date after the current date by clicking on the calendar.

3. For recurring reservation, define how often the reservation occurs:
   1. Click Define Recurrence....
   2. In the form, select how often the meeting occurs and the pattern (such as every two weeks, or the first Tuesday of the month).
   3. Optionally, enter an ending for the series by entering the number of occurrences or an end date. If you do not enter either of these, the application creates meetings up to a maximum of 999 occurrences for all types of meetings (daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.)
   4. Click Save in the Define Recurrence Pattern form, and this information will be included in the filter.

4. Locate appropriate rooms:

   Locate rooms that suit your needs using the filter:

   1. Enter the capacity and check the 'with external guests' check box if visitors are invited. The room's capacity is set by the Maximum Capacity field in the Room Arrangements table. Checking the external visitors check box ensures that you reserve only rooms that have been designated as suitable for external visitors. That is, the Rooms pane will show only rooms for which the External Visitors Allowed field for the room arrangement has been set to Yes.
   2. Select the Building for the reservation.Optionally, you can also select the floor and room if you are looking to reserve a particular room, or on a particular floor.
   3. Optionally, select a room configuration, such as a conference, classroom, or theater, if this is important for your purposes. Otherwise, leave this field blank to see all room configurations.
   4. If you cannot be flexible about the meeting time, enter the time in the From and To fields. This ensures that you see only rooms that are available during that time frame. To review all the rooms that match your criteria, leave the From and To fields blank. This enables you to select a time after reviewing the available time slots.
   5. Optionally, select to show only rooms that have a fixed asset in the room by selecting the check box for the fixed asset in the Desired Attributes section.
   6. Click Apply Filters.

      Available room arrangements for the date and search criteria that you specified are displayed. Room arrangements are ordered first by Building Code, then by default arrangement, and finally by capacity.

      Any existing room reservations will appear as blue blocks. Double-click on a blue block to view detailed information on the existing reservation.

5. Select the room and specify the time:
   1. Optionally, review information on a room arrangement by clicking the room in the Room column in the Rooms pane.

      The Room Details form appears showing information on the room and its arrangement. If there is an associated drawing for this room, the plugin zooms to the room and highlights it in the drawing.

   2. On the timeline, review the available times for the rooms. If you did not specify a From and To time in the Filter, all rooms that match your search criteria are shown. Any confirmed reservations for these rooms are shown with a blue bar on the timeline. You can then use the timeline to specify the time after viewing when each room configuration is available. You cannot create a reservation that overlaps an existing reservation for that room.
   3. Do one of the following:
      • If you did not enter a From and To time in the filter, on the timeline for a room arrangement, click and drag your mouse over the time period you have decided on for the meeting.

        The reservation is shown in green to indicate that it is a new unconfirmed reservation. The From and To fields in the Filter fill in with the times created by clicking and dragging in the timeline. See Using the Reservation Timeline.

        If you did not specify a From and To time in the filter, the option buttons for the room are not enabled, However, the option button is automatically selected when you click and drag in the room's timeline.

      • If you specified a From and To time in the filter, when you select the option button for a room arrangement, the timeline shows the green bar, using the time entered in the filter.
6. Add attendees:
   1. In the Attendees pane, click Find People.

      The Invite Attendees form appears.

   2. From the Employees tab, select the check boxes for employees; from the Visitors tab, select the check boxes for any visitors, and click Select. You define visitors using the Define Visitors task of the Define Background Data process. See Defining Visitors.

      The Invite Attendees form closes and the Attendees pane now shows the selected attendees.If an attendee is scheduled for an existing confirmed reservation it is shown in blue.

      If some attendees are busy during the selected time frame, mouse over the Busy attendees icon warns you of this. In this case, the attendees blue bar will overlap your new green reservation.However, all selected attendees are added to the reservation, even if they have conflicting meetings.

      If you select a different date for the meeting, the attendees availability updates, so you can explore what date enables the most people to attend.

      If your organization has Exchange Server, the attendees availability is shown using their Exchange calendars; otherwise the availability is based on the attendee's other reservations in Web Central.

