Setting up Room and Resources Approvers

Setting up a room or resource to be approved for the first time? Here's a checklist to make sure you don't miss any steps!

We'll be covering three topics: roles, approver groups, and notification groups.

Roles

First up, roles!

You'll need to make sure your roles are set up correctly so that users can request the room/resource you'd like to be included, the users you want to schedule the resources can, and that the workflow "flows" in the way you'd like it to.

1. Role 1: The Requester - Check that whatever role needs to request this room/resource, such as the Default SSO role, has permission to request the room/resource.
2. Role 2: The Room/Resource Approver - Check that whatever role needs to approve the room/resource has permission to schedule the room/resource.
3. Role 3: The Event Approver -This is a commonly missed step, so look out! Check that the event approver that should not be able to schedule the room/resource can only request the room/resource. If they can schedule the room/resource, the workflow will not send an approval notification to Role 2, as the system sees the Role 3 already has access to schedule this room/resource.

Approver Groups

Next up, approver groups!

Now that your roles are set up correctly, you can create an appropriate approver group! You most likely already have an approver group set up for your event request forms, flowing to users in Role 3. Now we want to add an additional layer so that when the users in Role 3 approve the event request form, the workflow triggers an approval notification for the room/resource to users in Role 2.

Create an approver group that includes the users in Role 2 and select only the room/resource you want to be approved. When doing this, you can select a region, building, or individual rooms, and/or you can select a resource group.

That's it for setting up an approval group for a room/resource, but there is an important next step: TEST! Test your workflow to make sure things are working correctly. An easy way to make sure your room/resource approvers are going to receive their approval notifications is to have your scheduler (Role 3) create an event using the room/resource you set up. If the event goes into an incomplete status, you're on the right track! You should see that the room/resource is in a requested status, and then the room/resource approver (Role 2) should have a notification in their notification list to approve the room/resource.

Notification Groups

Now let's talk through the last group - notification groups! This option is for room/resource managers that do not want to log in to Astra Schedule and physically click the approve button. If a room/resource manager simply wants to receive an email anytime the room/resource they care about gets scheduled or canceled, then this is the path for them.

You do not have to set up these users as schedulers of the room/resource, so you can skip the role setup. You also do not need an approver group, simply a notification group! You will create the notification group for the room resource in the same way you set it up for the approver group, but all you need to enter is their email address and not their username. Their email address will be sent a 'Resource or Room Status Change' email every time a resource is scheduled or canceled. That's it for that one!

If you continue to have trouble setting up the workflow for rooms/resources, don't hesitate to put in a ticket by clicking the Support button to the right. We would love to help you set it up and be successful with events in Astra Schedule!