Areas and rooms¶
Areas and rooms are the core of an MRBS installation.
Plan the hierarchy¶
Use an area for resources that share scheduling behavior. Good area boundaries include:
- a building or campus;
- a timezone;
- a department with its own administrators;
- a timetable or time resolution; or
- a common booking and privacy policy.
Use rooms for the individual resources people reserve.
Area settings¶
Area administration controls settings such as:
- timezone;
- time-based or period-based scheduling;
- opening and closing times;
- time-slot resolution and default duration;
- advance booking and cancellation windows;
- maximum booking duration and usage limits;
- privacy;
- approval, reminders, and confirmation;
- registration; and
- default booking type.
Settings saved for an existing area are stored in the database.
Important
areadefaults.inc.php supplies defaults for new areas. Changing it does
not update existing areas. Edit existing areas through Rooms.
Room settings¶
Give every room a unique, recognizable name. Descriptions can include capacity, equipment, accessibility, or location instructions.
Administrator contact fields can be used for notification and delegated management. Keep addresses current, especially when area or room administrators receive booking messages.
Period mode¶
Period mode replaces clock times with named slots, such as lessons or shifts. Define the periods in configuration before creating or changing an area that uses them.
Changes to a live timetable can affect how existing bookings are displayed. Plan and test significant period changes before applying them in production.
Custom room fields¶
MRBS can display additional database columns on rooms. Custom fields require a schema change and configuration for labels or selection options.
Back up the database first and follow the custom-field rules in the original
INSTALL document for MRBS 1.12.2.