Approving Room Reservations

How to approve a room reservation

To be able to approve the Room Reservation, you need to use the EMS Client.  Instructions on installing the client can be found here: https://kb.wisc.edu/cae/78158

Start the EMS Application

Start the EMS Windows Application.

You will need to login with an login/password that has been provided to you from the CoE EMS Administrator.

Check for pending reservations

Click on the Dashboard icon (may not always be green).

Click on Dashboard


Click on Everyday User Reservations in the lower part of the screen.
In the Status area, make sure the Request item is checked. To just show Request items, make sure other status types are not checked. 
In the Building section, make sure the (all) is selected. This will change the filter to show all the rooms in Engineering you are responsible for.
Next to View, make sure All Dates is selected.
The main area of the window should now show if there are any pending reservation requests.

Dashboard

Approving a Reservation

Select a pending reservation from the list and click the Go To button to bring up the reservation:

Select Reservation

You should now be viewing the Event Editing screen similar to the one shown below.

Reservation Info

On this screen, there are various tabs to view additional information. The primary ones of interest are:

The Reservation Summary tab will show the entered contact information as well as a listing of the dates/times and rooms requested.
The User Defined Fields tab will show the additional information that the web form may have asked for (user entered comments, etc).
This History tab will show all the changes to the event that have been made since it was created.
The Bookings section will show all the date/times and rooms that were requested.

To approve the reservation request,
Click on the event in the left hand column so the very top entry is highlighted

Top Reservation


Click on the "User Defined Fields" tab to view additional information about the event provided by the requester:
Select User Defined Fields

You can see the additional information provided, the example is shown below:

User Defined Fields info


Now click on the "Reservation Summary" tab

Select Reservation Summary


We now want to change the status of the reservation. To do this, click on the Change Status button.

Change Status

This will bring up the Change Booking Status window.
In the drop down list for the Status, select the Confirmed entry
Make sure the Update Reservation Status is checked
Click the Next  button to continue:

 Confirm Reservation

This will bring up the entry with all the individual booking entries that we can change the status for. By default, all the entries will be selected. We just need to click on the Finish button to continue:

Select Entries to update

If none of the events were able to be approved, you will be presented with a dialog box. You will need to scroll over to see the reason that it wasn't able to be approved. To send out an email from the program in this case, Go back to the main Reservation entry, and on the "Reservation Summary" tab, use the "confirmation" button to send out an email confirmation where you can then tell the requester that their reservation was unable to be approved due to conflicts.

A window should pop up with whatever changes were made.  This window should look something like:

Changes Confirmed
After closing the previous window, you can now send a confirmation email to the person requesting the reservation.  To do so, click Confirmation on the Event Editing window
Confirmation

 The FIRST TIME you send a confirmation email from the system, there are a few things that need to be done. The system will remember the options you select for future email confirmations you send. In the future, you will just need to click the Email button. But for now, let's check to make sure everything is set up correctly. Start by clicking on the Buildings tab:

Click Buildings tab

Make sure all the Buildings are selected by clicking on the > > button:

Move all to right column

Now click on the Categories tab:

Select Categories tab

Again, make sure everything is selected by clicking on the > > button:

Move all to right column

Now click on the Statuses tab:

Select Statuses tab

Make sure all the Status types are selected by clicking on the > > button:

Move all to right column

Now move to the next step by clicking on the Options tab:

Select Options tab

Here, make sure the Confirmation Title has "Confirmation" in it, then select a Header and Footer message.  For a general message, select "ENGR-General Conference Room Approved" for the Header and leave the Footer with (none).  Some Departments and Groups may have bespoke headers and footers set up, so use whichever you prefer.

Options


Now click the Email Options tab:

Email Options

Here, make sure you have same Header and Footer messages as the previous step.  Again, the ENGR-General Conference Room Approved Header Message is a good option to use as a start. You may need to scroll down the list to find it.
Make sure the Email Format is set to Summary and the Attach Detailed Confirmation and Attach .ics File boxes are checked, while the Prompt for Res. Attachments and Add Res. ID to File Name boxes should stay unchecked:
Check the box for 1st Contact in the Email To line and the Onsite Contact and Everyday User are checked for the Email CC line.  This will generate an email message to the two contact emails the requester may have put in the request form as well as sending the requester (Everyday User) a copy as well.

Email Setup


Now click the Email button to generate the email message

Click Email

A few accounts are old enough to be grandfathered in to sending email directly from EMS, but this service has been retired.  For all accounts made since that service went away, this will open Outlook and bring up a generated email message. An example is shown below:

Email

At this point, you can make any changes you need. If you need to adjust who the email is sent to, you can do so in the area shown below:

To and CC line

If you need to update any of the text sent in the confirmation message, you can do so in the area circled below:

Email message

Once you are ready to send the confirmation email, click on the Send button

Click Send

You have now approved the reservation request, and sent out a confirmation email.