Hi,

We're using Outlook2003 with Exchange. I'm trying to make it possible to do
room bookings in it rather than a spreadsheet. Does anyone know either a way
to create a separate categories field or a good way to do room bookings?

Story so far:

Ideally each room could be set up as a resource individually but I can't see
a way to compare them side by side in a workable way (10 rooms and would need
to be in public area anyway). I like the timeline view as availabilty is
there.

Working on a single shared calendar and using the location field is next
option (eg then grouping by location in timeline view) but it seems we can't
fix the location drop down options available so input error seem likely (eg
someone will book "room x" and someone else will book "Room X" at the same
time. It also doesn't allow an event to use more than one location and
recognise that it is in "room x" and in "room y" rather than in "room x, y"
or whatever.

Using a category for each room seems good (timeline view, grouped again) but
uses those categories which are the same for other parts of outlook - a bit
irritating but best option so far.

Unless I've missed a trick on the above, I'd therefore like to setup a field
that let
user select one or more options. A dropdown list is great but mutually
exclusive, a yes/no box for each room would be counted as a separate field
for each room (and therefore Outlook would nest the groupings).

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks.
Sam

See http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/skedresource.htm for details on how to manage rooms and other resource calendars. Users can use the group schedule feature to see the availability of several rooms at once.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54


"scooper" wrote in message ...
Hi,

We're using Outlook2003 with Exchange. I'm trying to make it possible to do
room bookings in it rather than a spreadsheet. Does anyone know either a way
to create a separate categories field or a good way to do room bookings?

Story so far:

Ideally each room could be set up as a resource individually but I can't see
a way to compare them side by side in a workable way (10 rooms and would need
to be in public area anyway). I like the timeline view as availabilty is
there.

Working on a single shared calendar and using the location field is next
option (eg then grouping by location in timeline view) but it seems we can't
fix the location drop down options available so input error seem likely (eg
someone will book "room x" and someone else will book "Room X" at the same
time. It also doesn't allow an event to use more than one location and
recognise that it is in "room x" and in "room y" rather than in "room x, y"
or whatever.

Using a category for each room seems good (timeline view, grouped again) but
uses those categories which are the same for other parts of outlook - a bit
irritating but best option so far.

Unless I've missed a trick on the above, I'd therefore like to setup a field
that let
user select one or more options. A dropdown list is great but mutually
exclusive, a yes/no box for each room would be counted as a separate field
for each room (and therefore Outlook would nest the groupings).

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks.
Sam

Hey Sue,

Thanks for the reply - I really appreciate your time. Separate calendar for
each room certainly seems a more elegant solution. Additional information /
redefined question at bottom if you / anyone has time:

I really want to sell this to our facilities team and part of what I was
hoping was to offer is the flexibilty to combine data for the different rooms
(eg for a complete setup requirements list or a cleaning rota or catering
list or whatever they want for whole building). Like you say, the group
schedules view will show availability but I don't think I can pull off fields
from several calendars to say a joint list of setup activities (or whatever
else they want, I would think to do this as an event table with certain
fields shown but don't seem to be able to show events from more than one
calendar at a time).

I guess this my fault for presenting part of a solution rather than the full
problem! Wood / trees and all that. Apologies that I didn't mention this
additional problem with separate calendars - I had forgotten that there were
other reasons I had originally given up on idea.

Do you think there is a way to combine event data from more than one
calendar into say a table view (which I am suprised I can't do in the same
way I can for day/week/month view) as otherwise I think I'm still stuck with
some fiddly work around with room fields or something.

Thanks
Sam


"Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

See http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/skedresource.htm for details on how to manage rooms and other resource calendars. Users can use the group schedule feature to see the availability of several rooms at once.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54


"scooper" wrote in message ...
Hi,

We're using Outlook2003 with Exchange. I'm trying to make it possible to do
room bookings in it rather than a spreadsheet. Does anyone know either a way
to create a separate categories field or a good way to do room bookings?

Story so far:

Ideally each room could be set up as a resource individually but I can't see
a way to compare them side by side in a workable way (10 rooms and would need
to be in public area anyway). I like the timeline view as availabilty is
there.

Working on a single shared calendar and using the location field is next
option (eg then grouping by location in timeline view) but it seems we can't
fix the location drop down options available so input error seem likely (eg
someone will book "room x" and someone else will book "Room X" at the same
time. It also doesn't allow an event to use more than one location and
recognise that it is in "room x" and in "room y" rather than in "room x, y"
or whatever.

Using a category for each room seems good (timeline view, grouped again) but
uses those categories which are the same for other parts of outlook - a bit
irritating but best option so far.

Unless I've missed a trick on the above, I'd therefore like to setup a field
that let
user select one or more options. A dropdown list is great but mutually
exclusive, a yes/no box for each room would be counted as a separate field
for each room (and therefore Outlook would nest the groupings).

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks.
Sam

If you want to explore other ways of displaying availability information besides what is available natively, see http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/scheduleall.htm

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54


"scooper" wrote in message ...
Hey Sue,

Thanks for the reply - I really appreciate your time. Separate calendar for
each room certainly seems a more elegant solution. Additional information /
redefined question at bottom if you / anyone has time:

I really want to sell this to our facilities team and part of what I was
hoping was to offer is the flexibilty to combine data for the different rooms
(eg for a complete setup requirements list or a cleaning rota or catering
list or whatever they want for whole building). Like you say, the group
schedules view will show availability but I don't think I can pull off fields
from several calendars to say a joint list of setup activities (or whatever
else they want, I would think to do this as an event table with certain
fields shown but don't seem to be able to show events from more than one
calendar at a time).

I guess this my fault for presenting part of a solution rather than the full
problem! Wood / trees and all that. Apologies that I didn't mention this
additional problem with separate calendars - I had forgotten that there were
other reasons I had originally given up on idea.

Do you think there is a way to combine event data from more than one
calendar into say a table view (which I am suprised I can't do in the same
way I can for day/week/month view) as otherwise I think I'm still stuck with
some fiddly work around with room fields or something.

Thanks
Sam


"Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

See http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/skedresource.htm for details on how to manage rooms and other resource calendars. Users can use the group schedule feature to see the availability of several rooms at once.

"scooper" wrote in message ...
Hi,

We're using Outlook2003 with Exchange. I'm trying to make it possible to do
room bookings in it rather than a spreadsheet. Does anyone know either a way
to create a separate categories field or a good way to do room bookings?

Story so far:

Ideally each room could be set up as a resource individually but I can't see
a way to compare them side by side in a workable way (10 rooms and would need
to be in public area anyway). I like the timeline view as availabilty is
there.

Working on a single shared calendar and using the location field is next
option (eg then grouping by location in timeline view) but it seems we can't
fix the location drop down options available so input error seem likely (eg
someone will book "room x" and someone else will book "Room X" at the same
time. It also doesn't allow an event to use more than one location and
recognise that it is in "room x" and in "room y" rather than in "room x, y"
or whatever.

Using a category for each room seems good (timeline view, grouped again) but
uses those categories which are the same for other parts of outlook - a bit
irritating but best option so far.

Unless I've missed a trick on the above, I'd therefore like to setup a field
that let
user select one or more options. A dropdown list is great but mutually
exclusive, a yes/no box for each room would be counted as a separate field
for each room (and therefore Outlook would nest the groupings).

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks.
Sam

Thanks Sue, I'll work through those and see what they can do.

Kind regards,
Sam