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:
- Create a booking account, add resources, and delegate access, with G Suite Administrator credentials.
- Create Schedule Board card in the Appspace console.
- Create a playlist channel and add the Schedule Board card.
- Assign the playlist channel to a registered device installed with the Appspace App.
- Book a room directly on the Appspace App or via your email calendar.
- Please refer to our Introduction to Cards guide for an in-depth introduction to the types of cards that are ideal for your signage solutions.
- Cards are only supported on devices with the Appspace App. Legacy devices are not supported.
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 Compatible Appspace Cards.
- 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.
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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
- 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
- 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.
- To create the booking account, follow the instructions in the Add users individually article here:
https://support.google.com/a/answer/33310?hl=en - Add the basic account information, such as:
- 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:
- 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.
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Repeat the above steps for all resources (meeting rooms).
- Proceed to the Create Schedule Board Card section below.
- To delegate access to the booking account, follow the instructions in the Delegate calendar access article:
- Delegate access to booking account with super administrator privileges. ImportantProviding 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.
- 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.
- Proceed to the Create Schedule Board Card section below.
- Follow the instructions in the Assign administrator roles to a user article:
Create Schedule Board Card
To create and configure the Schedule Board card, please follow the instructions below:
- In the Appspace console, navigate to Library from the Appspace menu, Or click + QUICK ACTION from the Appspace menu bar, and proceed to step 3 below.
- Select the desired folder in the Library folder tree, and click the + ADD button.
- Select Create Card, and select Schedule Board from the Filter by template dropdown menu.
- Click the desired Schedule Board card theme.
- You may authenticate the card now by clicking the Connect button for GSuite, and proceed to step 6 below. If you would like to authenticate later, click the Preview card in demo mode link in the preview window, and proceed to step 9 to configure the booking options and styling of the Schedule Board card.NoteThe 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.
- Enter in your booking account credentials (created earlier) to authenticate the Schedule Board card. NotePlease contact your G Suite Administrator for credentials. Some large organizations may have one account for each room.
- Once authentication is successful, select the rooms to be displayed on the board, and click Verify.
- Once the rooms have been verified, click Finish.
- Select a View option from the drop-down menu to display the room information, and events available to the users:
- Current meetings
- Room schedule
- Current meetings & room schedule
- Enable the Display options for the schedule board.
- Interactivity enabled
- Logo enabled
- Header enabled
- 24-hour clock
- Check in enabled
- Show meeting name
- Show organizer’s name
- Show clock
- Show in 15 minutes time block ImportantIf 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.
- You may further customize the Schedule Board card, with the following options:
- Rooms location (see Configure Simple Wayfinding)
- Logo
- Logo position
- Header title
- Header background color or image
- Header mask color
- Available color
- Occupied color
- Check in color
- Table text color
- Table color
- Table border color
- Background color or media
- Background mask color NoteYou may set an image or a video as the background media.
- The preview pane displays the card. Click the Card Configuration icon to change the displayed rooms, or to log out from the card.
- Note
- Click Next.
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Enter in the card Title, and click Save.
Optionally, you may enter in details for the Article, Caption, Content Tags, and add a Custom Thumbnail for the card.ImportantPlease leave the Expires on field blank. Do NOT enter an expiry date.
Configure Simple Wayfinding
- In the Schedule Board card, click the Rooms location import data button.
- 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 Excel spreadsheet (.xlsx).
- First enter in all the schedule board device locations in the first row, starting from the third column onwards of the table.
- Proceed to enter in the Resource id of the resource (meeting room in Google calendar) in the first column (of row 2 and below), followed by the meeting room name in the second column.NoteThe Resource id is 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 section above.
- Finally, enter in the directions of the schedule board device relative to the resource (meeting rooms) in the third column (and onwards). Example:
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
- Once complete, save the card.
- On the schedule board device displaying the Schedule Board card, ensure the following device property is added: Example: card.schedule.location : lobby
Device Property Value card.schedule.location device location Click here for instructions to Add a device property. You will need Network Administrator or Account Owner privileges to add a property.
Create Playlist Channel and Add Schedule Board Card
- Click the Quick Actions menu, and select Create Channel to create a playlist channel. Enter in the Playlist channel name.
- Click ADD CONTENT, and select the Schedule Board card from the Library. Click Add once done.
- Click the Apply button to save the settings.
Assign Playlist Channel to a Registered Device
- Register your device (tablet) as per the Register a device article.
- Go to the Appspace menu, and select Devices.
- Select the name link of the device that will be used for the meeting room.
- 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.
- Navigate back to the Overview tab, and click the Select channel button, and select the playlist channel with the Schedule Board card, created earlier.
- 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.
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