Tracking Zoom Bookings, Room Bookings & Resource Availability

Overview

Managing rooms, Zoom account availability, and resource availability come with many challenges. To achieve smooth resource tracking and minimize errors, resource booking, and utilization information should be managed as part of the event management system itself.

The resource management feature within Gnosis provides a highly coupled mechanism for booking Rooms, Zoom accounts, and other resources directly inside the event management system.
 

Resource Management Within Events

To work effectively, the Gnosis room booking system must be set up with an appropriate level of resources tracked.  We recommend starting with high-level resources such as rooms and Zoom accounts and possibly A/V resources.  This system is designed to ensure visibility into the availability and assignment of shared rooms and resources inside the event management system.
 

Initial Setup

The initial setup of the room and resource management system involves the following steps:

• Entering room, resource, and Zoom account categories in Reference Data management.  Each of these categories, entered under the "Resource Categories" option in reference to data management,  should represent a group of resources such as rooms in each building or campus, your Zoom accounts, audio-visual equipment in each facility area, etc.
  
   
• Once all categories have been added, open the "Manage Resources" option on a Gnosis navigator page. 
  • Pooling Options: specifies how resources in the category should be assigned if you have multiple of one or more items in the category.  None disables pooling, In Order rotates through the list of resources, and Load Balance ensures that multiple resources of the same type get used the same amount to spread wear & tear or replacement of consumables.
  • In the schedule area, Add each category's Person Member Type (Status) allowed to book the resource, the duration for booking units, fee structure (if any) and default availability schedule.
    
     
• Next, Add resources in each category along with availability schedules and conditions for each resource:
  • Resource Active allows the resource to be booked
  • Resource Bookable refers to whether the resource is available for booking outside of the event management booking process.
  • Consumable should be checked for any resource that is consumed and not returned to resource storage.
  • Recovery Time is the amount of time the resource will be unavailable between bookings
  • Recovery Group is the user group that can be notified to prepare and/or recover the resource before/after use.
  • Resource Options allow you to add a number of "Flavors" for the resource.  This may be something as simple as a marker color, or as detailed as the layout of furniture in a room.
  • Prerequisite Category, if used, enforces the booking of a prerequisite category item before the resource can be booked.  For example, perhaps a room in Building A must be booked before a projector in Building A can be booked.
  • Availability Schedule can be specified for an individual resource if required rather than using the default schedule of the resource category.
    

If you are an SSA client and want assistance or guidance in setting up your Room & Resource Booking system in Gnosis, don't hesitate to get in touch with Support with your request.
 

Using Resource Management Within Events

When scheduling an event in Event Management, the required resources (Rooms and/or Zoom Accounts) may be assigned to the event by using the "Book Resources" option on the event setup screen:

The screen that opens within the event provides access to view availability and book resources for that event:

1. Display all of the resources along with their availability for this event by using one of the two Add Bookings buttons (display a list or display the resources in an availability grid)
2. Optionally, you may manage the assigned resources at the individual event instance level by choosing the instance and pressing the "+" button
3. Once added, you may add notes to the booking if desired - at the overall booking level or for any of the booked resources.

Viewing Availability & Ad-hoc Bookings

In addition to the resource availability in the event setup screen, the overall availability of rooms and resources may be viewed via the main Resource Bookings screen:

This availability screen displays all or selected resources on an availability grid and allows the booking of additional rooms or resources outside the event management system.

Additional bookings here may be assigned to a person in the database, and if it is a room rental, the system will also produce an invoice for the rental.

Reporting

Resource Booking reports may be produced for the following purposes:

• Listing of upcoming bookings by day or by resource
• Room/Resource set up schedule with setup notes