Manage rooms and vehicles in Google Calendar

These instructions help resource managers manage rooms and vehicles in Google Calendar at NCSSM. If you want to reserve a room or vehicle, see Reserve a Room or Reserve a Vehicle.

1 Making a Resource Require Approval
2 Initial Setup for Each Room
3 To accept or decline events for a resource
4 Important notes on this Setup

Making a Resource Require Approval

Some rooms and vehicles on campus need a person(s) to manage it, giving them the capability of approving or rejecting the scheduling of that resource. The person(s) with the highest permissions level on a resource, is referred to as a Resource Manager. The resource manager gets notified via email so they can then accept or decline events on behalf of the resource. Only the person(s) who will approve or reject the scheduling of a resource need to follow the steps below to enable the correct resource management settings for a particular calendar. Note: See the Important notes on this setup section near the end of this page.

Initial Setup for Each Room

For the resource, under My Calendars, click the three vertical dots by the desired resource and select Settings and sharing.
In the Calendar Details tab, set the "Auto-accept invitations" option to be: Automatically add all invitations to this calendar.
1. When you change the settings, they are auto-saved.
2. This step needs to be done only once for each resource that is to be managed by a person(s).
As the resource manager(s), you should select email for these 3 events: New events, Changed events, and Canceled events by selecting from the drop-down menu for each one. One can optionally select Event responses and Daily agenda depending on the need.
1. Note: Each resource manager who will approve/reject the events scheduled for a particular resource will need to set General notifications for each resource that is managed in this particular fashion.
Now when a person creates an event and schedules the resource, the resource is invited but does not automatically accept. The resource manager will be notified about each new, changed, or canceled event and can then accept or decline the event on behalf of the resource.

To accept or decline events for a resource

As the resource manager, when you get a notification about a new, changed or canceled event via email, open the message and click the Yes/Maybe/No button. The notification will be titled "New Event" (versus "Invitation"). Note: If the room is set to auto-accept reservations, you will still get a New Event email. It will have the Yes button highlighted green and already selected.
The resource manager accepts the meeting event on behalf of the resource similar to how a person accepts/declines a meeting invitation.
If the resource manager is personally invited to the event, one will receive an "Invitation" message for oneself plus a "New Event" message for the resource. One needs to accept/decline for oneself and also for the resource.

Important notes on this Setup

Communicate to those who schedule resources that need approval that the resource is not booked until the person scheduling receives an email confirmation. The name of the resource (ex: the ETC-314 conference room) is the sender.
Confirmations or denials are sent to the person scheduling the resource when the resource manager accepts/declines the notification received.
Sharing Settings: For the resource, under My Calendars, click the down-arrow by the desired resource and select Settings and Sharing.
1. The Share with Specific People or groups section is where one grants specific access to people for this resource.
  1. Add specific people, by name or email address lookup, or use a Google Group.
  2. For the room to be reservable, a person or group needs the See all event details permissions setting.
2. Resource managers need Make changes to events permissions for each room, vehicle, or other reservable resource.

If you follow these instructions and have any further questions, please contact ITS.