Meeting room booking systems provide simple tools for reserving conference rooms and other spaces or resources within an office or shared workplace. This software ensures that organizers and attendees have the necessary accommodations for important meetings, and at the same time, office managers maintain an accurate, up-to-date view of how company resources are being utilized. Office managers can program these platforms with user permissions and other restrictions to ensure the appropriate usage of these valuable resources. Meeting room booking systems are primarily used for planning out and inviting others to meetings such as team scrums, sales calls, one-on-ones, and brainstorming sessions. They are also used by members and community managers of coworking spaces for reserving rooms, desks, designated call areas, and quiet spaces. These tools improve workplace efficiency while preventing double bookings or other situations where meeting spaces and resources are unavailable at critical moments. Certain products in this category provide analytics features to offer insight into shared space usage and help refine room scheduling protocol.
Meeting room booking systems commonly integrate with calendar software so meeting organizers and attendees can view or manage meeting details, such as time and location, in relation to their general schedules. These tools also offer integrations with email software, making it easy for organizers to send electronic invites to attendees. These tools often integrate with or share features of visitor management software to check in and track information about meeting attendees, particularly those from outside the company. A number of meeting room booking systems provide digital signage features to display meeting details outside of conference rooms and allow for streamlined check-in processes. This will usually involve external hardware such as tablets or digital displays, either from a third party or the software vendor themselves.
To qualify for inclusion in the Meeting Room Booking Systems category, a product must:
- Provide an overview of company conference rooms, along with scheduled meeting times and details
- Allow users with the appropriate permissions to book available meeting rooms, modify event details, and invite attendees
- Equip administrators, such as office managers, with tools to modify user permissions, room and resource details, and specific meeting information
- Sync with organizer and attendee calendar and/or email tools
