Hello everyone,
Since our last update the team here at Matrix Booking have been very hard at work in terms of strengthening and growing our teams, developing a number of new features and improving the design, look and feel of a number of our existing features. Last month we told you about an exciting new change coming soon that would allow you the ability to define your own groups for reporting so we are extremely excited to announce the launch of that below. Clearly we can't show you all of the detail in this update so we have tried to give you a flavour of the changes and we encourage you to read the links to the updated guides where available and of course as always do reach out to your Account Manager if you have any questions at any point. (If you are not sure who your account manager is then just contact the general account management mailbox.)
WHAT'S IN THIS UPDATE
Changes to Security Groups
As highlighted in the previous product email, this update now contains a number of initiatives to help the way organisations use Matrix Booking when it comes to groups and teams. There are quite a few changes in this area (both security restrictions / access restrictions and also reporting) and these are covered in much more detail in our Administration Guide under the security and reporting sections.
In summary though the following changes have been made:
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Enabling direct assignment of user groups and domain groups for restricting access
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Changes to what we previously called security groups
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Creating the ability to flag user groups for more than just security use (such as reporting)
So running through these in a little more detail:
Direct assignment of user groups and domain groups
Customers no longer need to create a separate security group for restricting access to locations and resources. Instead, admins can directly assign a user group or a domain group to a location, making the setup easier and more intuitive. Your existing set up is not changed or affected however, you can choose to simplify this now should you wish. You still have the ability to set up more complicated groups that are a combination of multiple user groups and or domain groups - these are now called Advanced Groups
Changes to what we call security groups
To reflect these changes, we’ve updated the name of the groups and the links for managing groups:
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The "Security Groups" admin menu has been renamed to just "Groups".
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"Security groups" are now called "Advanced groups" to highlight their use for more complex access requirements, such as excluding members of specific user groups - as shown in the screenshot below.
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The "Groups" admin screen will display user groups first, followed by domain groups and then advanced groups.
Ability to flag user groups for more than just security use (such as reporting)
We’ve also now added the ability to identify 'user groups' that represent higher-level organisational groups, such as directorates or departments, which can be used to break down booking and utilisation reports by the organisational group. This enables much more detailed reports, allowing for better insights into group-based access and usage patterns. When creating a new user group (or editing an existing one) simply select the flag to say you would like to be able to report on this group as shown in the screenshot below:
When a group has been flagged as 'can be used for reporting' it means the group will now appear automatically in any of our reports that have the group filter on them. They can of course still be used for adding restrictions to locations, but some may be used just for reporting. To help see which groups are flagged for reporting use, the Groups -> User groups view now has a tick box to show which user groups are set up as reporting groups (as shown in the screenshot below):
Improvements to reporting
With the changes above for groups, this has allowed us to also improve some of our standard reporting. So in this update we have refreshed:
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the Booking Summary report and Resource Utilisation report
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improved colours
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improved layout
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now able to add the GROUP filter mentioned earlier
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the names of the fields displayed on the reports has been improved
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additional filters available to allow more detailed reporting
The booking summary report has been enhanced so that it’s now possible to summarise bookings by (organisational) group, derived from the organisational group that the booking owner is a member of.
If a user has not been assigned to an organisational group, then their bookings will count towards a special group called “Unassigned”. If a user is in more than one organisational group, then their bookings will count towards each organisational group’s figures – whilst this is effectively double counting, we do not expect it to have a material impact on summary figures.
In a cross org scenario, where the organisation’s resources have been booked by users from another organisation, then such users' bookings will count towards a special group named after the other organisation. For example, if users from “Tenant A” have booked resources from org “The Hub” then the booking summary for the hub resources will show a group called “Tenant A”. Importantly, the organisational groups, if any, of the other organisation will not be exposed to the reporting organisation. If you have a cross org set up then we recommend you continue to use 'organisation' as the key filter.
The resource utilisation report has also been enhanced to allow for utilisation figures relating to bookings to be broken down by organisational group. As part of this, the appearance of the report has also been improved and the name and order of some metrics changed to be much clearer.
The booking summary report has also been improved to allow more flexible summaries so that we can support summarising by day of the week and group. Previously, if summarising by, say, day of the week then the only other possibility was to summarise by location. Now it is possible to summarise by a wider set of possibilities, such as by month and booking source (see screenshot below).
We’ve also changed the Booking Summary report so that only the types of higher-level locations that are applicable to the customer are available. Previously, it was not possible to summarise by zone; this is now possible. To continue to keep performance as a priority, the Booking Summary report no longer automatically loads when first accessed. Whilst this was convenient for smaller organisations, it could be problematic for larger organisations.
Finally, an important point to note is that flagging these groups like this for reporting does not permit cross referencing of the individual members of a group therefore for completely 100% accurate reporting we would not expect individuals to exist in more than one group (hence referring to these type of groups as organisational units more than 'teams'). We do not prevent a user from being in more than one organisational group as we expect that the membership for many such groups will be sourced from an external directory, via our Azure AD directory sync or pushed to Matrix Booking via a SCIM integration, though you may choose to manually set up groups within Matrix Booking to report differently.
For more information on groups please visit this section of our admin guide .
For more information on reporting please visit this section of our admin guide .
If you have any questions about any of these changes to security groups and the reporting that can now be created based on them then please do reach out to us by contacting your Account Manager or Customer Success Manager and we will be happy to walk you through this.
