Update
I have also managed to secure a £200 or $300 discount on the SharePoint Room Booking System for readers of the blog. Simply contact info@sharepointedutech.com for further details on pricing and quote the code “spedutech” to get the discount.
Some of the day to day activities within an educational institution include the booking of open ICT classrooms, loaning IT Hardware such as camcorders and digital cameras and booking meeting spaces. At Twynham School even though we use SharePoint heavily I can honestly say until this year we have used three different non-SharePoint solutions to deal with all these three tasks. An ICT technician manually booked computer rooms for staff and displayed them on the Learning Gateway, hardware was checked in and out on a whiteboard by the Systems Team and the Headteacher’s PA was in charge of recording the use of meeting rooms. In total over 200 hours of labour per year were spent on a process which was still cumbersome for the end user.
During the 2009-10 academic year we were convinced there must be a SharePoint solution tailored for booking resources within an educational environment. Unfortunately the research showed there was nothing that met the unique needs of education and so we approached an external development team to see if they would make one! Having successfully used the SharePoint Resource Booking System for 9 months now I thought would complete a write up on what has been a revolutionary resource for our school.
The SharePoint Resource Booking System for ICT rooms
When we began to create a specification for the system the primary focus was the ease of use and instant booking capability for end users. The SharePoint Resource Booking site when shown in an ICT room booking mode can be seen below. An administrator is able to input those activities which take place throughout the year and count as permanent bookings. Those open bookings which are left can quickly be found and booked by staff.
The end user is faced with a simple interface where they can select dates from the calendar and then look at the range of computer rooms to see which are free. In the image above the computer rooms which are free display a simple phrase (in this case ‘Book Me’). By clicking on the room and period the user is simply prompted to type their initials and the class they are planning to use the resource with.
When the end user clicks ‘book me’ booking of the room or resource takes places within the page as shown below:
The end user can then instantly see their booking as shown below:
We took a long time to think about instant booking using the logged on user. This however would lead to other users being unable to book rooms for colleagues. So for example a Head of Department or administrator would not be able to easily book a set of rooms for a cross curricular theme day or whole department activities.
The SharePoint Resource Booking System has been well received, being an instant hit for staff who get an immediate booking and ICT technicians who do not need to maintain a manual system. Whereas staff would normally receive an email confirmation within 4 hours from the ICT technician they can now book a room in just a few seconds. Its impact in other schools which have used room booking sheets on doors or in the staff work room (which is the majority of schools) is even greater.
When we worked with a development team to produce this resource we initially saw it as just a SharePoint Room Booking System. Since this time we have found it really useful as a way of booking hardware resources. The system is now used in a number of schools and universities and the variety of uses mean the team have now called it a SharePoint Resource Booking System. Many schools are using if for booking meeting rooms and some have even used it to manage their mini bus fleet.
If you want further details about the SharePoint Resource Booking System please get in touch with the developers at info@sharepointedutech.com
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