We want to help organizations make the best use of their space. To do that, we’re consolidating all features related to managing buildings and resources in a single dedicated place in the Admin console. We’re also introducing two new tools, room release and room insights, to help you understand your organization’s resource utilization and optimize occupancy.
A single destination for building and resource management
All features related to managing buildings and rooms are now united in a new and more prominent entry point in the Admin console called “Buildings and resources.” You can access this directly from the home screen or via
Directory > Buildings and Resources in the navigation menu.
Room release based on event declines
According to an internal study, up to 40% of rooms are booked but go unused. To help your users reclaim those unused rooms, we’ll now automatically free up meeting rooms when all but one of the guests has declined the Google Calendar invitation. When the room is released, the event organizer will receive an email informing them of the change and suggesting that they reschedule or delete the meeting.
You can enable this feature for structured rooms in the Admin console by navigating to your resources and selecting the rooms you wish to enable for room releases. You then need to click "EDIT" and turn Calendar-based room releases on for your selection.
Please note, room release is only available for G Suite Business, Enterprise, Enterprise for Education, and Education editions and can only be enabled for
structured rooms that are categorized as “CONFERENCE_ROOM.”
Room insights dashboard
We’re also adding a new dashboard in the Admin console for room insights. Here, you can see data such as:
- The most and least frequently booked rooms
- The usage and bookage rates of rooms across time zones and various room sizes
- How many rooms could be freed up automatically with Calendar’s room release feature
You can filter this data by building, floor, room, room capacity, room features, or time period for more granularity.
With these reports, you can make better decisions about improvements to your workspace. They provide signals on where to investigate further. Some examples of insights include:
- What are your most popular rooms?
- Are your rooms under-utilized or over-utilized?
- Which room sizes are most popular?
- Which equipments drive room usage? Which A/V equipment should you invest more into?
- When are the best times to schedule repairs and maintenance work?
- At which times are rooms most booked, and can you educate members of your organization to shift the times when they schedule meetings?
You can access this dashboard in the Admin console in the “Buildings & resources” section.
With this launch, we’re also adding a new
admin privilege, “room insights,” to grant other admins or your dedicated facilities managers the right to only view this dashboard and other resources.
Please note, this data is only available for
structured resources.
Launch Details
Release track:
Both features launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release
Editions:
- Room insights: available to all G Suite editions
- Room release: available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, Enterprise for Education, and Education editions only
Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)
Impact:
Admins and end users
Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI
More Information
Structuring resources
Room release
Room insights
Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
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