Rooms Overview

Melody Quinn

September 20, 2021 16:19

An accurate room inventory is a key element of the Astra Schedule system. Every space that can be scheduled must have a room record defined. Astra Schedule will use this information to determine appropriate locations for activities scheduled within the application. Success with the application, therefore, depends on the configuration and organization of your room data.

Room Hierarchy

The room inventory hierarchy includes campuses, buildings, and rooms. Room records will be imported during implementation from a prepared file. During import, the campuses and buildings associated with your rooms are added to the database. Additional campus, building, and/or room records may be added manually at any time.

Room Options

Certain data elements must be established before rooms can be fully utilized. These data elements determine options that are available for selection when adding and editing room records. They include Room Types, Facility Layout Types, Room Custom Fields, Features, and Regions. If you are importing room records during your initial implementation, these fields, if included, are automatically added to the database and will be available for use. Otherwise, you must manually configure these lists to meet the needs of your institution.

Room Records

A room record consists of general information that establishes the basic definition of the room, usage policies that define when and how the room may be used, special features of the room, default and alternate configuration details, any regions with which the room is associated, and finally, any notes recorded for the room.

View Rooms

Click on the Settings tab.
Under "Resources", select Rooms.
Hovering your mouse pointer over the hover icon just to the left of the room name will display a basic summary of the room, including the room image if applicable.
Click on a room to view additional details.

Room Details

Campus: The campus the room is located. Building/room combinations must be unique on a given campus.
Building: The building the room is located. Rooms must be unique within a building.
Room #: The number assigned to the room.
Room Name: Text name for the room, if different from room number (optional).
Room Type: Describes the general use of the room.
Description: Describes the room (optional).
Square Feet: Number of square feet in the space (optional).
Max Occupancy: Maximum number of people allowed in the room and is often dictated by the fire code. This is not used for scheduling purposes but is a reporting field.
Phone #: Contact phone number for the room, if applicable (optional).
Key #: Information about the key or code required for the room (optional).
May Not Schedule: Room is offline and unavailable for scheduling.
Arranged Section: Room is only available for those sections flagged as “Arranged”. This is typically an off-campus, on-line, or otherwise “fake” room used for reporting purposes.
Do Not Optimize: Room is only available for manual scheduling.
May Be Shared: The room may be shared by multiple sections, up to the number specified and the room capacity. The room is only available for manual scheduling.
Note: shared rooms may be shared by multiple sections simultaneously. This classification should be limited to special-use rooms like gymnasiums and labs, where multiple activities can be occurring at the same time. Enabling the sharing option will allow the room to be manually double-booked, up to the number of allowed sections and the capacity of the room.
The room assignment optimizer does not schedule rooms flagged as "May Be Shared".
HVAC Zone: Defined HVAC Zone with which the room is associated (optional).

Configurations

Displays the available facility layouts of the room and the details associated with the layouts. Opening a configuration will provide additional information specific to the configurations of the room.

Features

Displays any permanent features of the room and includes their quantities if applicable. Room features may be requested by activities and can help ensure an appropriate room. Features can be added to or removed from the room at any time to accurately reflect its attributes.

Regions

Displays any regions to which the room belongs. Regions are used as scheduling preferences, for user security, and for list filtering for various application views where applicable.

Usage Control

Displays any activity scheduling rules that have been applied to the room.

New rooms do not automatically have usage policies applied. The default state for a new room is that any activity can be scheduled at any time, depending on user access.
Two kinds of usage policies may be manually configured for a room. Default usage policies replace the default, open state of the room with new rules that dictate room usage at all times.
Exceptions may also be applied, and dictate room usage on specific dates. Exceptions override the default usage policy for the date specified. Exception policies are useful when an issue arises that impacts the usage of a room for a short period of time. For example, you may apply an exception policy to a room to block its usage while it is being painted.
If no usage policy has been applied to the room, this section of the form will be blank.
If usage policies have been applied, they will appear in a chart that illustrates the time of day and day of the week during which activities may be scheduled.
Exceptions, or date-specific policies, will also indicate the date or dates on which they apply. You may select from the usage policies applied using the drop-down menu.

Partitions

Displays any rooms that are partitions of the room being viewed, as well as the rooms in which scheduled activities will be considered conflicts due to partition relationships.

Notes

Displays any notes that have been recorded for the room.

Room Modifications

You can learn more about room modifications in the training video or by reading the following articles: