Neighbourhoods

Overview

Office neighbourhoods refer to the various sections or areas within a workplace that are often organised based on departments, teams or functions. Think of them as mini-communities within the larger office space, where groups of colleagues with similar roles or responsibilities work in proximity to one another.

These neighbourhoods serve several purposes:

1. Collaboration: Colleagues within the same neighbourhood can easily interact and collaborate on projects or tasks, fostering teamwork and innovation.

2. Resource Sharing: Teams in the same neighbourhood often share resources such as meeting rooms, equipment, or specialised tools, making it convenient for them to access what they need for their work.

3. Culture and Identity: Each neighbourhood may develop its own unique culture and identity, reflecting the values and dynamics of the teams that inhabit it.

4. Efficiency: By grouping related teams or departments together, communication and workflow efficiency can be improved, as employees can quickly access the expertise or support they need from nearby colleagues.

In the context of UMA, neighbourhoods are used to create booking policies to allow or restrict employees (within teams) access to certain spaces.

To create a neighbourhood, follow the guide here.

To understand how this affects booking, check here.

Creating a neighbourhood policy only restricts bookings created on UMA's side.

Microsoft 365 configuration

To ensure that your neighbourhood policy matches the one in UMA for bookings created in Microsoft Outlook, some PowerShell commands will need to be run against the associated resources.

PowerShell script

$rooms = @("Room1", "Room2", "Room3")
$users = "[e-mail]","[e-mail]"

foreach ($room in $rooms) {
    Set-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity $room `
        -BookInPolicy $users `
        -RequestOutOfPolicy $false `
        -ResourceDelegates @()

    Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity $room -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept
}

Explanation

• The script ensures:

  • Only specified users can book the resource.

  • Out-of-policy requests are automatically declined.

  • No manual approval is required.

  • In-policy requests are automatically accepted.

Ensure these settings are applied to all relevant resources to enforce consistent booking policies across Microsoft Outlook and UMA.

Google Workspace configuration

To ensure that your neighbourhood policy matches the one in UMA for bookings created in Google Workspace, some configuration will need to take place against the associated resources.

Create the resource:

• Ensure the resource (e.g., meeting room) is created in the Google Admin console.

• For detailed steps, refer to Create buildings, features & Calendar resources.

Share the resource with specific users or groups:

• In the Admin console, navigate to Menu > Directory > Buildings and resources > Resource management.

• Select the resource you want to manage.

• Click on Sharing options.

• Under Share with specific people, add the email addresses of the users or groups you want to grant booking permissions to.

• Assign them the "Make changes to events" permission.

Set Auto-Accept invitations:

• In the resource's settings, locate the Auto-accept invitations option.

• Choose "Auto-accept invitations that do not conflict".

• This setting ensures that the resource automatically accepts booking requests from authorised users if there's no scheduling conflict.

Restrict booking permissions:

• By default, resources might inherit the organisation's calendar sharing settings.

• To restrict bookings to only specified users:

  • Ensure that the resource's calendar is not shared with the broader organisation or is set to "See only free/busy (hide details)" for others.

  • This setup ensures that only users explicitly granted permissions can book the resource, while others cannot.

Test the configuration:

• Have an authorised user attempt to book the resource to confirm that the booking is automatically accepted.

• Have an unauthorised user attempt to book the same resource to ensure that the booking is automatically declined.

For more detailed information, you can refer to Google's support documentation on Approving or denying Calendar room & resource bookings.

Ensure these settings are applied to all relevant resources to enforce consistent booking policies across Google Workspace and UMA.