Autoreplace declined meeting rooms

When a room declines a meeting, replace it with a similar room. Rooms might decline meetings because they’re already booked, facilities removed a room for maintenance, or a recurring meeting series encountered a one-time room conflict. For rooms up to a 70-person capacity, Google Calendar automatically tries to find and, if available, book a suitable replacement:

• In the same building
• With the same equipment
• Of a reasonable size, depending on the number of attendees. The new room must fit all the attendees without being unreasonably large. If the new room is unreasonably large, it won’t be booked as an automatic replacement.

  Use automatic room replacement

  Automatic room replacement is on by default, but it only replaces rooms when both of the following conditions are met:

  • Rooms are defined as structured resources and classified as meeting spaces.
  • Users have their work locations set, and rooms are structured resources in their buildings.

  Only users with a work location set and structured resources in their building will see the Automatic room replacement option.

  Define rooms as structured resources in the Admin console

  Choose the correct category for all rooms. Mislabeling resources, for example, labeling a social space as a meeting space, might result in an incorrect room replacement. To change a room category:

  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

     Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

  2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  DirectoryBuildings and resources.
  3. In the Resource management section, click Open.
  4. Under Resources, click the room name.
  5. Click Details.
  6. Choose the appropriate category:
     • Meeting space: Resources used for meetings or conferences that can be as small as a phone room. 
     • Other resource: Resources that aren’t used for meetings, for example, a bicycle or company car. 
  7. Click Save.

  Define rooms as structured resources using the API or CSV method

  Go to Create buildings, features & Calendar resources for instructions to define resources using the API or CSV method. Set the Resource category to CONFERENCE_ROOM.

  Notifications to expect

  For events scheduled within 3 months in the future:

  • Calendar sends email notifications to the organizer and guests, informing them of the newly booked room.
  • If there’s more than 20 guests, then Calendar only notifies the organizer and creator.

  Also, if a room declines:

  • A series of recurring events—Only one email is sent.
  • One in a series of recurring events (an exception)—Calendar sends up to 8 emails, one for each exception. If there are more than 8, then the whole series is declined.

  Turn off automatic room replacement

  Follow these steps to turn off the feature:

  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

     Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

  2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  DirectoryBuildings and resources.
  3. Go to Global room settings.
  4. Turn off Allow automatic room replacement.