How to Manage Conference and Meeting Rooms in Outlook®

The amount of time people spend in meetings has tripled since the pandemic. A study from Microsoft revealed this shocking fact, and for businesses with physical offices, it means efficient meeting room management is critical to ensuring employees time isn’t wasted managing bookings and scheduling rooms.

According to a recent time management statistic report from LIFEHACK Method, people spend 6 hours per week managing meeting-related activities like scheduling. They spend another 4 hours a week on average preparing for meetings.

That’s where a workspace management solution like Resource Central comes in – it integrates with Outlook® and helps remove some of that wasted time by simplifying the meeting scheduling process.   

Why Use Outlook® to Manage Conference Rooms

Outlook is well known and fairly easy to use. Its basic functionality also makes it easy to use Add-On Products’ integrated meeting and conference room booking and managing solutions that provide key capabilities Outlook cannot. Because you can utilize Resource Central within Outlook to find and book meeting rooms, cutting down the time spent managing meetings and workspaces is easy.

While Outlook may provide basic functionality for managing rooms, it’s limited. To take Outlook’s functionality to another level and truly streamline workspace management,  Add-On Products Outlook Add-in is the right choice.

1. Create a new meeting.
2. Add the meeting details.
3. Search for and select a room.
4. Quickly check room and attendee availability.
5. Add any additional resources you need such as catering or technical support (Outlook alone cannot do this).
6. Once everything looks good, book it and send the meeting invitation.

The beauty of using Add-On Products’ solutions within Outlook too is that everything is synced up with an organization’s calendar and email capabilities. This makes it easy to schedule time with teammates and colleagues, manage calendar appointments, and grab a space to work without worrying about duplicating time slots or accidentally booking a taken room. From an operations perspective, this means less time wasted managing room bookings and more time to be productive.

The simplicity of this process and the added value for both employees and the organization is the biggest reason to leverage Outlook with Add-On Products together.

How Add-On Products Can Improve Your Meeting Room Scheduling

The Outlook Add-in by Add-On Products provides features that are important to complete meeting and conference room bookings. For example, users can book a room and order services and resources at the same time as sending the invite – no extra steps necessary.

The design is user-friendly. Users can access a comprehensive view of resources to make it easier to find colleagues and customize various settings for a more effective, personalized fit.

Other unique benefits that are offered when using Add-On Products’ Outlook®-integrated solutions include:

• Easily find coworkers and book resources and meeting rooms near them.
• Use the Shared Calendar feature to add or modify resources and orders to meetings.
• Make it easier to plan which rooms to use by finding listed floor plans based on location, resource type, and capacity.
• Make it easier to find the right resources with expanded views and color-coded floor plans.
• Locate meeting rooms and select a workspace from a selection of rooms that the Outlook Add-in automatically adjusts based on the number of attendees.
• Set up recurring meetings to eliminate manual scheduling tasks.
• Easily adapt recurring meetings as schedules change by booking alternative resources for recurring meetings.
• Get a comprehensive understanding of resources viewable by location, type, and capacity. This will help with resource management and ensure necessary technical, and other shared office resources, are selected for the appropriate time ranges without accidental double-booking.
• be more proactive about identifying and solving resource insufficiencies

Learn more about using the Outlook® Add-in for Resource Central and Microsoft365 >

Why Simplifying Meeting Room Booking Matters

It may not sound important, but simplifying meeting and conference room booking processes can significantly boost productivity and output by giving back employees valuable time.

And because organizations spend an estimated 15% of their time on meetings, one of the easiest ways to reduce the administrative burden on staff is to streamline scheduling.

Recurring meetings are another costly waste of time if they’re not managed properly.  Add-On Products’ Outlook® Add-in can also help enhance productivity by more effectively handling recurring meetings and help prevent double bookings.

Contact us today to book a free demo and make your meeting room management easier!