Managing recurring room reservations: setup and exceptions

Treat a recurring room reservation as a set of dated bookings: a public holiday, special event or earlier booking can affect one occurrence. Before creating a series, decide its intended end date, maximum advance window, room, organiser and cancellation rule, then review every date.

For a weekly meeting, check each date against holidays and special events. Send the member the confirmed dates, and offer a named alternative if the room will not be available for one occurrence.

In OfficeRnD Flex, an admin can create a booking policy by going to Settings > Calendar > Calendar & Bookings and selecting Add Policy under Booking Policies. Name the policy, define its rules and enable Recurring Bookings, then apply the policy to a resource rate.

A resource rate is required because booking policies attach to rates, not directly to resources. Members can use recurring bookings only for the default meeting-room resource type, not custom resource types or other default types such as hot desks.

Set Limit Recurring Bookings Span to restrict the series to up to 24 months from its creation date. Set Limit Future Bookings to control how far ahead members can book, also up to 24 months.

OfficeRnD Flex policies apply in the Member Portal and mobile apps, but not to bookings admins create in the Admin Portal. Admins can therefore create bookings outside the member policy rules.

In ServiceNow Workplace Reservation Management, an admin can enable Allow recurring reservations and Auto-resolve recurring conflicts on the Reservable Module form. Auto-resolve is configured at the reservable-module level.

When creating a recurring reservation, ServiceNow checks availability only for the first occurrence, so a later date may conflict. With auto-resolve enabled, the application seeks an alternative space: with floor maps, it prefers one closest in capacity, then one with more capacity, then one with less; without floor maps, it looks in the same area or on the same floor.

ServiceNow prioritises favourite spaces over location, searches for a space of the same type and looks for similar standard services. When it assigns an alternative, the employee is notified on the Reservation Summary page and by email.

To change one ServiceNow occurrence, select that reservation and edit it; reservations in a series cannot be updated in bulk. Review the confirmed dates and any exceptions with the member after making changes.

Agree the intended end date and cancellation rule before a series starts, and review long-running reservations regularly. An unused weekly room block can make a busy room appear unavailable while other members cannot book it.

Booking policy limits in OfficeRnD Flex

Pre-booking checklist for recurring room reservations