More power to plan your meetings!
Until now, registered users have created instant meetings with the click of a button. Once copied onto their clipboard, they've shared the link with invitees through their preferred social platform, text app, email platform or mainstream calendar. Thanks to our "permanent rooms", the invitees could be asked to join the meeting at a certain day/time specified manually.
Meeting organizers will now be empowered to create scheduled future meetings at will: enter the Meet page.
In contrast to inviting guests before entering a meeting via the Dashboard page’s "Copy Link" buttons…
… or from inside the meeting by using the "Invite Guests" blue button...
… or via the emergent popup list from the "…” (More) icon...
… registered users can now simply navigate to the new MEET page to schedule meetings for a future date! The calendar icon (on the Page's left menu, just below the "Room" cube icon) will get you to our new MEET page.
Start the scheduling process by clicking on the "Book a Room" button or by clicking anywhere on the large grey field ("You have no scheduled meetings").
The emerging "Book a Room" panel will allow you to enter meeting-relevant data at the top, while the bottom section will prompt you for invited guests' email addresses. After each name you enter, you'll need to click on the "+" button to the right of the address field to move that address to the bottom list and clearing the text field for the next invited guests' email address.
The panel's leftmost section features meeting room thumbnails that you can scroll down and select at will. This means that - if you're not sure which room you really want to book, you can continue to select rooms, even after filling out your list of invitees. The invitees will ultimately be invited to the last room that you choose before pressing on the "Book Now" button.
If you look closely you'll see that there's also a counter to ensure that you don't invite more guests than you have available seats.
In the example below, you'll notice that the counter states, "4/4 No seats available", which simply means that with your registered plan only 4 participants are allowed (counting yourself), and all seats are taken, so you can't currently invite anyone else.
The date entry is very similar to what you'd find in most off-the-shelf calendar tools on the market, featuring a drop-down calendar where you can shuffle to future (and past) months before selecting a date.
By default, the time entry field can be populated within 15-minute increments.
If you try to close the calendar panel before clicking on "Book now" for any reason, you'll be prompted to ensure that you wanted to leave without saving any of the previously entered data.
Once you finish populating the calendar and hitting "Book now", the calendar overlay will disappear and you'll be able to see a new meeting card added to your previously empty Meet page (or added below your previously-existing meeting cards).
If you want to modify any of your meeting cards (by first clicking on the "..." icon on the card's upper right and selecting EDIT), a new Summary overlay panel will appear...
... with all the existing data as well as some tools to let you add the meeting link to your/your invitees' Google, Outlook or other calendar with just one click!
Of course, you can always manually send the invitation by clicking on the COPY LINK button on:
- The Summary page's COPY LINK BOTTOM, at the screen's bottom
- Your meeting card(s) and pasting the link to your favorite email client, chat/messaging app, etc.
If, for whatever reason, you need to cancel the meeting while already editing, there is a trash can icon on the Summary page's upper right, which you can use for this purpose.
When you click on the trash can icon, you'll be prompted for confirmation.
After confirming that you want to delete the meeting, a "Meeting is deleted" message will be generated and a cancellation email will be sent to all your invitees that were emailed the invitation link through the ROOM system (not through the Google, Outlook or other calendars).
After you book a meeting, you will receive a similar email message to remind you in case you want to (eventually) paste/share it via other text apps, etc. If the meeting is cancelled you will also receive a cancellation email, along with your invitees.
The cancellation email is shown below.
One last tip: If you are inside one of your scheduled meetings and you would like to invite additional guests, go down to the meeting room's tool tray, click on the Invite Participants icon or the "..." (More) icon to open the Participants panel overlay. From there you can copy the existing meeting's link and send it to your intended guests directly through either the system (using the paper airplane icon) or your Google or Facebook account, without leaving the meeting!
Please note that using the Google Gmail or Facebook buttons will not automatically create a meeting on those respective calendars.
MOBILE MEETING SCHEDULING
The new Meet page has also been incorporated into your mobile device!
After logging into the ROOM website and being redirected to the Dashboard page, go to the mobile menu, and expand the list to select the MEET page.
As you can see below in both portrait and landscape mode, the Meet page's design is straightforward. Start the scheduling process by clicking on the "Book a Room" button, or by clicking anywhere on the large grey field, "You have no scheduled meetings" (unless you already have a meeting card occupying the grey space, of course).
Either way, the "Choose Room" panel comes into view, allowing you to scroll down to select a meeting venue. The prominent "Back" and "Next" buttons allow you to quickly navigate in between pages.
Upon choosing "Next", the Meeting Details panel emerges, providing all meeting details above and the invited guests choices on the bottom half.
Because of the reduced screen size, the "Choose Room" panel is decoupled from the "Meeting Details" panel in contrast to the desktop/laptop user experience. This means that as the meeting organizer, you have to make a definitive choice of meeting venue before proceeding to invite your guests; there's no option to tweak both panels side-by-side.
As with the desktop/laptop design, there's also a counter to ensure that you don't invite more guests than you have available seats, underscored by the "4/4 No seats available" message seen below, informing you that with your registered plan only 4 participants are allowed (counting yourself), and all seats are currently taken, so you can't invite anyone else.
On the second part of the "Meeting Details" panel you'll notice that the default time increments are distinguished by 15-minute intervals. Also, if you try to go back or otherwise leave while on the "Meeting Details" panel, the system will prompt you to ensure that you really intend to do so, to avoid any chance of losing all the information you've provided thus far.
After selecting the meeting date via the embedded calendar, you can choose "Book Now", which will send the invitations and remove the last panel, thereby returning you to the Meet page, now displaying at least this one meeting.
If you want to modify any scheduled meeting, click on the "..." icon at the upper right of the relevant meeting card; there, you'll have the option of deleting the meeting or editing it.
Although the "Meeting Details" panel will appear again to edit any aspect of the scheduled meeting, you still have the option of deleting it from the panel by using the trash can icon featured at the upper right.
Again, if you choose to delete, a warning message will display as a gentle reminder. If you do delete the meeting a confirmation message will provide instant confirmation of your choice.
If, instead you proceed with a change instead of a deletion, you'll be taken to the "Meeting Details" panel, where a summary will display, also presenting you with the option of sending out the meeting invitation via your Google or Outlook email accounts.
As with the desktop version, using the Google Gmail or Outlook buttons will not automatically create a meeting on those respective calendars.
Happy ROOMing to you!