Google Calendar: display detailed information & automatically free up the meeting room

What’s changing: Google wants to help businesses make the most of their space. To do that, Google will consolidate all features related to building and resource management in one place in the admin console. Google also introduced two new tools: Room release - free meeting rooms and Room insight - detailed information about meeting rooms. These two tools will help you understand how users use your business's resources and optimize them.

A single destination for building and resource management

All features related to building and room management are now gathered in a new and more prominent location in the admin console – “Building and resources“. You can access it directly from the home screen or via Directory > Buildings and Resources ( Contacts > Buildings and Resources) in the navigation menu.

Room release is based on the number of people who decline the event

According to an internal study, up to 40% rooms were booked but ended up not being used. To help other users reclaim those unused rooms, Google will now automatically release meeting rooms when all guests decline an invitation from Google Calendar. When the room is released, the event organizer will receive an Email notifying them of the change and suggesting they reschedule or delete the meeting.

You can enable this feature for pre-installed rooms (room information available  in the admin console by: Go to your resources and select the rooms you want to enable room freeing. Then you need to click “EDIT” and enable the Calendar-based room release feature.

Note: room release feature only applies to G Suite Business, Enterprise, Enterprise for Education and Education and can only be enabled for rooms with structures classified as “CONFERENCE_ROOM”

Detailed information board about meeting rooms

Google is also adding new dashboards in the Admin console to provide detailed room information. Here, you can see data like:

• The most and least frequently booked rooms
• Occupied and booked rates of rooms across different time zones and room sizes
• How many rooms can be released automatically with Calendar's room release feature

You can filter this data by building, floor, room, room capacity, room feature, or time period for more detailed information.

With these reports, you can make better decisions to improve your workspace. They provide suggestions from which admins can learn more about room usage status. Some examples of insights include:

• Which room is the most popular?
• Are the business's rooms being used properly?
• Which room size is most popular?
• What devices influence room selection? What additional A/V equipment should you invest in?
• When is the best time to schedule repairs and maintenance?
• At what times are rooms most booked and can you suggest staff members change the times when they schedule meetings?

You can access this dashboard in the admin console under “Building and resources”.

With this launch, Google also added a new admin privilege, “Room insight” – detailed information about the room – to give admins or resource managers the right to view (view only) this Dashboard and other resources.

Please note, this data is only available for structured resources (parts.

Update: Gimasys