Office 365 combination rooms
Combination rooms can now reflect the availability of the 'component' or sub rooms in 365 as long as:
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Each component room is linked to a 365 resource in Matrix Booking
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The combination room is also linked to a 365 resource in Matrix Booking
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The combination room support in 365 is turned on for your organisation - this can be requested by raising a support ticket and advising the rooms and the possible combinations.
When this is in place, bookings made in Matrix Booking in a combination room (or component of a combination room) will block out the relevant rooms in 365. This will work also from 365 after the booking has synced with Matrix Booking.
To ensure that VC equipment signed into component rooms are reflective of the booking details - when a booking is made in a combination room the following will show on the component VC equipment:
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Title (Owner) will be shown
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Teams JOIN button will be present for the same Teams meeting - so if ABC is booked then room A, B and C will all show Teams JOIN button (on compatible Teams VC equipment)
Although this greatly improves the process of using combination rooms, there are still a few functional restrictions and caveats to this combination rooms support which are outlined in the support FAQ ' Matrix Booking Microsoft 365 integrations '.
Office 365 Add-in new release
We have now released an updated version of our Office 365 Add-in. If you already use the Office 365 add-in then next time you do then you will automatically see the new version. If you are using our Office 365 integration but are not using the add-in yet, then we would recommend you do as it is a much easier interface to locate and select rooms than using regular Office 365. You can use the Office 365 Add-in by clicking the Matrix Booking icon on the toolbar when you are setting up a new meeting.If you do not see the icon on the toolbar then your IT team may not have added this yet for you so you may wish to contact them to ensure they enable it in the Microsoft Admin centre for your organisation.The new version contains a series of updates such as:
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better support for repeat booking
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better display of alerts and available options and layouts
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design update to make options clearer and more accessible
Below is a quick image showing how you would launch the Office 365 add-in when creating a new meeting:
Once you have created your meeting and it has synchronised with Matrix Booking then you can return and options now such as catering and layout requests if they are available in that room. Additionally if any of the additional options require a cost code to book then you also now have the ability to enter this by adding the cost code to your profile and a useful link will be shown allowing you to do this as shown below:
If you have any questions about the Office 365 add-in then please do contact your account manager .
Fixes in this release
Since the last product update, there have been the following fixes applied to the system:
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The text alignment was incorrect in the column chooser
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Incorrect resizing of booking category labels on narrower screens
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Styling issue on the booking option admin screen
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The cursor is incorrect when hovering over the All Bookings search button
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Incorrect list of receptions when setting up a reception-sharing network
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Locations and Resources hierarchy automatically expanded in rare cases
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Additional vulnerabilities were patched as part of our standard security reviews
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Improvements to Support Chat autolaunch
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Updating fixed document fields for some customers
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Improved performance when deleting resources with many bookings
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Unable to book repeat bookings via Matrix Booking with O365 Integration
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Fix capitalisation issue on SVG upload
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Booked half-day resources showing on floor plan views as available
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Performance of auto-cancel related jobs improved
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Prevent autoloading of visitor results for very large organisations
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Improved performance on visitor list
Meet the team
Facilities Show 2023
We were delighted to see so many of our customers at the Facilities Show last month at the Excel in London - thank you to all that stopped by our stand to see us. The event was well attended, and we enjoyed the opportunity to meet many people face-to-face.
HEFMA Leadership Forum
In May we attended the two-day HEFMA (Health Estates and Facilities Management Association) leadership forum. There was a packed agenda for delegates including a gala awards dinner in the evening.
Matt Etherington and Joe Harris represented Matrix Booking at the event to discuss resource management needs and challenges within the healthcare sector.
Matrix Booking’s exclusive Hybrid and hubs webinar
We are hosting an exclusive webinar on Wednesday 12th July at 9:30 am for Local Authorities. We would be delighted if you and your colleagues could join us. During the webinar, our experts will discuss the key takeaways from the Hybrid and hubs series and provide practical guidance on implementing hybrid workspaces within Local Authorities.Here's a glimpse of what you can expect:Insights from our widely attended Hybrid and hubs panel discussionsHow to measure and optimise your workspacePlease feel free to pass the webinar registration link on to your colleagues:
Facilities Show – Excel, London
HEFMA – Milton Keynes
More upcoming events:
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Healthcare Estates (Manchester Central) – 10th – 11th October 2023
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NHS Property (London) – 8th November 2023
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NHS Facilities Management Conference (London) – 9th November 2023
If you can attend any of the above events, please do reach out to your account manager to arrange a meeting while you are there so we can talk to you about some of the new and exciting features we have coming soon.
Also, if you would like us to present or facilitate at any of your events, please do let us know and we would be happy to send a representative along to support you.
Supporting Information
Please do ensure all of your administrators have access to our support portal to allow them to raise issues and in addition the following links may also be helpful:
View our eLearning guide for general users
View our eLearning guide for Location Managers
Link to our support portal to raise issues
Why am I getting this email?
Finally, you are receiving this operational email because you are an Administrator of Matrix Booking – if this is not the case or you no longer wish to receive these updates, then please click the 'update your preferences' link at the bottom of this email. Please remember that this is also the same contact list we use to advise of any system issues or service updates, so unsubscribing from this will unsubscribe you from both types of email.
As always though, if you are updating your workplace processes and rules or if you would like more information about anything in this email or our other products, then do contact us to see how we can provide help or support with those plans and using Matrix Booking in general!
Regards from everyone here at Matrix Booking,
Ian Jones
Director of Operations