How to restrict double booking of location resources

[mlk]

I am a Sys Admin testing out Zimbra for my company to determine if it will replace our current infrastructure (postfix/thunderbird pop/imap and Meeting Maker). We love it however we've run into a problem.

We have a series of conference rooms that I have set up as Resources -> Locations in the admin web interface. Under manage resources when I select the room the options are quite straight forward and when I see Resource Setup -> Schedule Policy: -> Auto-accept appointments unless busy it seems to be saying to me that the location will accept a meeting automatically unless it is already booked with another meeting. Not so however. As a user I can schedule multiple meetings in the same location for the same time and they just overlap. The best we've gotten is a warning email after accepting it in the calendar. I promise you my users will ignore and all hell will break loose. I have done a lot of research to see if anyone else has this issue and haven't come up with much. Is there any way to get a location (eg conference room) to deny a request for it as a location if someone else has already booked it?

Please let me know if you'd like more information on my configuration. I'd be happy to provide. Any help is welcome!!

Thank You!

[mlk]

I should also mention I am running zcs version 5.0.4_GA_2101 on Ubuntu 64 bit. Thanks again

[p24t]

If you're testing, I suggest using the latest version. I'm using 5.0.6, and I don't see this issue - just tested it to make sure.

[mlk]

Hi

I did upgrade to 5.06 and unfortunately the same thing happens. I'll try to be as specific as I can. As Admin I created a resource location called 17MPR. That's a conference room. I have configured it to auto accept meetings unless busy. As a user I go to my calendar and create a new meeting for the same time. Not only can I select 17MPR but the meeting will overlap my previous meeting at the same time. In other words, I've booked the same conference room at the same time. We'll get a warning email but I promise you our people work so fast they won't catch up to that. What I'd like to do, and hope I can do with Zimbra, is to disable completely the ability to select a location resource if it has already been booked for a given time. Anyone know if I can do this?

Thanks again

ML

[stuartg.orion]

Are you using Outlook 2007 as your client, as far as I can tell and other users here seem to see the same thing all Outlook 2007 appointments can be double booked in Zimbra, or can can double book another meeting.

[Bevan Bennett]

This isn't just Outlook, it's a ZWC 5.0.6 thing as well.

What happens is that the meeting organizer fails to check the Schedule tab before setting up their meeting and double books the resource.

The resource correctly declines the meeting, and this appears on the resource's own calendar. On the organizer's calendar, however, there is no obvious indication that the resource was not available. The only way to tell is (again) to go to the Schedule tab and notice the unhappy red 'X' next to the resource's name.

This should probably turn into an enhancement request that, in the case where a Location has declined your meeting, the Location name should be marked with a red X in both the informational pop-up and the main 'Details' tab.

The only other option is training your users to always check and double-check the Schedule tab, but have you tried training users?

[gersh]

Release 6.0.7 states Bug 44824 is resolved, i.e

Added a config option that lets admins disallow appointments that double book resources by setting zimbraCalendarResourcesDoubleBookingAllowed to TRUE.


Question: Where is this config option located?

In our release* a Double-booking warning appears, but does not prevent the user from making the appointment. A second (ghost) appointment appears in the Resource calendar and the user's Default calendar.

* Client Version: 6.0.7_GA_2470.RHEL5_64
Client Release: 20100610202350
Build Date: 20100610-2034

[gersh]

Does anyone know where this config option is located?

We do not want any possibility of a double-booking nor appearances of such, including ghost images.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by gersh

Does anyone know where this config option is located?

It tells you in the bug report comment #21 where it's located:

moved zimbraCalendarResourceDoubleBookingAllowed from global config to account/cos.

Use the zmrpov command for for checking/setting it on the COS.

[infosyst]

You would want to open a terminal session as the zimbra user and run this command to see what your COS settings are:

zmprov gac -v

It will list each COS and the parameters for that COS. If zimbraCalendarResourceDoubleBookingAllowed is set to TRUE, you would want to run the following command:

zmprov mc {cosname} zimbraCalendarResourceDoubleBookingAllowed FALSE

Where {cosname} is the name of the Class Of Service that you want to change the setting for. If you have mulltiple COS's you will need to run it for each one.

This should effectively gray out the save button and prevent users from double booking.