Abandoned meeting protection releases a room when nobody checks in to a scheduled meeting. Other people can then book the room. It also stops old recurring meetings from blocking your meeting rooms.
How it works
When nobody checks in to a meeting within a set time, Robin releases the room. People check in in one of these ways:
- Select Check in or scan the QR code on the room display.
- Confirm the meeting ahead of time in the web dashboard, the mobile app, Slack, or Microsoft Teams.
When Robin releases the room, it cuts the event short at the current time. By default this is 10 minutes after the start time. For example, a 10:00 AM meeting that nobody checks in to ends at 10:10 AM.
Set up abandoned meeting protection
Abandoned meeting protection needs room displays and a few settings. You must be an admin to change these settings.
Step 1: Set up room displays
Pair room displays with your spaces before you turn on abandoned meeting protection. If your displays are already set up, go to step 2.
Step 2: Set the meeting confirmation window
The meeting confirmation window sets how far ahead of a meeting people can check in. The default is 2 hours.
- In the web dashboard, go to Manage > Organization.
- In the Event Customizations section, set a confirmation window from 10 minutes to 12 hours.
Step 3: Turn on abandoned meeting protection and meeting check-ins
Turn these settings on for a whole building or for specific spaces.
- In the web dashboard, go to Manage > Offices, then select a building or a space.
- Find the Display scheduling section.
- Turn on Abandoned Meeting Protection.
- Turn on Meeting Check-Ins. This adds a check-in button to the room displays.
Step 4: Set the abandoned threshold
The Abandoned Threshold setting is the time people have to check in before Robin cancels the meeting. The default is 10 minutes. Enter the number of minutes that works for your office. The setting is in the same Display scheduling section (see the image above).
Optional: Set a strike policy for recurring meetings
Strikes for recurring events recover rooms from recurring meetings that people no longer attend. Set how many times in a row a recurring meeting can go unattended. After that many misses, Robin removes the whole series from the room's schedule.
The recurring events setting must be on first. See Set room booking policies.
What to expect
Does Robin delete the event from everyone's calendar?
No, in most cases. Robin removes the event from the room's calendar only, so other people can book the room. The organizer and attendees still see the full meeting on their own calendars.
The exception is when the room is the organizer of the event. This happens when people book directly on the room's calendar and add themselves as an invitee. Some Microsoft users who book through the web dashboard book this way. To fix it, let people book meetings as themselves.
Email notifications
Robin emails the organizer when it removes their event from the room's schedule. Organizers can turn this email on or off in their user profile settings. Make sure it is on.
A one-time meeting:
A recurring meeting, when your organization uses the strike policy. The email shows how many strikes are left before Robin removes the series from the room's calendar:
A recurring meeting that reaches the strike limit. Robin also removes all future meetings in the series from the room:
Common problems
- The display shows an error when it tries to remove an abandoned meeting. The connected booking user needs permission to change other people's events. This is common with Google. Give the booking user read and write access to the room calendars.
- A long meeting is not released. Meetings of 8 hours or more do not need a check-in, and Robin never releases them.
- A new meeting is not released. If you create a meeting inside the meeting confirmation window, Robin confirms it for you. It does not need a check-in.
Insights and reports
- The Space Cancellations dashboard in Space Insights shows room cancellations and how they happened.
- The Recaptured time chart on the Usage page shows how much released time people use for ad hoc meetings.
- In dashboard exports, the Automatically unbooked at column shows when Robin released a meeting.