What Is A Calendar Resource Good For?

[jasonm]

I am trying to add equipment items in to some type of calendar system in Zimbra 7. From the way it looks, things like projectors, company cars, meeting rooms, etc.. should be able to be created as a "resource". I have created several of these resources thinking if someone tried to schedule a meeting with one (ie... check out a projector, book a meeting room, etc...) the resource would show up in the "Find Resources" window when you schedule a new calendar item. However, none of the resources ever show up or are found with a search.

So my question is, what is a calendar resource supposed to be used for? Am I misunderstanding what they are and where they should actually show up?

If any of you would care to share how you manage your calendar resources (meeting room, car, projector, etc...), I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

[bdial]

You should be able to se them when you schedule a new appointment, and in hte advanced window click on the "Find Resources" tab.

we have had mixed results here using resources in zimbra. some departments have gotten used to the way it works as like an 'attendee', but others didn't like the fact that they coudln't look at like an overview of the resource's uage without subscribing to it's calendar. we wound up using phpshceduleit as a separate product for scheduling most conference rooms and computer equpiment

[jasonm]

Yes, that is my problem exactly... My users find it troublesome to have to be subscribed to a specific calendar.

Example: A video producer may benefit from being subscribed to a reservation calendar for a camcorder, but not a news writer who may only need a camcorder twice a year. It makes no sense to have to keep a subscription for every item that you may have a chance at needing someday.

That is why I was hoping creating a resource item would solve that problem, but when I try to use the "Find Resources" it never finds any that I have made. It looks like they were created correctly, so I cannot find out why they do not show up. I even tried ruling out auto-complete and typing in the resource name exactly as it is for their account name and no luck.

Do you have PHP Schedule It running inside of Zimbra? Or is it a separate site altogether?

[bdial]

we run it on another web server, but it has ldap authentication so you coudl have it auth to zimbra

[jasonm]

Thank you for the info.

I think I want to try and continue to see if I can find some others who are using more of the built-in resources and see how they are working out. So far, not much luck here.

[alivebyscience]

This may be the reason you're not seeing your resources show up when trying to schedule them.

On the admin side when setting up resources - resources have a type:
- location
- equipment

On the client side when you're scheduling a resource there's a terminology problem in that equipment is called "resources." By using the on-screen/GUI label Resources on the client side it makes you think you're searching for and looking at all resources - ie locations and equipment both. No. Resources refers only to equipment.

The screen label should read "Equipment", not "Resources".

Still on the client side there's an edit box labeled Location. You'd think that's where you type the location of the meeting - ie Jungle Room. Not so, Elvis. This is where you search for or type the email address of a resource you've set up with a type designation of "location."

You can apply multiple locations and equipment to a calendar event.

These are my observations in version 7.1, btw.