      Note: The application permits you to add more employees to a meeting than specified by the capacity of the room housing the meeting (the Maximum Capacity field of the Room Arrangements table). For example, if a room has a capacity of 3, the system enables you to add more than 3 employees to the meeting. This behavior considers the fact that some employees may be attending the meeting using remoting services and will not be physically present in the meeting room. Thus, you do not need to consider the physical space they would occupy and the capacity of the room.

   3. Alternately, to add attendees that are not in the list, you can type email addresses in the box at the top of the Attendee pane to the left of the Add button, and click Add.
   4. To remove an attendee from a meeting, click the x next to the attendee in the Attendees pane.
7. Optionally, reserve equipment and services:

   Note: When you add equipment and services to a recurring reservation,these resources are added for all the occurrences. To add a resource to a single reservation, you would edit the single occurrence to add the resource. See Editing Recurring Reservations.

   1. In the Equipment and Services pane, click Choose.

      The Choose Equipment and Services form shows the equipment and services, such as chairs, IT support, projectors, and IT cables. The form gives the quantity that are available for the selected time frame.

   2. For each resource you want to reserve, enter the quantity in the Required Quantity column and click Show.
   3. When you have added all needed resources, click Close.

      The selected equipment and services are selected for the same time period as the meeting.

   4. To change this time, in the Equipment and Services pane, click and drag the green reservation bar for the resource to reflect the times you need them. The resource's reserved time must be within the time frame for the room arrangement.
   5. To remove the resources from the reservation, clear the selection from its check box in the Equipment and Services pane.You can also remove a resource from the edit form.

      Note: If you change the time in the reservation timeline for the room, the resource's time is automatically updated, as long as the resource is available. If the resource is not available during this time, then it is removed, and a Selection changed message appears at the top of the pane. Mouse over this message to see the IDs of the removed resources.

   6. Access the Edit form by clicking the green bar for the resources. The Edit Equipment and Service Reservation form appears.
      • If needed, enter Comments in the Comments field and click Save.
      • To remove a resources, click the Remove button.
      • To change the time, enter the values in the Time Start and Time End fields, and click Save.

        Note: If you change the time from PM to AM or from AM to PM, be sure to include the AM and PM when entering the time in the Start and End Time fields.

   7. To see details for the equipment or resources, in the Equipment and Services pane, click the Resource Name.

      The Equipment and Services Details pane shows details for the selected resource. Click Close to dismiss the window.

8. Optionally, add catering services:
   1. In the Catering pane, click Add Catering.

      The Add Catering form appears showing the available catering resources.

   2. In the Quantity column, enter the quantity you need for that catering item.
   3. Add comments in the Comments field.
   4. Click Save.

      The Create Room Reservation form appears. The catering resource is added for the same time frame as the meeting.

   5. To adjust the time frame for the catering, click Edit in the row for the catering item. In the Add Catering form, enter the start and end time for which you need the item, and click Save.

      Note: If you change the time from PM to AM or from AM to PM, be sure to include the AM and PM when entering the time in the Start and End Time fields.

   6. To remove a catering item, click Edit in the row for the item. Click Remove in the Add Catering form that appears.

   7. Note: If you change the room reservation time on the timeline, the catering resources are adjusted if the catering time you specified is no longer within the room reservation time.

9. Confirm the reservation.

   To finalize the reservation, you must confirm it.

   1. Click Confirm Reservation.
   2. In the Confirm Reservation form, enter a Subject that appears as the subject line in the email notification that is sent for the reservation.
   3. Optionally, enter Comments that will appear in the body of the email.
   4. To enter additional attendees, type their addresses in the Attendees Email Addresses box, separating email addresses with a semicolon.

   5. Click Confirm.

      When you click Confirm, the system checks that the reservation's start time is later than the site's current time. It also confirms that the room arrangement's or resource's announcement time is later than the site's current time.

      When you submit a room or resource reservation (from Web Central), or save the reservation (from the Plugin), the availability of the room or resources, for all dates, is checked again; if the room or resource is not available, an error message - "The room (or resource) is not available" - is shown and the process is aborted.

      The View and Edit My Reservations form appears with this reservation in the list. Note that the reservation's Status is Confirmed if the room or resource reservation does not require approval. If the room arrangement or resource does require approval, the Status of Reservation value is Awaiting Approval