Jan 23, 2018
There are a number of different methods of notification that we will try and explain in this article so you can choose the one that is right for you.
Staff notification of today’s bookings
Staff can select a ‘Notify-daily’ option on their profile. When checked they will receive an email each morning notifying them of any resources they have booked for that day. Staff access this option by clicking ‘My profile’ from the left hand menu and then click the ‘Edit’ button to adjust their profile settings. Placing a tick in the ‘Notify-daily’ check box will enable this notification option.
An administrator can turn this option on for a staff member by editing their staff record and checking the ‘Notify-daily’ option on their record.
Staff notification via the calendar sharing
Whether you use the School Calendar application or not you can still use this option. Each staff member can enable this option for themselves by clicking on their name (bottom left) and then on the ‘Profile’ menu entry. The application displays a unique URL that can be entered into their favourite calendar application using the appropriate ‘Subscribe’ option. This will automatically display their SOBS resource bookings on their calendar application, it will be automatically refreshed on a regular schedule but can at times be a few hours behind SOBS.
For more detailed instructions refer to the articles: Microsoft Outlook Google Calendar Apple Calendar
Staff notification via reports
All staff have the ability to configure their own reports within Sobs. The report writer is very simple to use and reports can be scheduled to run regularly, sending the report output as an email to the staff member or any other email account.
Refer to help articles on using the Room and Resource Booking report writer. (to be completed)
Staff notification via approvals
If the resource that the staff member is booking requires approval an email is immediately sent to all of the resource managers that can approve bookings for this resource. When the approval (or cancellation) is processed an email is returned to the staff member indicating the request outcome.
- When editing the resource click the ‘Configure’ button next to the Managers
- If the staff member is not already in this list then click the ‘Add manager’ option
- Edit the resource manager options and select the ‘Approve’ option, ensure the ‘Notify’ option is not selected. The ‘Notify’ and ‘Approve’ options are mutually exclusive, if both are selected the staff member will only receive a notification and not an approval message.
Staff notification as a Resource Manager
If the staff member’s role requires them to know about bookings being made, then a good option is to use the Resource Manager facility with the ‘Notify’ option selected. Each time a booking is made an email will be immediately sent to the selected Resource Manager.
- When editing the resource click the ‘Configure’ button next to the Managers
- If the staff member is not already in this list then click the ‘Add manager’ option
- Edit the resource manager options and select the ‘Notify’ option. The ‘Notify’ and ‘Approve’ options are mutually exclusive, if both are selected the staff member will only receive a notification and not an approval message.
Staff notification via public displays
The ‘Public Display’ options within Sobs allows for current and next bookings to be displayed on a publicly mounted screen. The content is automatically updated and there options to display other content in addition to the room and resource bookings.
Other options
If you have any other suggestions that you think would be useful please send them in.
The only other option we have come up with is sending out an SMS message with their bookings, either once in the morning or 10 minutes prior to a booking. We haven’t implemented this as we feel it could easily become another source of unwanted information being pushed in front of people and they would come to resent the intrusion.