Create Single-Room Scheduling Card with Google G Suite

This article provides the instructions to create and configure a Room Schedule card with Google G Suite provider settings.

The Room Schedule card is ideal for single room scheduling. When the Room Schedule card is configured and displayed on a tablet or device outside the respective meeting room, the following features will be available to you:

• Room information: the room name and status indicating if the room is available, offline, or occupied is displayed.
• Meeting information: details of current meeting and upcoming meetings for the day.
• Booking functions:
  • Book now – ability to book 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 1.5 hours from the current time, based on room availability.
  • Book in advance – book future time slots (on the same day only) or up to 7 days in advance, based on room availability.
  • Check in – option to check in to a meeting from 10 minutes before until 10 minutes after the start of the meeting.
  • Extend meeting – extend current meeting by 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 1.5 hours.
  • End meeting – end current meeting, and make the room available.

In order to use the room booking and scheduling service with our Room Schedule card, you must do the following:

1. Create a booking account, add resources, and delegate access, with G Suite Administrator credentials.
2. Create Room Schedule card in the Appspace console.
3. Create a playlist channel and add the Room Schedule card.
4. Assign the playlist channel to a registered device (tablet) installed with the Appspace App.
5. Book a room directly on the Appspace App or via your email calendar.

The Room Schedule card is an Appspace supported card, which is officially created and periodically updated by Appspace with new templates and features.

What’s in this article:

Prerequisites

• Ensure your device is compatible. Refer to Compatible Appspace Cards.
• Account Owner, Publisher, or Editor (author) role in Appspace to create and configure the Schedule Board card.
• A G Suite Administrator role to configure Google calendar booking accounts.
• It is recommended that the device clock is set to automatically retrieve time from a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server with the correct time zone, in order for it to sync correctly with the calendar provider.
  Appspace Cloud servers retrieve time from a NTP server by default. If an Appspace on-prem server is used, configure the on-prem server to retrieve time from an NTP server with the correct time zone.

• If using an Appspace on-prem deployment, configure the on-prem server and network to allow constant access to https://*.cloud.appspace.com and its subdomains, to ensure each device is able to attain new authorization tokens from the calendar provider on a regular basis via Appspace API services.

Create Booking Account and Configure Resources

Follow the instructions in the order listed below:

1. A. Enable API access in Google Admin console
2. B. Create a booking account in G Suite
3. C. Configure resources (meeting rooms) in Google Calendar
4. D. Delegate access for resource’s calendar to booking account

A. Enable API access in Google Admin console

1. Follow the instructions in this article to enable API access in the Google Admin console, to ensure the Room Schedule card will be able to retrieve resource data: https://support.google.com/a/answer/60757?hl=en
2. Proceed to section B below.

B. Create a booking account in G Suite

We recommend creating an account in G Suite. This account will be used for authentication when configuring the Room Schedule card. We will call this the booking account.

1. To create the booking account, follow the instructions in the Add users individually article here:
   https://support.google.com/a/answer/33310?hl=en
2. Add the basic account information, such as:
   • First and Last name
   • Primary email address
   • Password
     You may skip all optional information.
     
3. Proceed to section C below

C. Configure resources (meeting rooms) in Google Calendar

All meeting rooms in an organization are known as resources in Google Calendar. Follow the instructions below to configure all resources available in your company:

1. Follow the instructions in the Manage Calendar resources article: https://support.google.com/a/answer/1686462?hl=en
   • Follow the instructions in the 1. Create buildings, features, and resources step to add each meeting room in your organization as a resource to the calendar.
     Note

     Take note of the resource id from the Edit resource page, which will be required for the ‘Automatic room assignment from a player property’ option when configuring the Room Schedule card.
     
     
     
     
   • Follow the instructions in the 2. Add resources to My Calendar list step to add all available meeting rooms to the calendar’s list.
     
   • Follow the instructions in the 3. Share calendar resources step, and ensure the following settings are selected:
     • In Step 4, select the Auto-accept invitations that do not conflict option.
     • In Step 5, follow the instructions to share the calendar with everyone in the organization.
       
