There are a few different ways to manage meeting room bookings, depending on the software you are using. Generally, you will have an overview (office map, list, etc.) where people can view available meeting times and make a booking which is later is confirmed and added to their calendar.

Sometimes people will just reserve the room by emailing or contacting someone in charge of bookings, asking that person to add it to the calendar manually. Other businesses have booking systems in place, so that people can make reservations without having to contact someone else.

It is advised to have one central place for all meeting room bookings so that everyone knows where they stand and there is no confusion.

Room booking software simplifies the management of meeting spaces and conference rooms within organizations, facilitating a more organized and efficient allocation of these resources. By adopting room booking software, companies can streamline the process of reserving rooms, ensuring that meetings and events are accommodated effectively. The advantages of utilizing room booking software include:

• Enhanced Efficiency: Automates the process of booking rooms, reducing administrative workload and minimizing the chances of double bookings or scheduling conflicts.
• Real-time Availability: Provides immediate visibility into room availability, allowing employees to find and reserve suitable spaces quickly and easily.
• Optimized Space Utilization: Helps organizations understand and improve their use of meeting spaces, reducing the need for excess real estate and lowering operational costs.
• Improved Meeting Planning: Enables users to check the features and capacities of rooms, ensuring that the selected space meets their specific requirements.
• Increased Productivity: Reduces time wasted by employees searching for available rooms, allowing them to focus more on productive tasks.
• Data Analytics and Reporting: Offers insights into room usage patterns, supporting better space planning and management decision-making.
• Integration with Other Systems: Can often integrate with calendar and email systems for seamless scheduling and notifications, enhancing communication and coordination.
• Support for Hybrid Work Environments: Facilitates the management of physical meeting spaces in a hybrid work setup, where employees split their time between home and office.
• Customization and Scalability: Allows for customization to fit an organization's unique needs, whether it's implementing specific booking rules or integrating with existing workplace management tools.
• Health and Safety Measures: Supports the implementation of health guidelines by managing room capacities and ensuring spaces can be reserved for cleaning between meetings.

A meeting room booking system is a web-based or mobile app that allows for the online booking of conference rooms and other meeting facilities.

A meeting room booking application provides an interface for people to see the availability of collaboration spaces and reserve them. A typical system will allow users to self-schedule and reserve meeting slots using a web or mobile application.

A booking system can be used by any business that wants to embrace the hybrid work solution and wants to make sure their rooms and desks are well-planned in advance and secure (including from a sanitary perspective).

When looking for a meeting room booking system, the needs of your organization will dictate what to look for. 

However, there are some common components that every room booking application should be able to provide. For example, unrestricted staff access to book meeting rooms online and check-in/check-out rules for legitimate reasons. Beyond these basics, the choice of a booking system should vary depending on:

• How your team manages meetings (remotely or in person);
• Where they'll be held (in-house or outside);
• Whether you need specific room amenities or services like catering and AV equipment.

Room booking systems come with different levels of customization; make sure you figure this out before you get too deep into researching specs.

Outlook allows you to set up a meeting room booking in a relatively easy way. All you have to do is click on the date you want to make the booking for, enter the subject and the start/ end time of the meeting, click on “Scheduling Assistant”, then on “Add rooms”, then on “Add attendees”, and, finally, on “Send.” Adding the YAROOMS add-in for Outlook will enable you to make the entire process easier, have a bird’s eye view of the entire calendar, and benefit from the other features that come with YAROOMS (such as ensuring the meeting room is not overcrowded, or that different meetings do not overlap over a given time slot).

Room capacity is the maximum number of people that a room can accommodate. It usually takes into account the number of seats and the amount of space needed for people to move around.

In the post-pandemic office, two meters or six square feet per person is a good rule of thumb for a meeting room. Various research and predictive modeling studies have shown that any workplace with a rate higher than 40% cannot effectively deal with social distancing.