Cards: Schedule Board (Multi-Rooms) with Google G Suite

This article provides the instructions to create a Schedule Board card in the Appspace console, and configure it with Google G Suite calendar provider settings.

The Schedule Board card is designed for viewing the schedule of multiple meeting spaces on larger displays placed in common areas. When the Schedule Board card is configured and displayed on a TV at a huddle space or lobby area, the following features will be available to you:

• Multiple Room information: room name and status indicating if the room is available, offline, or occupied is displayed.
• Meeting information: details of current meeting and upcoming meetings for the day.
• Booking functions:
  • Book now – ability to book 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 1.5 hours from the current time, based on room availability.
  • Book in advance – book future time slots (on the same day only) or up to 3 days in advance, based on room availability.
  • Check in – option to check in to a meeting from 10 minutes before until 10 minutes after the start of the meeting.
  • Extend meeting – extend current meeting by 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 1.5 hours.
  • End meeting – end current meeting, and make the room available.

In order to use the room booking and scheduling service with our Schedule Board card, you must do the following:

1. Create a booking account, add resources, and delegate access, with G Suite Administrator credentials.
2. Create Schedule Board card in the Appspace console.
3. Create a playlist channel and add the Schedule Board card.
4. Assign the playlist channel to a registered device installed with the Appspace App.
5. Book a room directly on the Appspace App or via your email calendar.

The Schedule Board card is an Appspace supported card, which is officially created and periodically updated by Appspace with new templates and features. What’s in this article:

Prerequisites

• Ensure your device is compatible. Refer to the Supported Appspace Cards article.  
• Account Owner, Publisher, or Editor (author) role in Appspace to create and configure the Schedule Board card.
• A G Suite Administrator role to configure Google calendar booking accounts.
• It is recommended that the device clock is set to automatically retrieve time from a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server with the correct time zone, in order for it to sync correctly with the calendar provider.
  Appspace Cloud servers retrieve time from a NTP server by default. If an Appspace on-prem server is used, configure the on-prem server to retrieve time from an NTP server with the correct time zone.

• If using an Appspace on-prem deployment, configure the on-prem server and network to allow constant access to https://*.cloud.appspace.com and its subdomains, to ensure each device is able to attain new authorization tokens from the calendar provider on a regular basis via Appspace API services.

Create Booking Account and Configure Resources

Follow the instructions in the order listed below:

• A. Enable API access in Google Admin console
• B. Create a booking account in G Suite
• C. Configure resources (meeting rooms) in Google Calendar
• D. Delegate access for resource’s calendar to booking account

A. Enable API access in Google Admin console

1. Follow the instructions in this article to enable API access in the Google Admin console, to ensure the Schedule Board card will be able to retrieve resource data: https://support.google.com/a/answer/60757?hl=en
2. Proceed to section B below.

B. Create a booking account in G Suite

We recommend creating an account in G Suite. This account will be used for authentication when configuring the Schedule Board card. We will call this the booking account.

1. To create the booking account, follow the instructions in the Add users individually article here: https://support.google.com/a/answer/33310?hl=en
2. Add the basic account information, such as:
   • First and Last name
   • Primary email address
   • Password
     You may skip all optional information.
     
3. Proceed to section C below

C. Configure resources (meeting rooms) in Google Calendar

All meeting rooms in an organization are known as resources in Google Calendar. Follow the instructions below to configure all resources available in your company:

1. Follow the instructions in the Manage Calendar resources article: https://support.google.com/a/answer/1686462?hl=en
   • Follow the instructions in the 1. Create buildings, features, and resources step to add each meeting room in your organization as a resource to the calendar.
     Note

     Take note of the resource id from the Edit resource page, which will be required for the ‘Automatic room assignment from a player property’ option when configuring the Schedule Board card.
     
   • Follow the instructions in the 2. Add resources to My Calendar list step to add all available meeting rooms to the calendar’s list.
     
     
   • Follow the instructions in the 3. Share calendar resources step, and ensure the following settings are selected:
     • In Step 4, select the Auto-accept invitations that do not conflict option.
     • In Step 5, follow the instructions to share the calendar with everyone in the organization.
       
