A resource is a location or piece of equipment that can be scheduled for a meeting. The resource has its own mailbox and can accept or reject invitations automatically. The administrator does not need to monitor these mailboxes on a regular basis. The contents of the resource mailboxes are deleted according to the restrictions set in the COS for email message and trash lifetime.
When you create a resource account, a mailbox is created on the designated server and a directory account is created on the LDAP server.
When you initially create a resource, you can configure the following:
Resource name. Descriptive name of location or equipment.
Type of resource, Location or Equipment.
The email address for the resource. This field is automatically populated with the resource name. You can change this.
Class of service.
Status. Active or unavailable. An active resource can be scheduled. When a resource status is unavailable, the resource is not included in resource list.
Scheduling policy. You can select
Auto-accept appointments unless busy to automatically accept appointments unless the resource is already scheduled. The free/busy times can be viewed.
Auto-accept all appointments to automatically accept all appointments that are scheduled. In this case free/busy information is not maintained, thus more than one meeting could schedule the resource for the same time. Because the resource always stays free, the suggested use for this policy would be for a frequently used location off premises so that the location address can be included in the invite to attendees.
Auto-decline recurring appointments can be checked in addition to selecting a scheduling policy. When this is checked, the resource can be scheduled for only one meeting at a time (no reoccurring meetings).
Mail Server. You can specify the mail server where the resource account is created. The default is to have the resource created on any of the servers listed in the COS server pool.
Description of the resource. Description can be helpful information about the resource such as room layout, number of occupants, or type of projector, etc. Details in Description are shown to users as a note attached to the resource.
Notes. Notes can be used to record any type of information. Details in Notes are not exposed to users.
Resource location includes, site details, capacity and street, city, state address. The information from Building, Floor, and Room fields is automatically populated to the Location Display Name field, if auto is checked. If auto is not checked, you can enter a location display name. The content of this field appears as the location information for the resource.
Contact information, including name, email address, and phone number. This information is not exposed to the user.
To schedule a resource or location, users invite the equipment and/or location to a meeting. When they select the resource, they can view the notes about the resource and view free/busy status for the resource, if available. When the meeting invite is sent, an email is sent to the account, and if the resource is free, the meeting is automatically entered in the resource's calendar.
Click Resources, in the navigation pane.
In the Resources toolbar, click New.
The New Resource Wizard appears. As a minimum, you must enter the resource name and enter the resource email address. Select the schedule policy and add useful information about the resource in the Description field.
Click Next and add resource location and contact information. If auto is checked, information added to Building, Floor, and Room fields are automatically added to the Location Display Name field. If auto is not checked, you can add a location display name.
Click Finish.