       
       
2. You may skip steps 4 and 5 in the Google article, and proceed to section D below.

D. Delegate access for resource’s calendar to booking account

You now need to provide your booking account with access to each meeting room’s calendar, a process known as delegate access. This will allow the Room Schedule card to make bookings on Google Calendar via the booking account that is used to authenticate calendar access. To do this, you have two options:

• Delegate access to booking account for each resource individually.
  1. To delegate access to the booking account, follow the instructions in the Delegate calendar access article:
     https://support.google.com/a/answer/117596?hl=en
     • In Step 4, select the resources (meeting room) calendar.
     • In Step 5, enter in the booking account email address in the Share with specific person field.
  2. Repeat the above steps for all resources (meeting rooms).
  3. Proceed to the Create Room Schedule Card section below.
• Delegate access to booking account with super administrator privileges.
  
  
  Important

  Providing super administrator privileges to the booking account gives it full access to all users’ calendars and event details. For more information please refer to https://support.google.com/a/answer/2405986#super_admin.
  
  
  1. Follow the instructions in the Assign administrator roles to a user article: 
     https://support.google.com/a/answer/172176?hl=en
     • In Step 4 of Assign roles to one user, select the booking account created earlier.
     • In Step 6 of Assign roles to one user, select the Super Admin role.
  2. Proceed to the Create Room Schedule Card  section below.

Create Room Schedule Card

To create and configure the Room Schedule card, please follow the instructions below:

1. In the Appspace console, navigate to Library from the Appspace menu, 
   Or click + QUICK ACTION from the Appspace menu bar, and proceed to step 3 below.
2. Select the desired folder in the Libraries folder tree, and click the + ADD button.
3. Select Create Card, and select Room Schedule from the Filter by template dropdown menu.
4. Click the desired Room Schedule card theme.
5. You may authenticate the card now by clicking the Connect button for G Suite, and proceed to step 6 below.
   If you would like to authenticate later, click the Preview card in demo mode link in the preview window, and proceed to step 9 to configure the booking options and styling of the Room Schedule card.
   
   Note

   The demo mode on cards, allows users to experience the design and functionality of the card, prior to configuring the calendar provider. This includes displaying various booking statuses, and performing bookings on the card itself.
   
6. Enter in your booking account credentials (created earlier) to authenticate the Room Schedule card.
   Note

   Please contact your G Suite Administrator for credentials. Some large organizations may have one account for each room.
7. Once authentication is successful, you may assign a room to the card by selecting one of the two options provided:
   
   
   
   • Automatic room assignment from a player property
     This option allows you to use the same card (with the defined configuration and branding themes) for multiple rooms.
     • You must then add a device property (card.room.roomid = <custom resource id>) to each device and ensure it points to the desired meeting room (One specific tablet for each meeting room.)
       Example:
       • Device property for Meeting Room 1 & Device 1: card.room.roomid = 47563454656
         
       • Device property for Meeting Room 2 & Device 2: card.room.roomid = 34547409516
     • Click here for instructions to Add a device property. You will need Network Administrator or Account Owner privileges to add a property.
   • Manually selecting by room name
     This option allows you to assign one room directly to this card. If you have 10 rooms, you must create 10 cards for each room.
     • The default manual selection option text would be Manually selecting by room id with a Search by name link shown below, which upon clicking prompts you to enter a user email address (booking account email address) to retrieve the resources list. If an email address has been entered previously, the manual selection option text would read Manually selecting by room name instead.
       
       
       Note

       If this manual option is selected, while the device is also configured with a player property for automatic room assignment, then the manual assignment of the room takes precedence.
       
8. Click Finish.
9. Configure the following Booking Options that will be displayed to the user, by ensuring the Enable bookings checkbox is checked (default):
   • Allow naming of meetings. (default)
   • Allow users to end meetings. (default)
   • Allow users to extend meetings. (default)
   • Enable advanced booking. (default)
   • Enable time slot availability on front page.
   • Enable meeting check-in.
   • Allow 7 days advance booking.
     
