Meeting Rooms

Meeting rooms in deskbird offer a flexible way to manage shared spaces. Whether you're configuring the Google or Microsoft integration, setting up rooms manually, or managing room settings, this article covers everything you need.

1. Setting up meeting rooms
2. Check-in options for meeting rooms
3. Meeting room equipment
4. How to book a meeting room
5. Approvals for meeting rooms
6. deskbird Outlook Add-In
7. Edit an existing meeting
8. Catering & Services
9. Kiosk Mode
10. Conference links
11. Meeting room booking visibility

1. Setting up meeting rooms

Meeting rooms synced with calendars (Google/Microsoft):
To enable room reservations and sync availability with your calendar, follow this guide: Setting up Calendar Sync for Schedule Status and Meeting Rooms.

Non-synced meeting rooms:
If you don't want to sync rooms with Microsoft or Google, you can create rooms that live only inside deskbird.

To create a room manually, go to Admin > Floors & spaces > + Add space > Meeting room and choose Create a meeting room manually.

Then add the room details. You can toggle the room Active/Inactive, define access (e.g., Open access), and—if needed—enable Kiosk Mode and Catering & Services. Finish with Add meeting room to save.

2. Check-in options for meeting rooms

Depending on your site configuration, a check-in may be required to confirm a booking. This automatically releases rooms that aren't used.

Learn more here: Check-in and auto-cancellation settings.

3. Meeting room equipment

You can assign equipment tags to each room, for example:

• TV or screen
• Whiteboard
• Phone setup
• Conference camera

Users can filter by equipment to find suitable rooms faster. Admins manage equipment in the Equipment section of Admin > Meeting rooms: General settings.

💡 Equipment is office-specific and must be set up per location.

4. How to book a meeting room

Users navigate to the Book > Meeting rooms tab. Meeting rooms are visually distinct from other spaces.

Clicking and dragging selects a time slot (e.g., 10:30–11:30). Room details like capacity, photos, and equipment are displayed to help users choose.

In the Filters tab, users can choose how availability is shown: Current availability shows which rooms are free right now, while Available in the selected time frame shows rooms that are free for the selected time range. Users can further filter by access, capacity, and services (see Catering & Services).

Rooms Plus

5. Approvals for meeting rooms

Booking approvals, available in the Rooms Plus package, allow admins to require that a meeting room booking request be reviewed and approved before it's confirmed. This gives admins control over who gets access to specific rooms, instead of granting instant confirmation to anyone with access.

Setup and behaviour differ depending on how the room was created. See the dedicated articles for full details:

• Booking approvals for non-synced meeting rooms — rooms created manually inside deskbird.
• Booking approvals for meeting rooms synced with Microsoft — rooms synced via Microsoft.

💡 Rooms synced with Google don't support approvals yet.

6. deskbird Outlook Add-In

💡 For the best meeting room booking experience, use the deskbird Outlook Add-In. It lets users find and book rooms directly in Outlook with real-time availability and seamless syncing across Web, Windows, and Mac. More infos here: deskbird Outlook Add-In

7. Edit an existing meeting

Users can modify meetings directly in the calendar (Book > Meeting rooms) or—if they are the organizer—via Bookings.

The pencil icon allows editing details like Meeting title, Date, Time, Invitees, Conference link, Catering & Services, and More details. Meetings can be deleted with the trash icon.

💡 If an organizer is deleted, the meeting stays. The organizer changes to DU – Deleted user, and admins can reassign it to a new owner via the Meeting rooms tab.

Drag & Drop feature:

The Drag & Drop feature lets users easily move meetings in the swim-lane view (Book > Meeting rooms) to change time or location, and automatically notifies the original organiser. Available on all Rooms plans and included in Desks plans with the Rooms cross-sell.

8. Catering & Services

Attach requests like drinks, snacks, or extra tech to a room booking with Catering & Services.

Learn more: Catering & Services

9. Kiosk Mode

If your office uses tablets or displays to show room availability, Kiosk Mode lets people check in or book right on the device. The screen updates automatically.

Learn more: Kiosk Mode for Meeting Rooms

10. Conference links

When creating a room event, organizers can add a video conference link directly in deskbird. If your organization integrates Microsoft or Google, organizers can generate a native link in one click. Or select "Other" and paste a link from a provider like Zoom.

💡 Learn more about the required setup: Setting up Calendar Sync for Schedule Status and Meeting Rooms

After the event is confirmed, the conference link is automatically added to the calendar invite and visible in the deskbird calendar. deskbird keeps links in sync between the deskbird calendar and your external calendar.

💡 Please note: once created, conference links can't be edited or removed.

11. Meeting room booking visibility

Admins can control how much employees see about meeting room bookings, for example to keep meeting titles or participants private. Go to Admin > Meeting rooms: General settings, select the office and choose a Details visibility level in the Meeting room booking visibility section. Then click Save.

Whether a room is free or busy, and the booking times, are always visible.

• Who always sees full details in the web and mobile app: global and office admins, managers, group managers (for the people they manage), and the organizer and participants of the meeting.
• Room kiosks and Rooms overview signage: nobody is logged in, so there are no exceptions. Everyone in front of the screen sees the level set for the office.
• Private meetings: the title and details are hidden from everyone except the organizer and participants, whatever level you choose. Room kiosks show them as "Occupied". The organizer is still shown from Organiser only upward.

⚠️ Not affected by this setting:

• Floor plan signage only hides private bookings. Other room bookings still show the organizer and title.
• The deskbird Outlook Add-In room picker only shows availability, so the level makes no difference there.
• Synced Google and Microsoft calendars keep the real subject, description and attendees. Only a booking's private flag is passed on as the calendar event's sensitivity.