Overview

In 2018/19, the university undertook a comprehensive space utilization study.  The results of that study showed that there are many underutilized campus meeting spaces and conference rooms.  At the same time, there is unmet demand for locating and reserving available meeting spaces across the campus and no visibility to available conference rooms on campus.

In order to correct this situation and maximize the use of all existing campus conference rooms and meeting spaces, a single automated scheduling resource will be utilized to locate, request, and schedule all available meeting spaces on campus.

Locating Available Campus Conference Rooms

All campus conference rooms and meeting spaces are visible in the “Rooms” dropdown button within the campus’ Microsoft Outlook calendar tool. Available conference room and meeting space availability can be seen as “free” or “busy” using the “Scheduling Assistant” when scheduling a meeting with the Outlook calendar.  Beginning in Fall 2020, the only way to reserve a campus conference room will be through the campus email / calendar system.

Requesting and Scheduling Campus Conference Rooms

The Microsoft calendar is available for use by all campus faculty and staff as part of the campus’ Microsoft Office365 email system. Using the campus calendar will be the only way to request and reserve all campus conference rooms or meeting spaces. Rooms will be added to meeting invitations through the “Meeting Request” feature by searching “Rooms” in the Location section of the invite.    Faculty and staff can use their campus calendar to manage their “free” and “busy” time, and can configure their calendars so that others can only see their “free” and “busy” time. This will provide one automated and efficient way to view available times to invite campus faculty or staff to meetings as well as reserve an available campus meeting space.

Conference Room Approvals

Each conference room or meeting space listed in the campus calendar “Rooms” drop down will have a delegated primary approver and one backup approver.  Once a conference room or meeting space is added to a meeting invitation and sent, the Room approver will receive the request via email for review and approval.  The Room approver will approve the request and the meeting requester will receive an email confirmation.  If denied, a reason will be given by the Room approver and the meeting organizer can look for another conference room using the same process.

Room Information

To assist requestors in selecting the appropriate room, information pertaining to the room will be included such as capacity, phone number, and description (projector, whiteboard, etc.)