Creating Rooms

As described in the overview article, this versatile feature helps your users/patrons to fully utilize your facilities by providing details on the spaces available and the ability to request bookings for these spaces.

One of the first steps in setting up the room bookings feature, is to add the rooms/spaces to your Stacks site. This article will focus on some initial considerations to think about as well as how to create new rooms.

Considerations

Site Labels and Filter Vocabularies

Site labels can be updated to ensure field names and other terminology matches what your users/patrons expect to see when viewing the room details.

When viewing the list of rooms, you can provide you users/patrons the ability to filter the list by the Type and/or Category filter vocabulary fields. There are no default values in either of these lists, so it can save you time in the long run to create these list values before you start creating the rooms.

Filter vocabularies and site labels are discussed in more detail in the Considerations for Creating Content article, but it should be noted that administrators can quickly access the filter vocabularies and site labels specific to just the rooms, from the tabs at the top of the bookings management > rooms dashboard.

Tip! Only Moderators and Administrators have access to update the site labels and filter vocabularies.

Easy Forms

Stacks already provides a basic form that is used by your users/patrons to submit room bookings; however, if you have a need to capture more information above and beyond what the default form asks, you can add a custom-built EasyForm to the booking process for individual rooms.

Consider what additional information you may require and build the form to include with your room bookings. Form more information on how to create a form, please see the article Creating Easy Forms.

From the Dashboard, click the Bookings Management tile
Click the Rooms tile
Click + Add Room
1. Title - enter a title (name) for the room
  1. This is how patrons will identify the room they wish to book
2. Body - enter any applicable information related to the room, for example, this could include amenities or equipment in the room that can be used
  1. See the WYSIWYG editor article for more information on formatting options and field functionality
3. Bookable - check this box to make the room bookable by patrons
  1. Note: this box must be checked to make the room a bookable entity
4. Joined Room - check this box if the room is attached to another room which could potentially be booked at the same time, the room will then be listed in a drop-down list with all other joined rooms for patrons to select from
  1. Note, the other room must also have the Joined Room box checked as well
5. Location - select the location of the room
  1. Note: the values to select from here come from the Locations and Hours
6. Occupancy - enter the maximum occupancy for the room
7. Room Category - select the most appropriate value
  1. Reminder, this is a filter vocabulary field as described in the Considerations section of this article
8. Room Type - select the most appropriate value
  1. Reminder, this is a filter vocabulary field as described in the Considerations section of this article
9. Easy Form - select the appropriate form from the list, users/patrons completing a room booking will be prompted to also complete this form when submitting their request
  1. Note: the Bookable box must be checked in order for this field to appear
10. Easy Form Settings, click the drop-down to expand the section
  1. Status, select the most appropriate option
    1. Open, the form is open and submissions can be made
    2. Closed, the form is closed and submissions cannot be made
    3. Scheduled, the form is open for submissions during a specified time
11. Open Hours, click the drop-down to expand the section
  1. Click Set Open Hours, then enter the room's open hours for each day in the From and To fields
    1. Note, if left blank, open hours will default to the hours for location
  2. Comment - use this field to add any relevant information, this could include typing 'Closed' if there were a day the room would not be bookable (on a consistent basis, for exceptions, see below)
  3. Click Add Time Slot to add multiple times during the day, a second set of From and To fields will appear below, repeat as needed
    1. For example, use this if the room is available from 8am - 11am, then again from 1pm - 3pm
  4. Click Copy last day or Copy previous day to save time in configuring open hours if they are the same for multiple days
12. Exceptions - exceptions can be added to account for abnormal hours or temporary closures which are exceptions to the open hours above. This could be for holidays, special events ,etc.
  1. Click Add Exception
    1. Date - enter the date for the exception
    2. From and To - enter the from and to time to indicate the alternate hours
    3. Comment - use this field to add any relevant information, this could include typing 'Closed' if there were a day the room would not be bookable
    4. Click Add Time Slot to add multiple times during the day, a second set of From and To fields will appear below, repeat as needed
      1. For example, use this if the room is available from 8am - 11am, then again from 1pm - 3pm
    5. Click Copy last day or Copy previous day to save time in configuring open hours if they are the same for multiple days
13. Update the Publishing Workflow as needed
14. Click Save to save the room configuration

Once rooms have been created, review the Booking Settings to configure and update the rules around how your users/patrons can request these bookings.