Implementing Hoteling or Reservations in Archibus

Do you need reservations or hoteling?

There are several differences between the applications, usually a main question is: do you need bookings to be available down to the minute, or down to the half day?

Hoteling is bookable down to the half-day where you can choose morning, afternoon, or all-day bookings. Hoteling is normally used for working spaces and allows for space chargeback where the costs of the space are prorated back to the department that booked the base using shared workplace chargeback.

Reservations is bookable down to the minute (you set this parameter, can also be bookable in larger minimum time-frames like a half hour or hour) and each room can have its own configuration for the times it is available to be booked. This is typically used for meeting spaces and costs are charged based on a defined room rate based on the department using it and the time booked.

Another main question is: do you need the room to be bookable by multiple separate people? For example, if you are using hoteling and you set the capacity of the room to 2, two separate people can book that room separately. If you are using reservations and you set the capacity to 2, one person can book the room for up to 2 occupants.

Decision:

Do you have restrictions on who can book which room?

If yes, see this article for options for reservations and hoteling: https://knowledgebase.rsc2lc.com/archibus-workplace-hoteling-and-reservations-restrictions/

Options for Reservations: VPA, Approvals, Security Groups

Options for Hoteling: VPA, Approvals, Employee standard/room standard mapping

Decision:

Define Parameters

Hoteling Parameters

https://help.archibus.com/user_en/archibus.htm#../Subsystems/webc/Content/hoteling/fim/approve_parameters.htm

Parameter	Setting
Morning Start Time	9am
Morning End Time	1pm
Afternoon Start Time	1pm
Afternoon End Time	5pm
Allow Multiple Bookings (for same time period)	No
ConfirmationTime (minutes after start time to confirm before desk is released)	60 minutes
EnforceFloorCapacityTarget	No
FullDayBookingsOnly	No
HealthCheckRequired	No

Reservations Parameters

Parameter Code	Parameter Description	Parameter Value
Arrangement Type	Default room arrangement type	DEFAULT
DaysBeforeArchiving	Data is moved from the inventory tables to historic tables for all reservations having a date older than this number of days.	90
HideRoomConflicts	Configure the level of filtering (0-8) for room conflicts when users create a recurring reservation. These rooms will be displayed: 0: all rooms available for at least one occurrence; 1: all rooms available for at least 50% of the occurrences; 2: only rooms available for all occurrences (if any), otherwise all rooms available for at least one occurrence; 3: only rooms available for all occurrences (if any), otherwise all rooms available for at least 50% of the occurrences; 4: only rooms available for all occurrences; 5: all rooms available for at least the first occurrence; 6: all rooms available for the first occurrence and at least 50% of the occurrences; 7: only rooms available for all occurrences (if any), otherwise all rooms available for at least the first occurrence; 8: only rooms available for all occurrences (if any), otherwise all rooms available for the first occurrence and at least 50% of the occurrences.	3
MaxRecurrencesToCreate	This number sets the maximum number of occurrences to process when creating a recurring reservation. Please, don’t enter a numeric value higher than 500, because of performance and technical limitations.	250
MinutesTimeUnit	Minutes of duration for each one of the time blocks displayed in the timeline control.	15
ShowRoomImage	Enable or disable the Calendar views to show images for each of the room configurations showed. Set to 1 to show the images, 0 to not show them.	1
TimelineStartTime	Initial time that will show in the timeline control (earliest time rooms are bookable)	00:00.00.000
TimelineEndTime	End time that will show in the timeline control (latest time rooms are bookable)	24:00.00.000
TimelineMaxRoomsPerBuilding	This number sets the maximum number of rooms displayed on the rooms time line when creating or editing a room reservation or conference call reservation. A lower number increases performance and reduces the height of the rooms time line. A higher number can yield more rooms to choose from in each building.	10

For reservations, parameters can also be set at the room level. Please consider if you want to set these as the same or different for all rooms.

Room Arrangement Type
Available for Group (security group – one group only)
Time Day Starts
Time Day Ends
Maximum Days Ahead (you can book)
External visitors allowed?
Maximum Capacity
Minimum Capacity Required

Define Workflow

Example Workflow

Diagram

Description automatically generated

Define Email Notification Contents

Please provide the email contents for each email noted in the workflow. Emails can be formatted in html. Email option information can be found here: https://knowledgebase.rsc2lc.com/rsc-sql-automation-engine-email-notification-options/

Example Email for Hoteling:

Email: HOTEL_NEW_RESERVATION

Recipient: Person who booked, cc person it was booked for (other employee or visitor)

Subject: Desk Reserved

Body (Example):

* This is an automated message. Please do not reply to this message.

Hello Jane Doe,

You’re all set. Your hotel desk reservation is booked, details are below.

Booked for (if not yourself): John Doe

Booking ID: 123

Building: HQ

Floor: 01

Desk: 101

Date: 12/31/2022

Part of Day: Morning

If you do not check in within 60 minutes of the start of your reservation it will automatically be cancelled

Find the desk here.

Check in, edit, or cancel your reservation here.

Thank you,

Space Management

Example Email for Reservations:

Email: RESERVE_NEW_RESERVATION