How does the Back to Back Reservations Policy work?

In March of 2021, Release 11 of Forum included changes to the Back to Back Reservations Policy. These changes enable organizations to more easily enforce COVID-19 policies by specifying, at the asset level, the minimum number of minutes required between reservations. Previously, some organizations opted to use the Breakdown Time Policy on a given asset to allow for cleaning time between reservations made by different people. The Back to Back Reservations Policy should now be used for this rather than Breakdown Time.

Each workspace and collaboration space asset has the Back to Back Reservations Policy, set to blank (null/zero) by default. A value for this policy may be entered for each asset via the DMU or the settings screen (shown above). The value entered is the number of minutes required between reservations for that asset. This policy is not user-specific. If a value exists for this policy, then *no one can have a reservation that starts until that amount of time has elapsed after the end of the previous reservation.

• For example, Asset 100 has a Back to Back Policy of 60 minutes and there is an existing Reservation from 10 AM - 1 PM. The next Reservation cannot start before 2 PM.
• If the Reservation from 10 AM - 1 PM is checked out early, the Back to Back time does not change. The next Reservation still cannot start before 2 PM.

The Back to Back Reservations Policy is incorporated into availability searches. For example, if Asset 100 has a Back to Back Reservations Policy of 60 minutes, and the reservation's start time is less than 60 minutes after the end of an existing reservation at Asset 100, then Asset 100 will be excluded from the search results because it is not available at that time. In search results, this is most evident in the List View and Floor Plan View. The Calendar View of search results displays the reserved time slot but not the Back to Back policy time applicable to that reservation.

• If there is an existing Reservation for Asset 100 from 10 AM - 1 PM, Asset 100 will not show up in the list or floor plan of search results unless the start time for the search is 2 PM or later.

If a reservation is bumped (either automatically because the user didn't check in before the end of the grace period or manually because the room was needed by someone else) the Back to Back Reservations Policy is no longer applied to that reservation. This is one way that administrators can override the Back to Back Reservations Policy. Another way is by making reservations while having the right to "Override Back to Back Reservation Policies." If a user has this right, the Back to Back Reservations Policy will not apply.

Additional Back to Back Settings

The Back to Back Reservations Policy described above is applied at the asset level. Forum also has a Back to Back Business Rule which is applied at the category level, when enabled. The category-level Back to Back Business Rule is user-specific. This is a forum-wide setting, also known as the Forum-Level Back To Back Rule. It should be enabled only when an organization wants to prevent every user (except those having override rights) from making Back to Back reservations at ANY assets within that category.

The Back to Back Business Rule has separate settings for collaboration space and workspace. This is the number of minutes required between collaboration space reservations or workspace reservations owned by the same reservation owner. For example, if an organization's Back to Back Business Rule for collaboration space is set to 30 minutes, then every registered user in that organization must have at least 30 minutes between each collaboration space reservation that they own. This helps prevent monopolizing of rooms. The same restriction may be applied to workspaces if desired. These business rules can be set via Settings → General → Forum Properties (shown in the image above). A setting of zero indicates that this rule is turned off. Settings entered in this screen will automatically be saved in AQ Console. 

*If a user has the right to "Override Back to Back Reservation Policies" then the Back to Back Policy and business rule will not apply.

Best Practices for Business Rules and Policies