     
     
     Important

     Unchecking the Enable Bookings checkbox hides the booking options. If the Room Schedule card detects that the service provider has restricted viewing access to a meeting room/resource or the Enable Bookings option has been disabled, the card will automatically disable the interactivity and booking functions for that room on the app (Appspace App), and the “Interactivity has been disabled for read-only room” message is displayed. However, meeting information will still be displayed.

     
10. Configure the card Styling features to be displayed by checking its checkbox.
    
    
    • Show organizer’s name (default) – displays the organizer’s name.
    • Show meeting name (default) – displays the meeting name.
    • Show upcoming meetings (default)- display upcoming meetings of the day.
    • Show clock (Default)- displays the date and time.
    • 24 hour clock – display the time in 24 hour format.
11. You may further customize the Room Schedule card, with the following options:
    • Custom Font
      
      Note

      To enable custom font, it has to be unlocked at the card theme. Please follow the Create Card Themes instructions  in the Customize Appspace Cards Theme article to do this.
    • Room Name
    • Room Label
    • Layout
    • Logo
    • Background color or media
    • Background Mask Color
    • Available State Color
    • Occupied State Color
      Note

      You may set an image or a video as the background media.
      
      
      Additionally, you may manually add the Room Name, Room Label, Room Facilities, and Room Capacity via the following device properties (added individually for each registered device):

      Name	Device Property	Value
      Room Name	card.room.roomname	Alphanumeric and special characters
      Room Label	card.room.label.room	Alphanumeric and special characters
      Room Number	card.room.roomnumber	Alphanumeric and special characters
      Room Notes	card.room.roomnotes	Alphanumeric and special characters
      Room Facilities	card.room.facilities	Ethernet
      		Phone
      		Projector
      		VideoConference
      		WhiteBoard
      		WiFi
      		ScreenShare
      Room Capacity	card.room.capacity	Numeric characters

      • To display more than one room facility, add the values separated by a coma.
        Example: card.room.facilities: Ethernet, Phone, Projector
      • The Room Schedule card will display the room capacity from 1 to 100, anything more than 100 would be displayed as >100.
        Example: card.room.capacity: 20
      • Click here for instructions to Add a device property. You will need Network Administrator or Account Owner privileges to add a property.
12. The preview pane on the right displays how the Schedule Room card will look like when displayed. You may click the Gear icon to preview the Occupied or Offline status of the card, Change Room, or Log Out from the authenticated card.
    
    
    
    Note

    The booking status of the meeting room is only a preview, and is not indicative of the real status in this preview. If the card is in demo mode, clicking the Gear icon will display the Authenticate Account option, which will allow you to authenticate the card with your desired calendar provider.

    
13. Once complete, click Next.
14. Enter in the Title of the card, and click Save.
    Optionally, you may enter in details for the Article, Caption, Content Tags, and add a Custom Thumbnail for the card.
    Important

    Please leave the Expires on field blank. Do NOT enter an expiry date.

Create Playlist Channel and Add Room Schedule Card

1. Click the Quick Actions menu, and select Create Channel to create a playlist channel. Enter in the Playlist channel name.
2. Click ADD CONTENT, and select the Room Schedule card from the Library. Click Add once done.
3. We recommend setting the Content Duration of the card to 30-minute intervals, (current default is 8 seconds) so that the card does not refresh while you are updating the booking details.
4. Click the Apply button to save the settings.

Assign Playlist Channel to a Registered Device

1. Register your device as per the Register a device article.
2. Go to the Appspace menu, and select Devices.
3. Select the name link of the device that will be used for the meeting room.
4. In the Device Information page, click the Settings tab, and select Admin assigns a single channel option from the Channel selection mode drop-down menu.
5. Navigate back to the Overview tab, and click the Select channel button, and select the playlist channel with the Room Schedule card, created earlier.
6. Click Save. The meeting room booking service can now be viewed on the device. 

Book Meeting Room via a Calendar or the Appspace App

For booking instructions, please see Booking Single Meeting Rooms.