Jan 23, 2018
One of the questions we receive from a number of schools is how to stop teachers booking multiple rooms in a single period – surely they can only be in one place at a time.
Our first question was to ask whether we do want to restrict a teacher to booking a single room, and after much thought we decided that we couldn’t always assume a teacher would only book a single location. They may be splitting their class into two groups and working in different locations in some instances. To this end we didn’t want to enforce the rule but we decided that a warning would be appropriate.
Configuring the system to generate a warning
Firstly we have to clarify what is a room and what isn’t a room. For example many schools define bookable resources in their booking system such as Video cameras, Data projectors and Laptop trolleys. It is then true that these bookable resources can be used in conjunction with a bookable location, hence no warning is required.
We define a bookable location (or room) as being a ‘Fixed location’ resource. In the Resource management area you can edit the resources and check the box ‘Fixed location’ to indicate this is a fixed location teaching space that generally is not bookable in conjunction with a second ‘Fixed location’ teaching space. If the resource is not a fixed location then you can specify the usual location of the resource (ie where the Data projector is normally stored and should be returned to).
Once you have configured the ‘Fixed location’ check box on the appropriate resources your system will then generate the required warning.
Exceptions
The Sobs administrators and Resource Managers will not receive these warning messages. It is always assumed that an administrator and resource manager are familiar with the booking policy and therefore do not need reminders.
The Warning Content
This is not configurable. The message indicates that the staff member is booking multiple fixed locations and they have the options to ‘Keep both’ bookings or to ‘Release previous’ booking.