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Meeting Booking Software: Why Is it Essential in the Workplace and How to Find the Right One
Organizations hold plenty of meetings weekly but, does anyone knows precisely how many times? According to a survey, an ordinary team member attends about 60 sessions in a month. On average, they meet with the whole team twice daily to discuss and collaborate on a project, make an announcement, welcome new employees, etc.
With this in mind, it shouldn’t be a surprise that many teams find it hard to book a meeting room, resulting in interrupted focus and decreased productivity. Additionally, the majority of team members consider most meetings as a waste of their time.
That’s where a meeting room reservation software gets beneficial. The system allows you and your team members to quickly view the meeting room availability then reserve one with just a few clicks. It also comes with a room booking system app that enabling your employees to access the software’s functionality even on the go.
Is your team facing the same meeting room issue we mentioned earlier? Maybe it’s high time to integrate room scheduling software into the office. Not sure if it’s worth investing for or you lack use cases? Here are apparent signs that now is the time to implement one at your workplace.
3 Clear Evidence That You Should Install a Room Booking System in the Workplace
Double Bookings Frequently Occurred at the Workplace
Today is the day that you will present your project idea to the team. But then, you find out that the other team occupies the meeting room you reserved a few days in advance. It means that you both book the same room at the same time. The worse feeling is that they arrived at that room earlier than you, and now they are starting their session. Now, you are back to looking for another room for the last minute. Your meeting attendees are waiting for your updates. This scenario is no new for employees and offices, mainly when they arranged a meeting manually. Luckily, there is a solution to that!
Meeting room booking software ensures that every reservation is up-to-date in real-time. When you reserve a meeting room, the system will disable all bookings in the future until you check out. Additionally, if there are changes to the meeting, the system will notify all your attendees. This function significantly eliminates conflicts of bookings, saving everybody’s time and avoiding disputes among employees.
Misunderstanding Among Teams Due to Room Stealing
One obvious sign that your workplace needs room meeting booking software is when room usurpation cases rise. Sure, there are urgent operation-based discussions, but let’s admit that it can be frustrating for teams who did the proper meeting room booking process.
An advanced conference booking manager often comes with smart room displays attached outside the meeting room. These room displays show an explicit notification of what room it is, its status, who occupied them, and the meeting details.
Additionally, it links to the whole system, showing all upcoming reservations in a specific room for the coming weeks or months. With this meeting room scheduling tool, it is more accessible for a team member to view gaps between meetings to set the ideal time where there is no schedule conflict.
Too Many Advanced Room Bookings in Fear of Not Getting a Room
In offices, particularly with large organizations, meeting room availability is infamously limited. So, what other teams do is they try to book as many conference rooms as they can in advance. While it is acceptable for scheduling recurring meetings like ‘weekly project update’ that keeps everyone on the same page, reserving multiple rooms, so you have spare just in case cannot be the reason for doing this practice.
Panic room booking will result in an empty booked room, but other teams cannot use it. Even though most people are against this exercise, it is not enough to prevent them from happening. You can stop this from occurring again.
With a conference scheduling software integration, the meeting room booking process is efficient. It allows your employees to book how many rooms they expect to use in the future as the system has recurring meeting features. They don’t have to worry about not getting a vacant conference room because having an intelligent booking system will confidence that “hoarding” of the room will not happen again.
Moreover, if no one confirms the reservation within a given period, the conference scheduling software will automatically release for use by other team members.
How to Ensure That You Will Pick the Best Online Room Booking System
Getting the appropriate desk booking workplace means getting the right solution for your office spaces and resources management needs. It can also significantly contribute to your company’s success or failure. So, when it comes to finding the ideal meeting room reservation software, what are factors do you need to bear in mind?
Intuitive and Straightforward
Working with loads of tasks is just enough to cause you stress and fatigue. Therefore, learning how to use software is the last thing on your to-do list. Choosing the best online room booking system means having the one that is easy-to-use and doesn’t need training. The type that when you look at it, you already know how to operate it just like any other famous mobile application today.
The interface should be intuitive and makes sense. It should also serve its primary purpose well – quickly finds a conference room by looking at its 3D custom floor plan and booking it using either desktop or conference room app.
Doesn’t Require Much Change
Inherently, not all people love change. The saying same goes with some employees. Even when the new software doesn’t need much training, they will think their accustomed system will replace a new and complicated one.
Luckily, the proper meeting booking software works well with today’s commonly used online platforms such as Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, Slack, etc. This way, they can still arrange a meeting, book a room and communicate on their preferred platforms.
Furthermore, when you integrate your room scheduling software into Outlook and Microsoft Exchange, all reservations are synchronized in the entire system. So, when you book a room in your conference room app, it will show up on your Outlook calendar as well as on the system.
Provide Reports and Data Analytics
Your employees have the freedom to choose a room or a workspace based on their needs. So, another workspace may be left unused or seldom used. But without a system, you don’t know which one and the other details of booking your employees’ booking behavior in a given period.
So, it is essential if your meeting room booking system has built-in analytics. It will provide you real-time data about the usage of your desks and room at a given time. This data is your much-needed information to come up with the appropriate adjustments with your workplace.
Customizable
Every workplace is unique and so are their needs. However, not all conference booking management in the market today offers customization. So, ensure that you will pick the one that will allow you to modify the system to create suitable settings for your space booking requirements.
Efficient Meeting Experience
Stress with arranging meetings? Scheduling meetings can be a hassle even from the start when you can’t find an available conference room. That’s one thing, you also need to inform attendees, prepare the plan, and make sure that everything will be perfect. Too good to be true? Not anymore with the best online room booking system.
When in place, it should help you:-
- Inform every attendee about the meeting details.
- Remind all participants before the meeting so they won’t be late or forgot the appointment.
- Book the necessary equipment along with the room booking.
- Allow you to record meeting minutes.
- Provide explicit notification of who’s occupying the room, so other teams don’t interrupt the current discussion.
- And many more.
Comes with Hardware to Provide More Effective Functions
Let’s say you have a computer, mobile phones, and tablets. However, you can’t be sure if the room booking software is compatible with those. Using inappropriate devices may lead to the malfunctioning of the software. So, it is highly advisable to select software that has hardware in it so you can make the most of it.
Better Meetings Are on The Way!
Now that you have learned the advantages of having a meeting room booking system (most especially the best kind) and knowing what to look for, don’t you think it’s about time to install one in your office? We say, now is the time!
Meetings are notoriously disliked by employees and maybe by leaders too. But if you start with a quick and straightforward meeting room booking process (or perhaps you will enjoy doing it as it is effortless) and everything is set, you can achieve better meetings.
DeskFlex has all the requirements mentioned earlier and can provide more. DeskFlex software continuously upgrades its system to serve its clients better. Today, DeskFlex has Covid-compliant features, and the latest innovation is the vaccine management feature so organizations and businesses can have safer and better meetings.