Configure meeting rooms

Available with the ArcGIS Indoors Spaces extension.

Meeting rooms are conference spaces that occupants can reserve for temporary use when they need to collaborate. ArcGIS Indoors can display meeting room schedules, filter nearby meeting rooms based on availability and capacity, and launch the calendar app with the selected location and time. This allows users to find available meeting rooms based on their needs. Meeting rooms can be assigned to workspace areas, which can be configured to organize the occupants and bookable spaces managed by your organization.

ArcGIS Indoors Mobile supports managing meeting room reservations using the Indoors Reservations layer or Microsoft 365. Configure meeting room reservations using one of the following workflows based on the needs of your organization.

Prerequisites

ArcGIS Indoors includes Indoors Space Planner, which allows you to plan the activity of occupants, including assigning occupants to workspace areas with reservable meeting rooms. Meeting rooms can be booked through the Indoors Mobile app or Indoors Viewer and are managed through the Reservations layer in the Indoors Information Model or through Microsoft 365.

You can also create restricted workspace areas in Space Planner to restrict bookings in an area to specific users. To book a meeting room in a restricted workspace area, an occupant must be assigned to the workspace area in Space Planner. For unrestricted workspace areas, no occupant assignment is required and anyone from your ArcGIS organization can book a meeting room in the workspace area.

Note:

If a workspace area is configured as restricted, the user signed in to the Indoors Mobile app or Indoors Viewer must have an associated email address that matches the EMAIL field value of a record in the Occupants layer to book meeting rooms in that area.

Configure meeting rooms using the Reservations layer

This workspace reservation method requires the Reservations layer to be added to the web map. Meeting room bookings are managed in the Indoors model and enable real-time visualization of meeting room availability.

Add layers

Your organization must have the web map that was prepared and shared for use in Space Planner and the editable Reservations layer.

To prepare a map for workspace areas, complete the following steps:

1. Open an Indoors project in ArcGIS Pro and activate the map prepared for Indoors Mobile.
2. Add or update the source for the Occupants layer in the map from the occupants feature layer that is associated with the Space Planner web map.
3. Add or update the source for the Units layer from the units feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map.
4. Add or update the source for the Reservations layer.

   This editable layer is used for managing space reservations and visualizing reservations in a map.

   Note:

   You can configure the Reservations layer as time aware and symbolize the available meeting rooms so they can be visually identified for booking.

5. Configure the Floors property for these layers to enable the floor filter in the app.

   Set the layer's LEVEL_ID field for the Floors property. You can then use the floor filter to visualize real-time occupancy of the rooms per floor for a facility in the floor-aware map.

6. Add the Areas table from the feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map.
7. Save the project.
8. Create and share the mobile map package.

Configure check in for meeting rooms

You can enable the check in and check out functionality when configuring meeting room bookings using the Reservations layer. This can help users determine if a meeting room is occupied. When a meeting ends earlier than the scheduled end time, users can check out of the room to make it available to be booked again.

You can turn on check in and check out functionality for meeting rooms using the Configure App panel in the Indoors Viewer app.

Configure meeting rooms using Microsoft 365

Using this workspace reservation method requires that your organization define workspace mailboxes for office hotels, and resource mailboxes for meeting rooms in Microsoft 365. The Indoors app sends a booking request through the Microsoft Graph API. The following permissions are required:

• Sign in and read user profile—To confirm whether a user has access to workspace mailboxes
• Read user calendars—To get available times for rooms
• Full access to user calendars—To create an event for the new bookings
• Read user mailbox settings—To get mailbox settings such as time zone and locale

Depending on how your organization has set policies in Microsoft Azure, you may require administrator consent for the requested permissions before the organization starts using Indoors to book rooms. Availability of this feature may be limited if your organization restricts access to company-managed devices through Microsoft Intune.

Add layers

To prepare a map for workspace areas, complete the following steps:

1. Open an Indoors project in ArcGIS Pro and activate the map prepared for Indoors Mobile.
2. Add or update the source for the Occupants layer in the map from the occupants feature layer that is associated with the Space Planner web map.
3. Add or update the source for the Units layer from the units feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map.
4. Configure the Floors property for these layers to enable the floor filter in the app.

   Set the layer's LEVEL_ID field for the Floors property. You can then use the floor filter to visualize real-time occupancy of the rooms per floor for a facility in the floor-aware map.

5. Add the Areas table from the feature layer that is associated with the same Space Planner web map.
6. Save the project.
7. Create and share the mobile map package.

Add email IDs

Your organization must have resource mailboxes in Microsoft 365 for each meeting space that can be reserved so that a unique email address is associated with the space.

Note:

Ensure that the scheduling options, in particular the maximum duration, are set based on the requirements of your organization.

To associate units with email IDs, complete the following steps:

1. Right-click the Units layer and click Attribute Table.
2. Update the SCHEDULE_EMAIL field with the unique email IDs for each meeting room unit.
3. Click the Edit tab.
4. In the Manage Edits group, click Save.

   Note:

   Ensure that the USE_TYPE column has appropriate values for each meeting room unit. These required values are presented as options when booking workspaces.

5. Save the project.

Tip:

If you manage meeting rooms using workspace areas, meeting rooms assigned to a workspace area will be assigned a value of Meeting Room for the ASSIGNMENT_TYPE field.

Book a meeting room

The Make a reservation option appears under the meeting section on the explore panel for maps that have workspace reservations configured for meeting room booking. If a custom name is configured for the meeting section, it is displayed instead. The panel displays a list of available meeting rooms based on location and duration. You can filter the list based on workspace area, location, site, building, floor, capacity, and duration. If an equipment filter was configured, you can filter the listed meeting rooms by available equipment.

When a bookable meeting room is selected on the map, the Reserve option appears on the info card. Tap Reserve to book the meeting room.

Note:

The Indoors Mobile app enforces scheduling limits configured in Space Planner when you attempt to book a meeting room. Only meeting rooms managed inside workspace areas can have scheduling limits applied.

If meeting rooms are configured using the Reservations layer, users that are assigned the Indoors User user type or higher in your ArcGIS organization on ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise can book a meeting room.

If meeting rooms are configured using Microsoft 365, you must sign in to your Microsoft 365 account in the Indoors Mobile app to book meeting rooms.

View a meeting room booking

You can review your booked rooms on the Reservations list by tapping View all reservations under the Meeting section of the explore panel. You can select your reservations to open the reservation info card, and perform various actions such as editing or deleting the reservation, or adding a reminder to your preferred calendar app if meeting room booking is configured using the Reservations layer.

If the map was configured for meeting rooms using Microsoft 365, the Indoors app sends a request using the Microsoft account that the user signed in with in Indoors. Users receive an automated email specifying whether the request was accepted or declined, and an event is added to their calendar. You can also remove the booking from your Google or Outlook calendar. This experience is similar to using Microsoft apps such as Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Teams when reserving rooms. You can also review the acceptance status of meeting room bookings on the Reservations list.

Note:

Indoors Mobile for iOS integrates with the native mobile Calendar app. Integration with third-party calendar apps is not supported.