Conference Room Scheduling
Business
problem
Few businesses have enough conference rooms. Modern health care,
driven by collaboration, requires a huge amount of meeting time,
and competition for conference room space can be fierce. We had
a different manual process for each room, with no clarity about
the room's "owner" or how to book the space. We needed
a clear, understandable process to manage conference rooms, ensuring
the best possible utilization of each room.
Tools
for everyone
We built a set of tools that are available to any worker, and are
described in more detail below:
- Book
conference room [default screen]
- Conference
room search
- View
my bookings
- Find
a meeting
- Conference
room specifications
- Conference
room equipment
- View
room schedule
- View
building schedule
The
most frequent task is booking a conference room. Most people already
know which room they wish to book, so a simple selector allows them
to select a room (shown below). It
is at this point that we ask whether this will be a recurring meeting.

Having
selected a room, two sets of data about the room are displayed:
the room's "profile" and
the current day's schedule (shown below).

To
select another date, the user can either browse through the schedule,
one day at a time, by selecting the "Next day" or "Prev
day" links (shown above) or the calendar icon, which opens
the calendar popup (shown below). The
user is warned if the selected date is a holiday.

To
book a time in the room, the user simply
selects the Start time picklist (shown below). Only the available
start times are shown.

When
a start time is selected, the process assumes a duration of one
hour and automatically sets the end time
at five minutes prior to the hour's end (shown below). The user,
of course, can select a different end time which does not conflict
with an already-booked meeting.

Having
selected the date and time, the "metadata"
about the meeting is input. At a minimum, the requester must
provide a name, the number of attendees and the contact person for
the meeting. If desired, the meeting may be flagged as "confidential,"
so the metadata about the meeting are hidden from other users.

Next,
room's options are selected for this
meeting. If the room is configured to require approvals for requests,
the approvers are listed at the top of the screen (shown below).

If
the conference room has a permanently mounted
LCD projector, a special note is displayed, reinforcing the
fact that these projectors are self-service (shown below).

Finally,
a confirmation screen is displayed.
- If
the room requires approvals, the message shown below is displayed.
- If
the room does not require approvals, the confirmation screen simply
states that the room has been booked.
- The
approver(s) for the conference room receive an automated e-mail
with a link to this request for approval.
- When
the request is approved, the requester receives an automated confirmation
e-mail, and IT is notified of any requests for video-conferencing
or other equipment.

Conference
Room Search
When someone simply needs a conference room any conference
room they can define their criteria and search for available
rooms (shown below). A list of any available rooms will be displayed
for booking.

View
My Bookings
Selecting "View My Bookings" displays a list of all meetings
for which the current user is the primary contact (shown below).

Selecting
one of the meeting titles displays the meeting
details (shown below).
- If
the meeting is canceled, an automated confirmation e-mail is sent
to the requester, the primary contact for the meeting, the approver
(if any), and to IT (if any IT services were requested).
- If
food was requested, and the cancellation is within 24 hours of
the meeting, an e-mail is sent to the appropriate nutrition manager.

Find
a Meeting
Trying to find a meeting, but forget where it is being held? Just
look it up by title. Any combination of the criteria below may be
used to look for a meeting.

Any
meetings matching the search criteria
are listed (shown below). Selecting a meeting title displays the
meeting details (shown above in "View My Bookings").

Conference
Room Specifications
A list of all conference rooms is available, including seating capacity,
amenities, and whether booking approval is required (shown below).

[Click
the image above to see the full size image]
Conference
Room Equipment
A set of reference materials describing conference room resources,
especially video conferencing equipment, is available (shown below).

[Click
the image above to see the full size image]
View
Room Schedule
Each room needs a printed schedule of bookings for the day. The
View Room Schedule function allows the user to select the schedule
for any room for any range of dates (shown below), and to view the
schedule in a printable format.

View
Building Schedule
Similar to the room schedule, the building schedule report provides
a combined list of meetings in all conference rooms in a building
(shown below).

[Click
the image above to see the full size image]
Administrative
Functions
A variety of administrative functions are provided for those who
manage and support the conference rooms:
- Special
reports for housekeeping and nutrition
- List
of pending booking requests needing approval
- Edit
room approvers
- Approve
food requests
- System
maintenance
Special
reports
Housekeeping is responsible for rearranging furniture and providing
certain amenities, based on the booking request. Nutrition must
fulfill any food requests at the right time and place. Both departments
need a summary list of relevant bookings.
A schedule
of bookings, including essential data, is available on demand. For
example, the housekeeping report is typically run for a three-day
period, and may be configured with any combination of variables
(shown below).

The
Housekeeping Report opens in Excel
by default, listing all bookings which meet the selected criteria
(click the image below to see a full-size image).

[Click
the image above to see the full size image]
Pending
Booking Requests
Anyone who is an approver for specific rooms can see a list of pending
requests for any room(s) for which they are an approver (shown below).

Selecting
the title of a booking request displays the meeting details with
the option of approving or refusing the request (shown below). Either
action triggers an automated e-mail confirmation to the requester
and primary contact for the meeting.

System
Maintenance
The conference room scheduling application has many variables that
need configuration by the process experts (room approvers, housekeeping,
nutrition, IT). Pages to manage these variables are available to
anyone with admin permissions for the application (shown below).

The
food list is managed at two levels:
- display
order (first image below), and
- item
details (second image below).

Selecting
an item opens a page to edit the item details
as they will be displayed for the user (shown below).

The
options for each room are selected
from the page shown below.

Outcomes
- Using
the Conference Room Scheduling application remains optional, at
the discretion of the room's "owner." Over time, most
rooms used by more than one department have opted in. Currently,
50+ rooms are scheduled through the application.
- The
Conference Room Scheduling application makes a huge difference
for many people. Room owners and requesters have a consistent,
reliable process for handling booking requests. Support departments
have complete, timely information.
Lessons
learned
- This
is another example of "if you build it, they will come."
By using an opt-in process and being patient, even the "owners"
who were skeptical about giving up the hands-on control of their
manual process and paper schedules eventually decided that the
application offered too many benefits to ignore.
- The
amount of maintenance required was surprising during the first
couple years. This was driven by what seemed like constant tweaking
by support departments, as processes for food requests and equipment
requests were continuously adjusted by nutrition and IT. Eventually
these departments found processes that worked well, and the tweaks
became infrequent.
Posted 28 September 2008
|