Resource (Facility) Calendars: Setup, Options and Bookings
Resource Calendars are ways of booking building resources or facilities. These may include: Loading bays, Meeting rooms, Cinemas etc.
Resource Calendars are managed by those with the 'Building Administrator' role. As a Building Administrator, you can manage calendars via Setup -> Facility Calendars.
Those with the 'Building Members' role (e.g. Concierges) can view calendars and make bookings in Home > View Facility Calendars.
With the latest update, when an Administrator makes a new booking on behalf of users, the Details section defaults to the name of the user. The Details section also defaults to the name of the user when user makes new booking for themselves.
Set these things up first before creating the Calendar
- New Message Templates (Required before calendars can be created)
- Resource Calendar Booking Confirmation
- Resource Calendar Booking Rejection
These are "normal" templates.
Linking to the post
To link to the post, the shortcode is used.
<dwe-miniCalendar-widget shortCode=" XXXXX"/>
Residents viewing all Calendars
We now have a facility so that all the calendars can be shown in one place. Below is one example of how it can be shown. There is no privilege, it simply needs the correct code.
Hovering on a calendar entry will reveal a tooltip that shows who made the booking and when.
Resource Calendar Configuration Options
| Sl no, | Field | Description |
| 1 | Name | Name of the calendar, displayed to user on calendar view and also on Add Booking dialog. |
| 2 | Short code | This value is used to identify the calendar in widgets. |
| 3 | Time Zone ID | Will almost always be set to London (UTC). No need to change. |
| 4 | Blackout Duration Minutes | This is the preparation time before a booking. If the facility needs an hour to set up, a value of 60 would stop residents booking the facility for use in an hour's time. |
| The number of minutes from the current time that are not available for bookings (e.g. a value of 60 means that the earliest booking that can be taken is in an hours time). | ||
| Bookings can not be taken in the past. Therefore first possible booking time is always Now + Blackout Duration Minutes. | ||
| 5 | Bookable From | The first time that bookings are allowed from. i.e if set to 07:00 then bookings can me made from 7AM onwards |
| 6 | Bookable To | The last time at which that bookings are allowed. i.e if set to 20:00 then bookings can made up to 8PM (this time can be affected by slot times see below). |
| 7 | Allow Weekends | Tick box if bookings are allowed at weekends. (currently there are not options for different times at different days of the week) |
| 8 | Restrict Time slots | Will turn the time selection, into a dropdown starting from the start time, and using the duration interval minutes. |
| 9 | Max Bookable Minutes | The maximum number of minutes bookable for a single booking. |
| 10 | Min Bookable Minutes | The minimum number of minutes bookable for a single booking. |
| 11 | Duration Interval Minutes | When the user makes a booking the "duration" of the booking is picked from a list. This list goes from "Min Bookable Minutes" to "Max Bookable Minutes" in increments of Duration Interval Minutes. |
| 12 | Slot Minutes | This is the interval between clickable "slots" on the calendar view. This is purely aesthetic, matching the value for the Duration interval is recommended unless that value is small |
| 13 | Resource pool size | Currently unused in calculations. Set to 1. |
| 14 | Concurrent Resources | The number of resources that can be booked simultaneously. Allows overlapping bookings. |
| e.g. If this is 1, and somebody has made a booking for 10:00am for 30 minutes, and someone else tries to make a booking for 10:15 then they will not be allowed. If this is "2" then they would. | ||
| 15 | Door Code | The Urmet iPervoice controller (where installed) will grant and revoke key fob access to the door specified by this code |
| 16 | Reminder Interval Hours | If set, then this value determines how many hours before the event a reminder is sent to the booker. |
| 17 | Resource Option Label | If resource options are specified for the calendar then this field must be filled in. It is a user facing label that is displayed on the |
| Add Booking page if there are Resource Options for this type of calendar. | ||
| 18 | Options Form | A custom form can be configured (Under Request Forms) for a resource calendar. This gets merged with the add booking form and can be used to provide additional content for the booking. |
| 19 | Only Log | When set, no confirmation or notification request will be created. On the facility calendar configuration. Selecting this option will hide and make optional the handling group and message templates. |
| 20 | Confirmation Required | If Confirmation of each booking is required then a Request/Task is generated and sent to the Handling group |
| Once a member of this group has completed the task then a confirmation will be sent to the booker. | ||
| 21 | If no confirmation is required then a (Booking Notification Task) is sent to the handling group and a confirmation mail is sent to the booker. | |
| 22 | Confirmation Message Template | A Template used to specify text to send in a booking confirmation |
| 23 | Rejection Message Template | A template used to specify text to send in a booking rejection. |
| 24 | Handling Group | The group that will receive requests (i.e relating to the calendar.) |
| 25 | Maximum bookings in one period | Indicates the number bookings allowed in a specific period of time. If the value is empty there will be no limit of bookings. |
| Building Administrators - can overcome this by creating recurrent bookings. An admin can create one booking a day for a user regardless this values. | ||
| 26 | Maximum bookings period in days | Indicates the period in days related to the previous (Maximum bookings in one period) option. e.g. If this value is set to 7, and Maximum bookings in one period is set to 3. That means the users can make 3 bookings in a period of 7 days. |
| This only applies to individual bookings. Recurrent bookings can still be created by building administrators, which allows them to create more than 3 bookings in 7 days for a | ||
| 27 | Maximum days in advance | Limits the period a resident can make bookings. e.g, if set to 30 users can only book only between today and 30 days from now. After that it will be greyed out. Concierges, Building Administrators and Managing agents are still allowed to book any time or to make recurrent bookings. |
Technical Details
When a user creates a booking:
- It is added to database.
- A job is created to send Email/SMS reminders (sent at X minutes before event starts)
- A job is created to grant the user door access (via their fob)
- A task is created for Admin - it does nothing but informs them that the booking exists.
When a user Edits a booking:
- The original task is deleted
- The reminder job is updated
When a facility requires Confirmation, the initial creation of the booking only triggers the creation of a task for the handling group to Confirm the booking, at which point all the other stuff as listed above happens.
Editing a Booking
Residents are now able to edit bookings. When a user edits a booking, jobs are rescheduled and the original task is deleted. In the case of Confirmation being required, everything is deleted, to be re-created when the handling group confirms the booking.
To edit a booking:
- The event must be in the future
- The user must either be admin or be the original booker of the event
- If the user is a Resident, they cannot edit Repeated bookings, even if the bookings are 'assigned' to them. Admin hold domain over repeated bookings.
- The facility must not have a Door name (as updating the functionality of the Door system was too big to deal with)