Room Scheduling Software Integrations Your Workplace Needs

Room scheduling software works best when integrated with other workplace solutions. As long as you know how to ride it and you’re traveling a relatively short distance, a unicycle can get you to your destination. But making the trek on one wheel definitely won’t be easy. It would make a lot more sense to use a vehicle with four wheels.

It’s the same as when you use room scheduling software by itself in your pursuit for smarter resource scheduling. Yes, it will work, but not nearly as well or as quickly as it would if you used it tandem with other workplace management solutions.

As an IT manager, you need as much data as possible in order to be able to make confident decisions about technology in the workplace. That’s why your organization’s room scheduling software will be more powerful when it’s combined with other solutions as part of an integrated workplace management system (IWMS).

Here are four software tools that complement room scheduling software to make resource allocation a breeze.

4 Integrations Your Room Scheduling Software Needs

Space Management Software

On average, real estate is the second highest expense for any organization. Fortunately, your organization has the power to reduce real estate costs, and it starts with using the right tools.

For example, room scheduling software, when integrated with space management software, can give you additional insight into how workspaces and their accompanying assets are used. Room reservation tools keep track of which spaces employees consistently book and which spaces tend to be ghost towns.

With this insight, you’ll know which workspaces they need to take a closer look at and determine why they’re so unpopular. It could be something as simple as a weak WiFi signal. By knowing how space is being utilized through data collected via room scheduling software, you can work together with the facilities team to make sure each area of the workplace has what the workforce needs.

Asset Management Software

Why an employee reserves a particular workspace is based on a few different variables, such as its location and the purpose of the employee’s meeting. But what also influences her decision is which assets she needs (and how well they work.)

Integrating asset management software with room scheduling software enables you to identify what type of equipment is in greatest demand by giving you visibility into the highest-trafficked workspaces. If you see there are several popular work areas that have nothing in common except for the fact they all have videoconferencing equipment, you can add the necessary assets to other workspaces.

Conversely, if you notice there are multiple rooms with the same assets but one is reserved much more often than the other, you can look into this further. Maybe the equipment is always on the fritz and needs to be repaired or replaced. Or maybe an asset that is supposed to be in one conference room was actually moved to another.

An integration between asset tracking software and room scheduling solutions gives you the data to ensure your workforce has what it needs, wherever they happen to be working.

Wayfinding Solutions

Large corporate campuses or multi-story office buildings typically have dozens of meeting rooms, and it can be difficult to distinguish one from another. This creates confusion internally when you’re trying to have a meeting of the minds between different department heads, and it’s even worse when a guest shows up looking for the right room. You could rely on employees to point them in the right direction, but that’s assuming they’re available and know what’s going on—and that’s assuming a lot.

Instead of hoping someone will be in the right place at the right time to direct a wanderer, your organization can have wayfinding kiosks in high-traffic areas, such as the lobby. When these solutions integrate with room scheduling software, employees and visitors can see which rooms are booked and where to find them.

Analytics and Dashboards

While the goal of integrations is to collect valuable data, it’s difficult to act upon raw data unless you can visualize how different data points fit together. That’s why room scheduling software needs to either have native data analytics features or be integrated with a workplace management system that has dashboard and report management capabilities.

Analytics and dashboards can help you detect patterns and trends using accurate, objective information so you can make more informed, data-driven decisions.

As you evaluate your options for optimizing resource scheduling in your workplace, there’s one more important thing to consider. Any room scheduling software you decide to implement must be easily accessible to employees wherever they are. It should allow them to search for available rooms and book one in seconds, whether they are on their smartphone, desktop computer or standing in front of a digital panel outside a conference room.

Take Room Scheduling Software To New Heights With Hummingbird

In a digital workplace, it’s no longer enough to have room scheduling software. You need an integrated solution that empowers employees to check availability, make reservations from anywhere and find their next meeting.

iOFFICE Hummingbird is an innovative set of workplace solutions—including mobile apps, kiosks and IoT integrations—designed to enhance the employee experience while reducing the workload for IT.

Hummingbird makes resource scheduling a breeze while enabling greater mobility, enhancing collaboration, streamlining technology solutions and enhancing reporting.

Consider how Hummingbird makes it easy to book a room through five common touchpoints. With the iOFFICE Reservation module and mobile app, users can reserve a room, workstation, or meeting space 5 different ways; through a desktop, room panels or a kiosk, with a mobile app and through calendaring systems like Outlook or Exchange. Hummingbird can even integrate with occupancy sensors so workplace leaders can see when a reserved room is actually in use. If sensors show it isn’t used after a certain period of time, the room’s status will be updated automatically so employees will see it’s available.

Learn more about how Hummingbird solves workplace technology headaches and makes an IT professional’s job easier.