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Product update – March 2022

Hello everyone,

March is already showing that the steady increase in bookings and usage is continuing as organisations and staff continue to find their new happy medium in terms of office vs remote.  Currently desks are still the biggest type of booking we are seeing, but increasingly  'project spaces' and more collaborative areas are also now proving to be extremely popular as teams begin to embrace being back together and make the most of the benefits of face to face collaboration.

Over the last couple of days we have released a few additional features, improvements and fixes to make your Matrix Booking experience just that little bit better - whichever part of the product you are using.  For the changes on the website application, as always, you do not need to do anything to benefit from those as it will be the version you see when you next log in to Matrix Booking.

Below are the details of some new features in this release along with a few areas that have also been improved and also some general updates and announcements related to Matrix Booking.

Contents

  1. Utilisation reports - choose your own times

  2. Office 365 - allowing external users

  3. Find someone - auto zoom

  4. Synchronisation changes - reminder

  5. Fixes - a list of the main fixes in this release

  6. Download the mobile app

  7. What are the latest versions of our software

  8. Supporting information and help modules

Utilisation reports - choose the times

We have made a substantial change to the 'Resource Utilisation report' to make it much more flexible. Previously you could display utilisation over a 24 hour period, or you could show utilisation during 'available' hours (based on your office hours settings). However we had a number of product suggestions around adding in extra flexibility to allow you to check utilisation during certain hours.  For example, if your office hours are 7am to 7pm then you may want to see what the utilisation is between 9am and 5pm.  This is now possible by entering your own start and end time and clicking 'Show Report' as shown in the screenshot below.

Remember - changing the times in this report does not affect the service in any way, this is just for the reports you are looking at and can be changed as often as you wish.
As a final small improvement we have also renamed the old links of More/Less/All  and replaced them with Expand/Collapse/Show all.

Office 365 - allowing external users

For organisations that use O365 resources it is now possible to allow external users to book O365 resources within their organisation.

When the address of an O365 resource is added as an attendee in a calendar outside of the organisation’s domain the resource will accept the request and book the resource. An external user can also update and cancel the booking once it has been made.

When a resource is booked by an external user the booking will be made in Matrix Booking by ‘Standard o365’ user. The user who made the booking will be recorded in the organisation as an external user.

Bookings made by an external user cannot be edited in Matrix Booking but can be cancelled by a user with Location Manager permissions or above.

The booking request is subject to all other booking rules for the resource and if a booking cannot be made due to availability or other rules an email is received advising why the booking could not be made.

If configured for the location, users will also receive visitor passes and declarations.

If you have any questions about our Office 365 Integration then please do contact your account manager who will be able to answer any questions you may have.

Find someone - auto zoom

When using the 'Find someone' feature, we have made a few useful changes.  Firstly, when you click the 'show on floor plan' Matrix Booking now auto zoom's in on the floorplan to show the exact location of the persons booking.

Additionally, in the initial 'previously viewed' screen, we also now automatically populate the 'next booking' for people you have previously searched on so you can build up your own quick list as shown below.

Directory Synchronisation - reminder

Microsoft have announced that it is planning to remove support for the Azure API version in favour of the Graph API version. Therefore we will be looking to migrate all customers using this method to the new Graph API by the end of March 2022.

If you currently use directory synchronisation then your account manager should have already reached out to you to discuss this and agree your plans. 

They have a list of any customers still using the Azure API so will be able to confirm if you have migrated or not. If you have any questions about directory synchronisation or need to confirm if you are using the older Azure API then please do contact your account manager who will be able to answer any questions you may have.

Fixes in this release

  • Floor plan kiosk app did not include the booking owner as an attendee and so there may have been visit/declaration errors

  • Preferences were occasionally not keeping default location 

  • A number of users could only see afternoon slots when selecting 'All Day' for new desk bookings

  • Minimum booking capacities issues with MS365 is now fixed.

  • Deleting a resource entirely may have caused a visit to show without a host

  • Lack of Contrast On Google Maps Street View Exit Button (Show on map view)

  • Incorrect availability results were shown in some cases if you change the date in the header bar

  • Cancelled bookings report export could fail if booking has no "cancelled by"

  • Monthly recurring booking in Matrix did not translate to the same dates in Outlook

  • Default Location was sometimes being  "Forgotten", now fixed

  • Multi day bookings spanning more than one week did not render correctly

Download Matrix Booking app

As part of your Matrix Booking solution, don't forget that there is a mobile application (one for Apple / iOS and one for Android) that allows your staff immediate access to their bookings and allows them the ability to find resources, book them, amend them and cancel them all whilst on the move.
The apps are available in the relevant app stores and any security used for your log in process (such as SSO) will automatically appear in the mobile app.

If you open the camera app on your phone then this code should take you straight to the app - it may be easier to use this when sharing details of the app with your staff, teams and customers.

Latest versions of our software

Listed below are the latest versions of the Matrix Booking software, some can be downloaded directly from app stores, others you may need to raise a support ticket for, but if in any doubt then do contact your account manager to discuss if you will benefit from installing the most recent versions of the software or indeed if you are unaware of some of the solutions we have available: 

Supporting Information

View our Administrator's Guide   
View our eLearning guide for general users (updated to include the Find Someone feature)
View our eLearning guide for Location Managers
Link to our support portal to raise issues

Finally, you are receiving this operational email because you are listed as an Administrator of Matrix Booking – if this is not the case or you no longer wish to receive these updates, then please click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. Please remember that this is also the same 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 still planning or finalising your return to work or if you would like more information about anything in this email, 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

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