Rooms and resources: booking, approving, and the setup sheet

Rooms and resources are what people book at church: the fellowship hall, Room 2, the van, the projector. Book one on an event, or on its own for a meeting, and two approved bookings of it never overlap, from the time setup starts until it's cleared. Under Events, Week shows every room, day by day.

Add your rooms

Events managers keep the list, in Settings › Events under Rooms and resources.

1. Press Add a room or resource.
2. Type its Name and choose what it is: a room, equipment, a vehicle or other.
3. Add how many it seats (Find a free room uses it), a color for the Week view, and Setup notes, like where the tables are kept. They print on the setup sheet every time it's booked.
4. Under Who approves a booking, add people on the team. With nobody named, your Events managers approve. Someone named who can't sign in (no account yet, or no longer on the team) is marked, and your Events managers approve meanwhile.
5. Press Add it.

Turn on Free to book for something anyone may take when nobody else has it, like the folding tables: its bookings are approved at once. Archive takes a room off the Week view and the lists, keeping its bookings; Restore brings it back. Kids rooms stay in Settings › Kids; to book one here too, add it with its own name, like "Room 2 (Kids)".

Book a room for an event

1. Save the event first (a draft is fine). Under Where, press Room or resource, or Find a free room at that time to see only the rooms free then, the ones that seat your places first.
2. Pick the room. With several dates, Which dates books every date to come, or just one.
3. Choose Set up before and Clear after: the room is taken from setup until it's cleared.
4. Add a setup note if you like ("Round tables of 8"), then press the button.

The button says what will happen. Book it is approved at once: nothing approved is in the way, and you can approve this room, or it's free to book. Ask for it sends a request to whoever approves the room. When the room is taken then, the sheet says who has it ("Fellowship hall is booked for Youth lock-in 6 to 9 PM (Matt Ortiz).") and offers one that's free; Ask anyway asks all the same.

Each date then shows "Approved", "Waiting for Dana's approval", or "Declined" with the note and Pick another. Booking a room while the Place is empty fills it with the room's name. The room's ⋯ cancels a booking.

In the list of rooms, each one says whether it's free on the dates you're booking: "Free", "Booked on 1 of 4 dates", or "Booked for this event".

An event's bookings follow its dates. Move a date and its rooms move with it; if a room is taken at the new time, that booking becomes a request again and its approvers get an email. Cancel a date, or the whole event, and its rooms are free again for anyone; opening a cancelled event again doesn't book them back.

Approving and declining

A room's named approvers get an email for each request (with nobody named, your Events managers do), and Home shows them "2 room requests waiting" with Approve and Decline…. Events managers can decide any request. A decline can carry a note ("The hall is being re-floored that week"), and whoever asked hears by email either way. When an event asked for several rooms at once, the Week view lets you tick which: approve the kitchen, decline the hall.

A request that overlaps an approved booking says which one, with a way to open it, and can't be approved until that booking is declined. Declining an approved booking frees the room.

The Week view and the setup sheet

Events, then Week: Monday to Sunday, a row for each room. Approved bookings are in the room's color; a request is dashed and says Requested; one that overlaps an approved booking is amber. A thin bar under each booking, striped at its ends, shows the setup and clearing time. Tap a booking for when it is, who asked, its notes and what it overlaps. On a phone, or a tablet held upright, the week is a list, day by day. Book a room books one for anything that isn't an event, like the elders meeting.

With more than three requests waiting, the Week view shows the first three and a button for the rest.

Print the setup sheet opens the weekend, Friday to Sunday: each room booked each day, what it's for and who booked or asked for it, when to set up and when it must be clear, and the notes. Requests not approved yet are on it, marked. The whole week, Earlier and Later change the days; then press Print or save as PDF.

Who does what

• Anyone with Events access sees the Week view and the setup sheet.
• Events editors book rooms, and cancel what they asked for.
• A room's approvers and your Events managers approve and decline. An approver without Events access still sees their rooms' bookings on the Week view, from Home or the email.
• Events managers keep the list of rooms and resources.