A conference room booking system lets employees find and reserve the right meeting room for the right number of people, and it frees rooms that are booked but not used. In July 2022, Kadence launched conference room booking in its hybrid workplace platform to do exactly that: help people find a suitable room quickly, avoid double bookings and ghost bookings, and give workplace teams data on how rooms were used.
Meeting face to face in the office builds engagement and community, yet gathering a group in the same room is often hard, frustrating and complex to organize. The release set out to make it straightforward. The details below describe the product as it launched in 2022; for current capabilities, see Kadence room booking software.
Why does a hybrid office need a conference room booking system?
In a hybrid office, meetings are the moments that bring people together, so finding a room should not be the obstacle. A conference room booking system shows which rooms are free, how many people they hold and what equipment they have. It prevents conflicts and frees rooms nobody uses, so the office’s meeting space works harder.
Without a system, room booking can become a free-for-all that wastes time and resources and makes for a poor experience. Time spent searching adds up. One survey reported that over 4 in 10 US office workers waste 60 minutes every week searching for the right spaces, including desks, conference rooms and colleagues.
How did users find the right room?
The 2022 release let people find rooms two ways. In the Live office view in the Kadence web app, they could hover over a space to see its maximum capacity and its amenities. In the Bookings menu, they could filter rooms by capacity and amenities to find the best fit for a last-minute briefing or a planned workshop.
How did the release stop meeting rooms going to waste?
A room that shows as booked but sits empty frustrates employees and wastes space. The July 2022 release let admins release room bookings automatically if nobody checked in. Admins could set the release time from 5 minutes up to 15 minutes after the start of the booking, returning the room to the pool for others.
This is the problem often called a ghost booking: a reservation that holds a room nobody uses. Auto-release tackles it at the source, because a booking only keeps its room if someone actually arrives.
How did it prevent booking conflicts?
Booking conflicts happen when two groups believe they hold the same room. In the 2022 release, users could see which conference rooms were available in real time on an interactive office floor map, and they could book in advance knowing that once a booking was confirmed, nobody else could book that room for the same time.
Rounding up a team and finding a suitable space is one of the easiest ways to lose time. A live floor map and locked bookings removed much of that friction, so meetings started on time in the room people expected.
Could rooms be booked from Outlook and Google Calendar?
Yes. At launch, Kadence integrated with Google and Outlook calendars, so people could book a room from their preferred calendar or from the Kadence web app. They could choose an available room, add a description, invite teammates and add a Microsoft Teams or Google Meet link so remote colleagues could join.
Calendars are where most people already plan their day, so booking a room there removes a step. See how it worked in the room booking demo with Google and Outlook, or read more about Outlook calendar room booking.
How could workplace teams analyze conference room usage?
Understanding who books which rooms, for how long, and which spaces are most popular is central to room management. In 2022, Kadence Insights let admins export booking data as CSV files. From that data they could identify heavy users, spot people who tended to book but not show up, and find the least-booked rooms.
Those least-booked rooms are candidates for repurposing, which can save utility and space costs. For enterprise workplace and real estate teams, this kind of usage data turns room decisions from guesswork into evidence. For current reporting options, see Kadence workplace analytics.
How did booking a room work step by step?
At launch, a room could be booked in three places.
In the Kadence web app:
- Open the web app and go to Bookings in the sidebar menu.
- Click New booking in the top right.
- Under Where, click Room and choose the building and floor.
- Optionally, choose a minimum capacity and the amenities you need.
- Click When to select a date and time.
- Under Who, type the names or email addresses of the people you are inviting.
- Click Next to find a room on the interactive office floor map.
- Click an available room, add a short description of the meeting, and click Book this space.
In Outlook: open the calendar and click New event, add a title, attendees, date and time, then select an available room, add a Microsoft Teams link and a description, and send the invite.
In Google Calendar: double-click the date and time you need, add a title, a Google Meet link and guests, click Rooms to find an available room, add a description and save to send the invite.
Frequently asked questions
What is a conference room booking system?
A conference room booking system is software that shows which meeting rooms are available, what they hold and what equipment they have, and lets people reserve them. Kadence added one to its platform in July 2022, with capacity and amenity filters, a live floor map and calendar integration.
How does auto-release reduce wasted meeting rooms?
Auto-release cancels a room booking if nobody checks in within a set time. In Kadence’s 2022 release, admins could set that window from 5 minutes up to 15 minutes after the booking started, so empty rooms went back into use.
Could people book Kadence rooms without leaving their calendar?
Yes. At launch, rooms could be booked from Outlook or Google Calendar as well as the Kadence web app, with a Microsoft Teams or Google Meet link added for remote attendees.