DII - Shared Spaces

Introduction

This website contains the information to request access to a shared space in the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Trento.

Remember that before using this system to request access to a laboratory, a user must be authorized following the procedure described here.

NEWS (23/05/2022)

In order to overcome some limitations of the software used to book the shared spaces (lab workstations and openspace desks), a new system has been developed (the instructions for the previous system are still available on this website, clicking on the label "Previous system" in the menu above). The main benefit of the new system are:

the lab managers will no longer have their personal calendar polluted with the events associated with the bookings of the workstations;
it is now possible to make a single request for several workstations.

The new system is still based on Google calendar, so it will feel rather similar to the old one once everything is set up. The main differences are:

Only the lab managers will authorize the booking of workstations (supervisors will no longer be involved in this process).
Openspace desks will no longer be booked via this system.
Users will be able to book a workstation by creating events in their own calendar (instead of the calendar associated with the workstation).
The new system is not connected to the "UniTrentoApp", since authorization to access the buildings is no longer needed.

The new system is based on calendar "resources". A "resource" is a concept that has been introduced in Google calendar to represent any shared object/space that can be booked, upon the authorisation of one or more managers. A resource has been already created for each workstation listed in this file, with the name reported in column J ("Name"). Each resource is associated with two "Google groups", with names:

ggl-delegates.RESOURCENAME-manager
ggl-delegates.RESOURCENAME-reader

The first group contains the managers of the resource (i.e. people who can authorize the booking of the resource), while the second group contains the people who can book the resource. You can see the groups you belong to at this link.

A version with images of the instructions below can be found at this link.

How does it work?

An access request is made by creating an event in your unitn google calendar, specifying as room the workspace you want to book.
The lab manager decides whether to allow or deny the access by clicking on "Yes" or "No" in the email they receive.
Users can see the answer in the email they receive.
Each workspace has an associated Google calendar, where users can check which time slots are booked/free.

News

23/05/2022: Switch to new system, based on calendar resources. This solves the problem of the fake events that were created in the calendar of the lab managers and the supervisors
13/05/2021: Users can now have more than one supervisor. Just add the user multiple times in the "Users" tab of the spreadsheet, specifying a different supervisor in each row.
07/10/2020: The system has been extended to handle also the open spaces.
10/06/2020: Now the script collects all the messages for a person and sends a single email containing all of them. Before the script could send several emails to the same person at the same execution.
10/06/2020: Now if the script finds an event created by (or on behalf of) a user that is not found in the user list, then this event is canceled and the event creator is notified by email.

Instructions for Users of Shared Spaces

If you have an account unitn.it then you have access to Google Calendar with your account unitn
If you have an account studenti.unitn.it you do not have access to Google Calendar, unless you have have been carrying out some services for the university (e.g., tutoring, 150 hours, 400 hours)

Users with access to Google Calendar

First time users need to ask access to the calendar associated to the shared space they want to access
In this spreadsheet (tab "Workstations") you can find a list of the managers of the shared space
Send them an email, putting your supervisor(s) (if any) in CC, asking them to be inserted in the Google group associated to the workstation you want to book
Create an event in your own unitn calendar
Click on "Aggiungi stanze"/"Add room"
Select the resource(s) you want to book (most of our workstations are in the group "Povo2", with capital "P")

Go back and save the event
Wait to receive an email notifying whether a manager has authorized the booking

Users without access to Google Calendar

Users that do not have access to Google Calendar cannot create events on the calendar
Somebody with access to Google Calendar (e.g., their supervisor) should create events on their behalf
Users can still ask access to the calendar associated to the workstation with a personal gmail account: they will only be able to read the calendar, but not to modify it

Instructions for Managers of Shared Spaces

The lab managers have already been added to both Google groups associated with their workstations, and they must add the users to the "reader" group, in order to allow them to book the resource. This can be done by following the instructions below ("How to allow new users to book a workstation"). Lab managers will also need to map their resources in their calendars, so that they can authorize people. The instructions to do that are below ("Mapping a new calendar resource" and "Setting up notifications for a resource").

How to allow new users to book a workstation

Go to this page.
Click on the group ggl-delegates.RESOURCENAME-reader
Click on "Persone"/"People" in the menu on the left
Click on "Aggiungi membri"/"Add members" in the top bar (a small window should pop up)
Write the email addresses of the people in the first field "Membri del gruppo"/"Group members"
Leave everything else as it is
Click on "Aggiungi membri"/"Add members"

Mapping a new calendar resource

Open your personal calendar https://calendar.google.com/
Add a calendar resource in the section “Altri calendari” using the icon ”+” and selecting “Sfoglia risorse”

In the new section you will see the list of calendar resources on which your user has permission to view, modify or manage.
Select the checkbox associated to the resource (most resources are in the group "Povo2", not in the group "DII").

Setting up notifications for a resource

Users that have complete management permission on a calendar resource, once it is mapped, must set up the notifications for moderating the booking requests.
From the option menu (three vertical dots on the right to the resource name ), choose “Impostazioni e condivisione”.

Scroll the page to the section “Altre notifiche”.
Select which type of notification you would like to receive.
Note: Notifications are necessary for moderating booking requests. Without them you won't receive any message and you won't be able to authorize bookings from the gmail interface, but only acting directly from you calendar on the resource event.

How to authorize the booking of a workstation

After a user has created/modified an event specifying a workstation, the associated manager(s) will receive an email (according to their notifications set up).
If the managers read the email on a browser, they should directly see the usual 3 buttons to answer ("Yes", "Maybe", "No") in the top part of the message.
Otherwise, they can click on "Altri dettagli"/"Other details" (in the right part of the message) to open directly the Google calendar page on a browser and answer from there.

Current Limitations

Users with an email studenti.unitn.it cannot directly book workstations, so someone has to do it for them.

For any question or feature request write an email to andrea.delprete@unitn.it

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