Room Management

Categories

The room management guide will walk you through the following:

• Setting up your individual rooms and spaces
• Set room pricing for each space
• Add and remove portable and stationary equipment
• Add available dates and times
• Adding terms of use documents

Begin by selecting the drop-down arrow under “Room Management” in the left navigation. Click on “Rooms.”

Select the orange “+ADD ROOM” button on the top right of the screen to add a new room for your organization.

Fill out the requested information for each section.

• Room Name – This is the name you use to refer to this room or space within your organization.
• Room Type – What type of room is it – study room, conference room, classroom, etc.
• Room Description – Add any information you think might be relevant for someone to know about this space.
• Room Photo – Add a photo of the space (400x400pxl recommended)
• Fee – Do you charge a fee to rent this room? If so, how much?
• Fee Type – Does the fee apply to an hourly charge or a full session?
• Public Room Requests – (This will apply to a later release of room reservation. If your organization allows patrons to register for rooms on their own you will use this section in a future release of LocalHop reservation software.)

Remember to save all of your information.

Once the basic room information has been saved you will then be able to edit the other room information sections:

• Room Availability
• Room Layout
• Room Equipment

Room Availability

Select the orange “+ADD AVAILABILITY” button in the top right of the section.

You will need to create a set of times and days that the room is available to be rented out or booked by staff and patrons. (note: these may or may not be the same as the hours that you are open)

Select the day, start time, and end time for room availability. If the availability is in blocks (such as if the building closes at lunch or has special evening hours) select “Additional Time Range” option to add another start and end time for that day.

Room Layout

Select the orange “+ADD LAYOUT” button in the top right of the section.

One at a time, create available room layouts to choose from. Use any of the pre-loaded templates or upload your own layouts to use. Add as many as you would like, based on creative options or seating capacity options for that room.

Add a description to your layout and the max seating capacity for the layout before selecting “SAVE LAYOUT.”

Room Equipment

Use this section to list out the amenities available in that room only (stationary equipment). This is equipment that is available to use in that room but cannot be moved to another room (ex. TV’s, whiteboards, projector screens, chalkboard paint wall, etc.). This equipment is included in the room reservation when room is booked.

Note: portable equipment will be added in another section, do not add portable equipment here.

MAKING A ROOM INACTIVE AND DELETING A ROOM

If the room becomes unavailable for any reason (renovations, booked for an extended period, etc.) you are able to turn off all availability for that space indefinitely by going under the “Room” tab and use the drop-down option to move the room from “active” to “inactive.”

To delete a room, it must first be changed to “inactive” status. You must also delete all of the layouts associated with that space. This is to ensure that rooms do not accidentally get deleted by administrators managing spaces. If a room is set to inactive and the delete room option has been selected, a pop-up will notify the admin that layouts must be deleted before deleting the room completely from your organization.

Portable Equipment

In this next section you will learn how to manage portable equipment. Under the “Room Management” section in the left navigation select the “Portable Equipment” tab.

Portable equipment is equipment that can be added and moved between rooms. These items can be added at the time of room booking for free or set up as an additional cost to booking a room or space.

Start by selecting the orange “+ADD EQUIPMENT” button in the top right of the page.

For portable equipment, you must create a piece of equipment for each individual item that is available. For example, if you have three portable TV’s, create three separate TV equipment listings, each with their own fee and description. When a room is booked, this will help the admin see which items are still available and the quantities. When an item is booked with a room reservation, that item will then be removed from the list of available options for other room bookings.

• Equipment Name – Name each piece of equipment as you would refer to it internally among staff so there is no confusion among team members.
• Usage Fee – Will there be an additional fee for reserving this piece of equipment? The default option is set to free.
• Equipment Description – If needed add a description for the equipment. Size, weight, ways to use it effectively, and will they need to bring anything to use with it? Such as coffee if they are reserving a coffee pot.

Unavailable Dates

Click on “Unavailable Dates” under the “Room Management” drop-down in the left navigation.

Use the “Unavailable Dates” section to block off complete days that ALL rooms or spaces will be unavailable throughout the year. Holidays, seasonal days, and special events are all examples of Unavailable days your rooms might not be available for booking.

Note: Days can only be selected one at a time, unavailability cannot be added by week, month, or year.

Terms of Use

Click on “Terms of Use” under the “Room Management” drop-down in the left navigation. Here you will add your organization’s terms of use for your facility and spaces that you will be renting out to patrons.

Select the green button to upload your pdf document.

A pop-up will let confirm that your document has been uploaded successfully.

Room Reservation Settings (applies to all rooms)

START CALENDAR BY –

• Default View – displays timeslots from 12am to 11pm.
• Room Availability – displays timeslots from earliest available room to latest available room.
  Effects Reservation Calendar View.

MAXIMUM NUM OF ACTIVE RESERVATIONS – What are the maximum number of active reservations allowed for all rooms? If you do not have a limit, select “No Maximum.”

NUMBER OF RESERVATIONS PER PERIOD – Choose the quantity of reservations. 

TIME INCREMENT – Select the time period for the quantity selected.

MAXIMUM HOURS OF RESERVATIONS PER PERIOD – Choose the quantity of hours.

MAXIMUM HOURS OF RESERVATIONS TIME INCREMENT – Select the time period for the quantity.

SET DEFAULT START TIME FOR RESERVATIONS – Set the default start time that patrons will see on the room reservation page.
Note: Default start time can also be changed on the room reservation widget by accessing the room reservation snippet settings.

Room Specific Settings

Set limitations at the room level for guests and by room type. 

• Classroom
• Conference room
• Study room

WALK-INS COUNT AGAINST LIMITATIONS? – If a guest walks in to request a room, should it be count against the limitations set in the room settings?

Staff Reminder Settings

REMINDER 1 TIME – For reservations that require approval, how long after a request has been submitted do you want a reminder sent out to approval managers?

REMINDER 2 TIME – After the first reminder goes out to approval managers, how long until they receive another reminder if the request has still not been approved? 

FACILITIES REMINDER EMAIL – How long before the reservation should facilities staff receive their reminders for room reservations?

Public Room Reservation Settings

REQUIRE LOCALHOP LOGIN? – The only way to enforce limitations for patron registration is to tie them to an email address or library card/barcode. You can do this by requiring them to sign in to a LocalHop account to validate.