Case Study
Global Mundo
Historically Global Mundo reservations for the shared meeting rooms were managed manually using a hardcopy diary via reception service or by calling them. This manual system worked well in the main, however as the centre got busier, reception's time was becoming more valuable and administering meeting room reservations was taking more time.
The functional requirements were simple:
- Make the overall booking process easier for all end users
- Room Booking System must be based on SharePoint Collaboration Plattform.
- Management was making a Commitment for Sharepoint to us as a strateig collaboration platform for all new solutions
- Publish the meeting room diary online to facilitate availability checking by the centres clients using a web browser, thereby freeing reception time taking enquiries, manually checking the hard-copy diary and confirming back.
- Allow booking records to be kept electronically
- Allow client bookings to be reassigned by reception if required, to cancel or modify a booking on behalf of a client.
- Provide automatic booking confirmation and change notices to avoid confusion.
- Prevent missing and double bookings.
- Track room usage to monitor utilisation.
- Wokflow Support and Catering and Invocing Solution integrated or as add on available
- Integration with Outlook
- Search for free room, for a given day and time, cross locations
Finding the right Solution
When Global Mundo staff began researching software solutions it became apparent that the majority of off-the-shelf room managenent software required IT skills for installation and in some cases additional hardware to operate, adding to the cost. Moreover the complexity of some solutions posed a significant learning curve with functionality far exceeding requirements. A Google search for 'Meeting Room Management Software' solutions led the Global Mundo centre to Room Manager.
As a SharePoint solution Room Manager was immediatey accessible over the Intranet using a standard web browser. (No downloads required, no software to install, no hardware to purchase, no IT skills required and no upfront cost).
Taking advantage of the 30-day free trial the Room Manager were up and working in under 5 minutes. After using the system for two weeks alongside their manual booking diary they elected to expose the application to their business clients and went fully self-service.
Its easy and powerful as SharePoint is.
Its a new day, its a new office!