2. You may skip steps 4 and 5 in the Google article, and proceed to section D below.

D. Delegate access for resource’s calendar to booking account

You now need to provide your booking account with access to each meeting room’s calendar, a process known as delegate access. This will allow the Schedule Board card to make bookings on Google Calendar via the booking account that is used to authenticate calendar access. To do this, you have two options:

• Delegate access to booking account for each resource individually.
  1. To delegate access to the booking account, follow the instructions in the Delegate calendar access article: https://support.google.com/a/answer/117596?hl=en
     • In Step 4, select the resources (meeting room) calendar.
     • In Step 5, enter in the booking account email address in the Share with specific person field.
  2. Repeat the above steps for all resources (meeting rooms).
  3. Proceed to the Create Schedule Board Card section below.
• Delegate access to booking account with super administrator privileges.
  Important

  Providing super administrator privileges to the booking account gives it full access to all users’ calendars and event details. For more information please refer to https://support.google.com/a/answer/2405986#super_admin.
  1. Follow the instructions in the Assign administrator roles to a user article: https://support.google.com/a/answer/172176?hl=en
     • In Step 4 of Assign roles to one user, select the booking account created earlier.
     • In Step 6 of Assign roles to one user, select the Super Admin role.
  2. Proceed to the Create Schedule Board Card section below.

Create Schedule Board Card

To create and configure the Schedule Board card, please follow the instructions below:

1. Log in to your Appspace console.
2. To create this card, select one of the following options:
   • Click +Quick Action from the Appspace menu bar on the top right, and select Create Card.
   • Click Library from the ☰ Appspace menu, and select a library or folder you wish to create the content in. Click +CREATE, and select Card. 
   • To create and add the card directly to an existing channel, refer to Add Content to Playlist Channels.
3. Select Workplace from the All Templates side panel, and click Schedule Board.
    
   
   Important

   If you are unable to locate the content, try using either the Search bar, the Order by, or Filter icon to narrow down the content that you are looking for.
4. You may authenticate the card now by clicking the Connect button for GSuite, and proceed to step 2 below.
   If you would like to authenticate later, click the Preview card in demo mode link in the preview window, and proceed to step 5 to configure the booking options and styling of the Schedule Board card.
   
   
   
   
   Note

   The demo mode on cards, allows users to experience the design and functionality of the card, prior to configuring the calendar provider. This includes displaying various booking statuses, and performing bookings on the card itself.
5. Enter in your booking account credentials (created earlier) to authenticate the Schedule Board card.
   Note

   Please contact your G Suite Administrator for credentials. Some large organizations may have one account for each room.
6. Once authentication is successful, select the rooms to be displayed on the board, and click Verify.
   
7. Once the rooms have been verified, click Finish.
8. In the Edit tab:
   
   • Enter the Header title with the preferred messaging text. Use the Text Editor to customize the text font and style.
   • Select a Layout option from the drop-down menu to display the room information, and events available to the users:
     • Map
       
       Note

       If Map is selected, please refer to the Configure Schedule Board with Maps article on how to configure Maps to be used with the schedule board card.
     • Map & Listing
     • Schedule
     • Current events
   • In the Design section: click the arrow to expand.
     • Customize the Schedule Board card with the following options:
       • Logo
       • Logo position
       • Header background color or image
       • Header mask color
       • Available color
       • Occupied color
       • Check in color
       • Table text color
       • Table color
       • Table border color
       • Level button color
       • Level button text color
       • Background color or media
       • Background mask color
   • In the Configuration section: click the arrow to expand.
     • Select the Display options for the schedule board.
       • Map enabled
       • Interactivity enabled
       • Logo enabled
       • Header enabled
       • 24-hour clock
       • Show meeting name
       • Show organizer’s name
       • Show clock
         Important

         If the Schedule Board card detects that the service provider has restricted viewing access to a meeting room/resource, it will automatically disable the interactivity and booking functions for that room on the board (Appspace App). However, meeting information will still be displayed.
     • Select the Schedule interval for each time slot available for booking on the schedule board table:
       • 15 mins
       • 20 mins
       • 1 hour
     • Select the Block size to determine each column size on the schedule board table:
       • 1x – Default
       • 2x – Double the default size
     • Check Enable meeting check-in checkbox to enable the check-in function.
     • Check Enable auto scrolling checkbox to enable scrolling on a page.
       Note

       If Interactivity is disabled, auto scrolling will be enabled by default.
     • Configure the Room mapping for Simple Wayfinding (refer to the Configure Simple Wayfinding section below)
9. In the Article tab: This section may be skipped.
   • Include an Article or Caption to accompany the content item when being displayed on mobile apps, tablets, and other social collaboration apps.
   • Enter a Referral Link to link more information to the content.
10. In the Schedule tab: This section may be skipped.
    • You may add the content to a channel by selecting the channel from the Add to channel drop-down menu, or leave it unassigned to be added later.
    • When the content is assigned to a channel, the SCHEDULING and DISPLAY PROPERTIES options are displayed. Refer to the Configure Content Playback Properties: Dayparting, Frequency, Scheduling, in a Playlist Channel article for detailed configuration instructions.
11. In the Settings tab: This section may be skipped.
    • The Name field will be auto-populated to match the Title of the content which will also act as the filename for the content. This is a mandatory field.
    • Enter any relevant Tags for the content. (Optional)
    • Select a folder for the content in the Library Location drop-down menu to change the default folder location.
    • Upload an image to be used as the Thumbnail for the content.
      Important

      Do not set an expiry date for the Schedule Board card.
12. The preview pane displays the card. Click the Card Gear icon to change the displayed rooms, or to log out from the card.
    
