Resource booking...

[RabbieBurns]

We have recently taken over managing the AV in our school, and Im looking into a better way for the staff to book our resources..

 

The current way, is they email us an outlook appointment which we have created, and it goes into our shared outlook calendar once we accept it. If theres a clash, we decline it with an explaination.

 

IMO tihs is a very tiresome approach. We do all our communicating via email, so a web based booking system isnt an option as it just wouldnt work, but I cant help but feel there is a better way.

 

Staff send through an email to the AV email address requesting us, then we have to email/phone them back, to tell them to send us through the meeting request (powers that be only accept it in this matter)

 

Suggestions most welcome for how I can make this situation better for both us, and for staff..

[michaelf]

If you already have a shared Outlook Calendar why not grant the staff permissions to view the calendar and to create/modify/delete their own items only? This way they can easily see when the resource is free and book it without several emails back and forth being needed but can't modify other people's bookings.

[RabbieBurns]

the calendar is for the it dept only, staff dont have access to it, they just send a meeting request so it goes into our calendar. Also, if they were just adding entries, i could see them adding an event at 6am for an 8am start for the same day when they wake up and reaisle they had forgotton to book us - how could we control that? Also, if they were just adding events, we weould need to be proactivaly checking the calendar.. At the moment we all konw about it as the AV@school address they send to comes to all of us..

 

The current soultuion works fine for us, but its the staff its a PITA for really.

[ihaveaproblem]

Are you running a VLE? We have a bookings form created in Frog. All it requires is the end user to fill out a few options such as time/date etc and then the request is emailed to the member of staff in charge of bookings. They can then either accept or deny the request, if accepeted the request is added to the bookings form calendar on frog for all to see/