Managing meeting room reservations doesn’t have to be a headache. In this case, we’ll show you how to build a smart meeting room reservation system using Automations Pro, Data Linkage, and workflows. Say goodbye to scheduling conflicts, streamline communication, and boost office productivity—all while ensuring seamless coordination of meeting room usage. Let’s make managing reservations effortless and hassle-free!

How to Design a Meeting Room Reservation System?

In this case, three forms, Meeting Room Info, Meeting Room Reservation workflow, and Application Record, are required, so as to realize:

1. When a member sends a request in Meeting Room Reservation workflow, the information will be synced to the auxiliary form Application Record.

2. Once the meeting room request is processed, Automations Pro will update the result to Application Record.

3. Query reservation information in Application Record through data linkage in Meeting Room Reservation.

4. Set the proceeding conditions in Meeting Room Reservation to prevent form submission when the selected reservation time conflicts with any existing room reservations.

What Does it Look like?

After selecting a meeting room in the Meeting Room Reservation form, users can view the reservation history for that room. If the proposed meeting time conflicts with an existing reservation, a validation process will lead to failed submission.

How to Set up?

The process for syncing the Meeting Room Reservation with the Application Record is as follows:

When a reservation request is submitted, a new record is added to the Application Record with empty approval results;
Once the approval stage is completed, the result will be synced back to the Application Record.

So, how to achieve these two goals with our Automations Pro?

Step 1 Preparing Forms

Before configuring the Automations Pro, three forms are needed in this case.

Meeting Room Info: a regular form used to record basic information about meeting rooms such as location, name, capacity, and equipment.

Example information and the corresponding field types:

Meeting Room Information	Field Types
Serial No.	Serial No.
Room Location	Single Line
Room Name	Single Line
Maximum Capacity	Number
Equipment	Single Line

Meeting Room Reservation: A workflow form used for booking and administrative approval of meeting rooms. Remember to set the workflow.

Example information and the corresponding field types:

Meeting Room Information	Field Types
Applicant	Member
Current Time	Date&Time
Meeting Theme	Single Line
Room Location	Single Select
Serial No.	Single Line
Starting Time	Date&Time
Ending Time	Date&Time
Room Reservation Record	Query Data
Review Result	Radio

Application Record: An auxiliary regular form used for record synchronization and subsequent validation through Automations Pro. The information needed is almost same as those in the Meeting Room Reservation workflow.

Step 2 Configuring Automations Pro

Automations Pro will help you synchronize reservation information for easier time validation in the follow-up steps.

1. Select a form and click Edit > Extension > Automations > +New Automations. Rename it and set the Form Trigger as Meeting Room Reservation. Click OK.

2. Add Trigger: select Add record as the form trigger, and Workflow flows to next node as the workflow trigger.

3. Add a Update Record node to sync the reservation status.

4. Configure the Update Record node:

Update: Record in the form > Application Record
Add Conditions: set as follows
Check the option: "If no record is to be updated, add one to the corresponding form."
Set Field Value: Update Record > Add Field

5. Then configure the Add record node: set the Triggered Data in accordance with the field value.

6. Click Save & Enable to enable the configured Automations Pro.

Step 3 Setting Data Linkage

By using data linkage, the meeting room reservation records from "Meeting Reservation Application Records" can be retrieved and utilized for submission validation when submitting the form.

In the Meeting Room Reservation form, add three auxiliary fields for meeting time validation:

Start Time Validation
End Time Validation
Start and End Time Validation

1. Select Start Time Validation field and click Field Properties > Data Linkage > Data Linkage Settings.

2. Set the Linked Form, Condition, and Current Form as follows, and click OK.

3. Similarly, configure the End Time Validation field and Start and End Time Validation field using the same steps. The specific condition settings are as follows:

Step 4 Setting Submission Conditions in Workflow

By setting submission conditions in the workflow, the reservation request will only be submitted when no time conflict exists. Otherwise, you will see the reason for submission failure.

1. Go to Workflow, select Start node > Node Properties > Proceeding Rules > Data meeting conditions > Add Condition.