Frequently Asked Questions

This will be because the Microsoft Exchange add-in is disabled.
To enable please do the following.
From Outlook :
1) Click on File > Options
2) Select Add-ins
3) Next to the heading Manage: ensure COM Add-ins is select and then click Go
4) Tick Microsoft Exchange Add-in
5) Restart Outlook

If you still have problems, contact the ICT helpdesk on 49000 or raise a ticket in ASK.

• Open your Calendar and in the top banner, select “New Meeting”. This will open a new window.
• Select the time and date for your meeting.

If you already know the room you would like to book

• Add a title to your meeting.
• If you would like to invite other attendees,  click in the 'Required' field and start typing a name.
• Start typing the room name into the 'Required' field and it will pop up. Please note that all rooms start with a four-letter building code e.g. SHER for Sherfield.

• Once you have selected your room, you can use the Scheduling Assistant option to check that the room and any participants you have added are available. If not, adjust the time to find a suitable slot, or try picking another room.

• Once you are happy, click the send button

If you want to see the range of rooms available to book - use Room Finder

• Add a title to your meeting.
• If you would like to invite other attendees,  click in the 'Required' field and start typing a name.
• Click on the Room Finder button.

• Click on the drop-down underneath 'Building' and then 'London' to see the full group of lists. Rooms have been grouped by department and building. 

• In the room name you can see where it is located, the capacity and any restrictions on booking the room. E.g. ICFB-03-3.11 (5), shared, informs you that the room is on 3rd floor of Faculty Building, has room for 5 people and is bookable by all departments that also share their rooms.
• Under the room name, you can see whether a room is 'Available' or 'Unavailable' at the time you have selected. If the room you want is available, click on it and it will be populated in the 'Required' and 'Location' fields in your meeting invitation.

• If the room you would like is not available at your preferred time, you can use the Scheduling Assistant to view the room's calendar and select an alternative time.

• Once you are happy, click the Send button.

• You have two options before creating a recurring meeting, depending on your meeting room needs. 
• If you want the same meeting room for the whole recurrence, please first check if the meeting room is available for each of your meeting instances. If it is free, you can add the room to your meeting as you normally would and you will get a confirmation email from Microsoft Outlook. If you attempt to book a room that is not free for all your instances of the recurring meeting, no room bookings will be accepted.
• If you are using a mixture of rooms, book the recurring meeting without an assigned room. Then you can go into each meeting instance from your calendar and assign an appropriate room if needed. 
• To create a series of recurring bookings, create the first appointment and select the room to be booked.
• Click the “Recurrence” button to open a new window.
• Select the preferred recurrence and send the appointment. You will receive email notifications from Outlook. Remember, If one of the occurrences is not viable, then the whole series will be rejected.

• To amend or cancel a booking, double click on the existing meeting in your calendar to open it.
• In this window you can add or delete attendees, update the date and time and select a different room. If you alter the date and/or time, you should check in Scheduling Assistant that the room is still free.
• Please note: You will be able to update the meeting when the room is busy, but will receive a room booking cancellation email message. The room will still stay in the location field until you replace it with another room.
• Once you have made your amendments, click the Send Update button.
• To cancel the meeting, click the Cancel Meeting button and then Send Cancellation. This will automatically cancel your room booking.
• If you would like to just cancel the room, but keep the rest of the meeting the
  same, just remove the room from the Required field and click Send Update.

Follow this link to Report a breach etiquette

It was decided by the project Board, based on feedback from departments, that the first phase of implementation is restricted to staff. This can be reviewed once the system is fully implemented to see if there are opportunities for students to book some rooms themselves. Students can currently enquire about room bookings via activities.rooms@imperial.ac.uk.

Once concern for sharing space more widely are the differing expectations and behaviours that departments may have when using meeting rooms. Prior to rolling out Planon, a workshop was held with participants from across College to help develop a set of agreed behaviours when using shared space. The full set of guidelines can be found in the Etiquette and Behaviours pages of this site.

If you have concerns about how your space is being used by others, please contact the Room Booking Implementation team.

When using a room outside your usual area, it is recommended that you check the room details in Planon. To do this, log-in to Planon, click 'Book a room' and enter your search criteria. Next to each of the rooms returned, there will be a ‘More Info’ button. Click on this to see a photo of the room, the type of access controls in place, directions to the room and a room contact if you need further information. Where possible, swipe card readers have been updated to allow all members of staff with a swipe card to access a room between 8am-7pm, Monday to Friday.

Rooms booked in Planon will not be charged for. If you are organising a conference or event and require guidance or support, please contact Events & Hospitality, who will be able to advise of any additional costs.

If the room itself has changed, e.g. is no longer a meeting room, has been divided in two etc, please contact the Estates Operations Customer Service Centre, who will update the room booking system for you.

 If there are minor changes, such as the inventory in the room has changed, Estates Operations Customer Service Centre will pass on the request to a local Super user who will update the inventory.

If there is a fault with the room, e.g. lighting, heating defects, please contact the Estates Operations Customer Service Centre, or log the fault directly in Planon.

If there is a fault with the equipment in the room, please inform the local departmental contact, who's contact details can be found in on the room information poster inside the room.

The College Space Sharing Programme aims to ensure the College maximises its use of space to help support the best possible teaching and learning experience. It is made up of several projects to help achieve this aim, including the Room Booking Implementation project, which has introduced Planon to facilitate greater space sharing.

The Room Booking Implementation project's long-term aim is to provide a single source of room availability and a single method for booking meeting rooms across College. Forming part of the College Space Sharing Programme, the project is introducing a new system, Planon, that help facilitate greater sharing of space.

The anticipated benefits of this project will be:

• Time savings for staff when searching for and making bookings.
• A single source of truth for shared-space, which enables cross-College management and planning. 

The Room Booking policy describes how to efficiently find and book College shared spaces. It forms part of a suit of policies, under the overarching Space Policy Framework, which have been developed to bring transparency to the use and management of College space.

If you would like further information about the project, or would like to discuss adding rooms to the new system, please contact the Estates Operations Customer Services Centre.

One of the aims of implementing a new room booking system is to facilitate easier and greater sharing of space across the College. However, it is recognised that there are physical and cultural factors that currently make this difficult and this may not be appropriate for all areas of College. During the roll-out of the system, the project team has been, or will be, working with the department in question to understand local requirements. Departments have several options for how their rooms are set-up in Planon, and they do not have to be shared. The options are:

• Open to all – all users will be able to view and book these rooms directly in Planon or Outlook.
• Shared – all staff in departments that have added a shared or moderated room to the system will have access to other departments’ rooms that have done the same.
• Moderated – all users will be able to request the use of the room when it’s free, but the departments will be able to assess whether it is a suitable booking.
• Restricted – the room will only be visible to a restricted number of people, such as one department, or a cluster of departments. This is usually based on the suitability of a room for wider sharing, e.g. the room is accessed via a laboratory, or is in the middle of a working area. It is not possible to restrict to a more granular level than department as Planon automatically picks up this information from College HR records. If the use of a meeting room needs extra control, it is recommended that it is moderated, as well as restricted. 

A review will be conducted once the system has been fully rolled-out, after which rooms can be reassigned by departments based on their experience or changes in circumstance. It is hoped that the need for restriction and moderation of rooms will reduce over time as College staff become more used to sharing.

Yes, all teaching rooms will remain in Celcat for timetabling purposes and can still be booked in this system via your usual route. 

If you would like to comment on your use of the new system, or your experiences of sharing space more widely in the College, please contact the Room Booking Implementation team.

If you are having any technical issues, please contact the ICT helpdesk.