Room Reservation Setup - EMS

Accessing Room Reservation Configuration

Once you are ready to begin configuring your EMS integration, contact Anthology Support to have this option enabled. After it has been enabled, you can then access the configuration screen:

1. Log into Engage.
2. From the Switch Views button, select the Admin view.
3. In the Admin view, from the Configure menu, choose Room Reservations. The Room Reservations screen will appear.

Adding Connection Settings

The Room Reservations screen allows you to add the items necessary for the configuration to be successful. Each is presented in a specific order, and each must be completed successfully before moving onto the next section. Note that we have provided some examples of what each field might be set to, but you should confirm these details with your vendor.

Once you have entered the pertinent information, click Save for that section. Engage will then execute a series of tests, depending on each section, to verify that the data supplied is accurate. If the tests are successful, you will receive a Success message for each. If it is not, you will see a Failed message, and will be able to see details on the test and which error was returned.

You may change these settings at any time.

1. Basic Authentication Connection Settings

This section requires you to supply the information needed to connect to your EMS instance. These details can be provided by your Room Reservation provider. The following items are required:

• API URL : the Base URL where your API can be accessed
• Integration Client ID: part of the user credentials provided by your EMS system
• Integration Client Secret: part of the user credentials provided by your EMS system
• API Username : the credential that we will use to connect to the API. All reservation requests that originate from Engage will appear as if they were created by this user.
• API Password : the private credential assigned to the above Username

2. Events Functionality Settings

These details are used to decide how Engage will update reservation requests within your Room Reservation instance. Which options to use is largely a matter of deciding how you would like those reservations to appear.

• Everyday User Process Template Id: the values to be used for each reservation. Engage will retrieve a list of the available options and allow you to choose an appropriate one. We'll use the Cancelled Status ID and Time Zone ID values from that Template.
• Testing options : the next set of options are used by Engage to verify the connection. When you save this section, Engage will try to create a new test Event one week in the future, then cancel it. If that’s successful, we’ll know our configuration is working. If not, we’ll get feedback on the issue in order to address it. These need to be obtained from your instance but can be of any suitable value.
  • Testing Organization ID
  • Testing Event Type ID
  • Testing Room ID
  • Testing Layout ID

3. Engage Event Information

When an Event is created in Engage, we create and store pertinent information about that Event. We will then send that information to your EMS instance so that administrators in that application can view those details without having to return to Engage. This section requires you to configure the fields that will accept those details.

You can either create new fields or you can use existing ones but remember that we will be writing Engage data into them. Regardless of whether you create new fields or reuse existing ones, they must be of a Long Text (X) type, as the data sent could be quite lengthy. Also, the names of the fields are not relevant, but we recommend that you make sure they are easily recognizable as Engage data.

• Engage User: Engage user who requested the location
• Engage Organization: Engage Organization hosting the event
• Event Name: Engage Name for the Event
• Event Description: Description of the Engage Event
• Event Status: current Status of the Engage Event
• Engage Link : URL to the Engage Event Page
• Extra Information: any other information provided for the Event
• Also Store Custom Questions in the Comment field: if set to TRUE, any Custom Questions answered on the Event Submission will have the questions and responses copied to the EMS Comment field. If set to FALSE, those questions and responses will only be available in Engage.
• Comment Type ID: this is only used if the Store Custom Questions option is set to TRUE, and is used to determine which field should receive that information.
• Custom Questions: Engage event Custom Questions and Responses. Id of this User Defined Field within your reservations system.

Dashboard

Once your options are fully configured and confirmed, the new Dashboard will appear. This will show you what data Engage has received from your Room Reservation provider. This is also where you can enable or disable the Room Reservation feature and set per Organization overrides.

To add a new Override:

1. Click Create Override.
2. Select an Organization.
3. Choose whether that Organization will always be able to use Room Reservation or never be able to use Room Reservation.
4. Click Save to record your changes.

This is a great way to test out the reservation process without enabling it for the whole institution. You can leave the Room Reservation option disabled but create an Override for a specific test organization allowing that organization to always be able to use Room Reservations. You can then have a member of that Organization try to create Event Submissions to review that process.

Organization Map

This option allows you to match the Engage Organization List to the EMS Organization List. In some cases, the name of each may be slightly different, or you may group the Organizations differently in these applications, so this allows you to create such relationships.

For each Engage Organization, you would simply click the Edit button, then choose the EMS Organization that matches that Engage Organization. Any reservation coming from that Organization in Engage would then be sent to the matching EMS Organization.

Event Type Mapping

Similar to Organization Mapping, this allows you to decide what Type Engage events should be assigned to in EMS. Since the Engage application doesn’t have a native option for “event type”, we can currently only map these to one EMS Event Type. You can choose that option here.

Community Contacts

If you would prefer your users to reach out to your Engage administration team in case of any issues, this is where you would populate the contract information for those administrators. Otherwise, users will be instructed to contact Anthology Support instead.