GB2346984A - System for co-ordinating reservations of meeting rooms - Google Patents

Abstract

A system for co-ordinating the reservation of a number of facilities such as meeting rooms comprises reservation devices at each room in the system. The devices are in communication with a central reservation system and display information relating to the reservation status of the rooms. Optionally, the devices may be able to communicate for instance reservation requests or cancellations to said central system.

Description

Facilities Management The present invention relates to the efficient management of facilities or other resources which may be reserved for use by any of a number of people and different times. In particular there is described apparatus facilitating such efficient management and the invention has particular application in the field of bookings for multiple meeting rooms.

Many institutions, such as companies, universities, conference centres, etc., have pooled resources, such as meeting rooms, laboratories, sport facilities, etc., which are available to be used by a number of people by way of a reservation system. Such facilities may be reserved, or booked, for certain periods of time according to the expected use by the person making the reservation and existing reservations are logged centrally, for instance by a computer system, such that further reservations or facilities may be made.

Such systems are prone to inefficient usage for a number of reasons.

Considering the example of a number of conference rooms provided by a company to be available for employees to use for meetings with visitors or other employees etc., a number of factors come into play. For instance, a first person booking a room for a meeting at a certain time must estimate the expected length of the meeting and make a reservation for an appropriate period of time. This may involve reserving the room for a longer period of time than is expected to be necessary to account for possible over-nmning of the meeting. This reservation is typically logged at a central location by a reservation administrator, which may be a person or computer etc.

If the meeting is cancelled, or does not last until the end of the reservation period, the rooms will be unused for at least some of the time during which it is reserved. Unless this is communicated to the reservation administrator another person wishing to use a room is not able to discover from the reservation system that the room in question is free to use.

The other person may in fact know that the room is unoccupied but does not know whether he is free to use it, or for how long, before another person who reserves the room may claim it. Such a system may therefore result in inefficient usage of the meeting rooms as well as frustration for the people wishing to reserve and use the rooms.

Analogous problems arise in relation to other examples of reservable facilities such as those mentioned above.

Against this background the present invention provides a facilities reservation system arranged to co-ordinate the reservation of a plurality of facilities, the system comprising a reservation administration means arranged to receive requests for and assign reservations of said facilities and means associated with each of said facilities which communicates with said reservation administration means is and adapted to indicate information relating to the reservation status of the respective facilities.

The reservation administration means is arranged to be responsive to reservation requests in essentially conventional fashion, and to assign and record reservations accordingly.

The means associated with each facility however provides advantages over conventional arrangements by giving, at the relevant facility, information pertaining to the reservation status of that facility. In its simplest form an indication may simply be given of whether the facility is currently reserved or not, and this may be by way of a simple visual indicator. This provides the advantage that a person looking to use a facility immediately, and perhaps briefly so that he is not incline to refer to the reservation administrator, is given an immediate indication of whether an unused facility is in fact reserved.

Even with this arrangement however a person making use of a facility which is not reserved risks being interrupted by a person who has made a reservation for a subsequent time, or even by a person which actually makes a reservation of the room after it is in use by the first person.

In further embodiments therefore the means associated with each facility provides additional information relating to the reservation status such as one or more of -if the facility is not currently reserved, the time of the next reservation; -if the facility is currently reserved, the time at which that reservation finishes ; -if the facility is currently reserved, details such as the name or contact details of the person in whose name the reservation is made ; -similar information relating to the next reservation of the facility.

It will be appreciated that such further information assists in efficient usage of the facilities as it enables, for example, a person finding a reserved facility unused to contact the person who has it reserved to find out if the reservation is still required, or an assessment to be made of the risk of interruption if use is made of an unused facility, In a further preferred development the means associated with each facility is also able to send communications to said reservation administration means. Such communications would typically be a reservation cancellation which may be sent if a user finishes using a facility before the end of the reservation period or an immediate reservation communication which may be sent by a person finding a facility un-reserved and un-used to prevent another person reserving the facility at the administration means while it is in fact in use.

The means associated with each facility may be in communication with the administration means by any suitable communication means. For instance they may be Ethemet-type network devices which communicate via a Local Area Network. Altematively they may be arranged to communicate via telephone lines, power lines or by wireless links.

The present invention will be better understood from the following description of an embodiment given by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawing which is a schematic illustration of the preferred embodiment of the invention.

The preferred embodiment of the invention is a system for coordinating the reservation of a plurality of meeting rooms for instance available for reservation on a company site by company employees at various times. A reservation device is provided at each room which is in communication with a central reservation administration system such that information relating to the reservation status of the room can be indicated, and also optionally reservation communications can be sent from the device to the system. The display may be by way of simple indicator means such as LEDs although, as will be described, preferably there is provided a small LCD screen for the display of information.

Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of the preferred embodiment of the invention, and as can be seen this embodiment is implemented by way of communication via Local Area Network (LAN) 10. In the embodiment communications are sent via LAN 10 in a conventional fashion and therefore the details of the LAN and the communications protocol are not described in detail here.

Attached to the network is a network administration means 12. This may be a dedicated device, but preferably is a general purpose server device, one of the functions of which is to run software for the reservation system.

Additionally there are a plurality of PC workstations 14 in the network, and these represent workstations used by people such as staff who may wish to reserve rooms for specific times. Such users may communicated with the administrator via their PCs and the LAN in order to use the reservation system in a normal fashion to perform such tasks as enquiring as to the reservation status of particular rooms, enquiring regarding room availability for particular times, making room reservations and cancelling reservations.

It will be appreciated that this is therefore a conventional type room reservation system as described thus far, and the description given is merely by way of example. Additional features and variations are possible, such as for instance the incorporation of the network administration into a specified one of the PCs attached to the network, or the incorporation of other reservation means such as direct input to the administrator by the person wishing to make a reservation or by a person who may be contacted by telephone by a person wishing to make a reservation. The present invention may be implemented within the context of any such known reservation system.

To implement the present invention the preferred embodiment also comprises at least one room device 20 which is associated with a particular room which may be reserved in the reservation system. Although only one such device is illustrated, it is preferred that most if not all of the rooms in the reservation system are provided with a room device 20.

Room device 20 comprises display means 22 in the form of an LCD screen and user input means 24 in the form of one of more push buttons. Room device 20 communicates with administrator 12 via LAN 10 in order to receive information relating to the reservation status of the associated room. This information is displayed on screen 22, and includes at least information indicating whether the room is or is not currently reserved. This enables a person finding the room unoccupied to know whether someone else has the room reserved when deciding whether or not to use the room himself.

The room device 20 may also display other information relating to the reservation status of the associated room. In particular the room device 20 may display the name and contact details, such as a telephone number, of the person who has the room reserved. This facilitates communication to be made with the person to find out if the room is still required.

Also the display may usefully indicate when the next reservation of the room is made for. This therefore gives an indication of how long it may be before a person using the room without reservation is interrupted by the next person to have reserved the room.

The display may further indicate when a current reservation of the room began, to assist in assessing whether the person who made that reservation is merely a little late in occupying the room, or is unlikely now to arrive.

Simply providing this information on the display is useful in that it facilitates the use of rooms in the reservation system in the manner outlined above.

Further advantages are provided however by the additional provision of the user input buttons 24, by way of which the room device 20 may be caused to send communications to the administrator 12.

Firstly, it may be that one of push buttons 24 is provided as a 'finished'or cancellation button. This could then be operated by a person who has the room reserved but who no longer requires it, either because the reservation is cancelled altogether or because the reason for the reservation has finished earlier than anticipated. Of course, such an indication could be given by that person accessing the reservation system using their workstation 14, but the provision of this function at the room itself provides an incentive for the person to use it where otherwise he may not have bothered, so improving the efficiency of the reservation system.

Secondly, one of push buttons 24 may be provided with an immediate booking function such that if a person finds a room unoccupied or unwanted until the next reservation, the room may be booked for a certain period of time or until the time of the next existing reservation simply from the room itself without the need for the person to return to his workstation. This function may require the user to provide an identification, such as his telephone extension number, via an appropriate key-pad.

Other variations are of course possible within the ambit of the invention, such as one room device serving to provide information for two or more rooms in close physical proximity.

This invention therefore provides considerable advantages in terms of efficient use of pooled resources such as meeting rooms by a number of people, while still permitting certain reservations of the resources to be made by those who wish to use them. Additionally, the connection of the devices via an installation such as a network means that the invention can be implemented simply in many contexts where network infrastructure is already in place.

Claims (6)

CLAIMS :

1. A facilities management system arranged to co-ordinate the use of a plurality of facilities by a number of users, the system comprising: a reservation administration means arranged to receive requests from said users for use of said facilities at certain times and to assign reservations of said facilities to said users responsive to said requests; status means associated with each of said facilities; and communication means whereby said status means and said reservation administration means may communicate ; wherein said status means are adapted to indicate information relating to the current reservation status of the respective facilities.

2. The system of claim 1 in which said information comprises one or more of : the time of the next reservation, if the facility is not currently reserved; the time at which the current reservation will end, if the facility is currently reserved; the time at which the facility will next be free; details of the user in whose name a current reservation is made; and similar information relating to a subsequent reservation of the facility.

3. A system of claim 1 or 2 in which said status means comprises message means by which a user may communicate with said reservation administration means.

4. The system of claim 3 in which said message means is arranged to communicate a reservation cancellation message.

5. The system of claim 3 in which said message means is arranged to communicate a reservation request message.

6. The system of any of claims 1-5 in which said communication means comprises one or more of a Local Area Network, telephone lines, power lines and wireless links.