    
    
    Note

    The booking status of the meeting room is only a preview, and is not indicative of the real status in this preview. If the card is in demo mode, clicking the Gear icon will display the Authenticate Account option, which will allow you to authenticate the card with your desired calendar provider.
    
13. Once done, click SAVE.

Configure Simple Wayfinding

1. In the Schedule Board card, click the Edit tab.
2. In the Configuration section, click the Add Data button for Room mapping.
3. The table will be auto-populated with the Room IDs and Room Names of the selected resources (meeting room in Microsoft Office 365) displayed on the schedule board, in the first and second columns respectively, starting from the second row onwards.
   Note

   The Room ID (Resource id) is the email alias obtained from the G Suite Calendar Resources page for each physical meeting room configured; refer to the C. Configure resources (meeting rooms) in Google Calendar.

   If the Rooms IDs and Room Names are not auto-populated, please use or update your Schedule Board card to v 1.11 and above
4. You may populate the table using one of the following methods:
   • Manually enter the data.
   • Copy and paste data from an external table.
   • Import data from an spreadsheet (.xlsx).
     Note

     If you’re pasting data from an external table, or importing data from a spreadsheet, please ensure that the Room IDs, Room Names, and Headers are exactly as displayed in the Room mapping table. We recommend copying the data from the Room mapping table to your external table or spreadsheet first, before pasting or importing it back.
      
5. Enter the schedule board device(s) locations in the first row, starting from the third column onwards of the table.
6. Finally, enter the directions of the schedule board device in relative to the resource (meeting rooms) in the third column (and onwards).
   The following directions are supported:
   • left
   • right
   • forward
   • forward-left
   • forward-right
   • backward
   • backward-left
   • backward-right
   • escalator-up
   • escalator-down
   • stairs-up
   • stairs-down
7. Once complete, click SAVE.
8. On the device displaying the Schedule Board card, ensure the following device property is added:
   
   

   Device Property	Value
   card.schedule.location	device location

   WordPress Tables Plugin
   Example: card.schedule.location : lobby
   Click here for instructions to Add a device property. You will need Location Admin or Account Owner privileges to add a property.

Create Playlist Channel and Add Schedule Board Card

1. Click the Quick Actions menu, and select Create Channel to create a playlist channel. Enter in the Playlist channel name.
2. Click ADD CONTENT, and select the Schedule Board card from the Library. Click Add once done.
3. Click the Apply button to save the settings.

Assign Playlist Channel to a Registered Device

1. Register your device (tablet) as per the Register a device article.
2. Go to the Appspace menu, and select Devices.
3. Select the name link of the device that will be used for the meeting room.
4. In the Device Information page, click the Settings tab, and select Admin assigns a single channel option from the Channel selection mode drop-down menu.
5. Navigate back to the Overview tab, and click the Select channel button, and select the playlist channel with the Schedule Board card, created earlier.
6. Click Save. The meeting room booking service can now be viewed on the app.

Book Meeting Room via a Calendar or the Appspace App

For booking instructions, please see Booking Multiple Meeting Rooms.

Edit Schedule Board Card

The instructions below show you how to edit a Schedule Board card.

1. Log in to the Appspace console.
2. Click Library from the ☰ Appspace menu, and select a library or folder containing the content you wish to edit.
3. Select and click the Schedule Board card to edit, and select the desired tab to edit or view.
   • In the Edit, Article, and Settings tabs:
     • You may edit the content the same way as it was configured. For detailed instructions on how to do this, please refer to the Create Schedule Board Card section above.
   • In the Preview tab:
     • Preview how the content is displayed on your device.
   • In the Channels tab:
     • You may add the content to a channel by selecting the channel from the Add to channel drop-down menu, or leave it unassigned to be added later.
     • When the content is assigned to a channel, the SCHEDULING and DISPLAY PROPERTIES options are displayed. Refer to the Configure Content Playback Properties: Dayparting, Frequency, Scheduling, in a Playlist Channel article for detailed configuration instructions.
   • In the Analytics tab:
     • View the individual content analytics in this tab. For more information, please refer to the Individual Content Analytics section of the Analytics article.
4. Once done, click SAVE.