What's new

Advanced Booking

Starting from this release, Flex now has two pages for you to make space bookings under the Find a space section: Single Booking and Advanced Booking. The Advanced Booking page allows booking workspaces for recurring events, booking of linked spaces in various space layouts as well as you can make a booking for right now. The new booking paradigm shifts the process while removing some of the usability issues raised by clients.

The Advanced Booking page is divided into three columns to reflect three stages of booking spaces and provide structured view as you go:

• Search for the space by indicating your criteria for the space in the first column.
• Select an appropriate space in the middle column.
• Select layout options in case of linked spaces, then add and confirm booking details in the third column of the page.

Here’re some of the most notable improvements that we introduce:

• The date is only selected once. There is no longer an extra step to decide both the start date and end date.
• Space Type/Work Type is no longer shown in two dropdown lists. A single list is provided allowing you to select a space type.
• The As soon as possible option, allowing you to create a booking for a fixed slot (or until the end of the day) without needing to precisely set times.
• Additional search options are hidden behind a separate menu avoiding accidental clicks.
• Booking Name is now a mandatory field to ensure no more bookings with empty names.
• Better support for linked spaces and rooms requiring set-up and tear-down times (important for client rooms).

Read more about the concept and usage of Advance Booking in Flex here: Advance booking in Flex 

Other

• You can set the preferred zone along with the building and floor that were previously available settings in Flex under Settings > Workplace Preferences.
• You can check in in Flex now.

What's changed

Catering improvements

For the organisations where catering is enabled and set up, you were able to make catering orders along with meeting room bookings. With the new functionality introduced on the operational side, there are changes to how menus are built. With kitchen operating hours and preparation time in mind, your organisation’s order policies regulate what you will end up seeing on the menu. You will see those items on the menu that can be prepared for your meeting given how far in advance you are making the order. We’ve added the following functionality for you to do the following:

• Filter items by allergens or dietary restrictions.
• Read the nutritional info if it’s filled in.
• Leave notes for the order and inform kitchen staff of your allergies.
• (For organisations that use cost codes) Select what cost code(s) to bill the order to.

Tasks in Flex

Following feedback from operational users, we have removed the ability to resolve tasks directly from Flex. Now, in Flex, there’s only the My Tasks sections with Tasks Raised where you can see the progress of the tasks that you raised for spaces. Facility managers will change status and resolve these tasks in OneLens from now on.

API changes

Additional performance improvements have been made to API.

What's fixed

• Made WCAG compliance improvements – fixed areas and alt text and tab index.
• Made various UI fixes and visual improvements.
• Fixed the issue with time selectors when creating a booking.
• Fixed time zone issues.
• Under My Schedule > Bookings, the default number of rows is now correctly set to 25.
• Scalability of page elements on pages Bookings, My Tasks, My Notification works fine now when resizing the screen.
• Made several updates to error messages.
• Fixed issues with adding equipment.
• Fixed naming issue for recurring bookings of linked spaces.
• Fixed creating of recurring bookings within specified weekdays for Germany.
• Enabled checking out of an amended booking and from the booking made behalf of someone else.
• Fixed the issue with preferred floors for new users.
• Now, if the building that is set in user preferences is removed, user has no issues with logging in IBSS apps.
• Bookings on behalf of someone else have now all necessary details under My Schedule > Bookings for others.
• Fixed security rights and other issues with adding or importing visitors.
  Adding a visitor in Flex does not check them in automatically into the building while adding an ad hoc visitor in OneLens or at the Guest tablet does check them in automatically.
• Searching on My Visitor page is now case insensitive.
• Enabled editing the freeform cost code.
• Cost codes are no longer removed when editing a booking.
• Visitor Import button is now security controlled.
• Removed auto check-in when adding a visitor.
• After cancelling a booking, user is returned to the previous page.
• Improved performance when searching for users.
• Fixed duplicate dates when making a recurring booking.

Known issues

• Preferences buttons under Settings are not perfectly aligned to the left.
• It’s only possible to search by cost code ID, not by the cost code description.
• When opening a created booking after it is checked in, the Cancel button is shown instead of the Check Out button that should be in place. 
• Column sort options have been disabled in the user interface, the ability to sort will be added directly to the API in an upcoming release.
• When booking for as soon as possible on the Advanced Booking page, the search results for spaces show the date that was set before turning on the As soon as possible toggle on. But this is a visual issue only, bookings will be made for the current day as expected.

What's new

Schedule view

The OneLens360 Schedule View allows easy visualization and management of booking for workplace services. It offers a day calendar-like view for a filtered set of spaces to make informed decisions when managing meeting room bookings within your organisation.

Read more about the concept and usage of Schedule View here: Schedule View under Bookings in OneLens 360 

Catering

As part of this release, we are extending catering functionality to allow workplace teams to define role-based catering privileges and policies per building (for example, who can order what, and how far in advance users can order), as well who pays for what (meaning, cost codes and assigned departmental expenses and budgets). Catering Manager who is assigned by the Booking Policy for that space gets notified about catering orders.

The new updates to IBSS catering include the following key components when it comes to menu building and policy:

• Catering Supplier is used within ordered items as a single catering order may have items from several suppliers.
• Catering items can be tagged with dietary terms or allergen information as appropriate.
• Order Policy restricts time frames of when items can be served (operational hours from and to) and any associated preparation time needed. 
• Catering Items – This is where individual items can now be created for inclusion to menus. Each item is classified as “Food”, “Beverage” or “Snack” and has all details necessary 
• Catering Menu – This is where you group individual catering items into a menu for assignment to bookable spaces. You also assign AAD roles that are allowed to use the menu which could be all roles or a selected number of them.

Read more about the concept and usage of Catering in OneLens 360 here: Catering in OneLens 360 

Visitors

A new Visitors Dashboard page is introduced with this release to provide a quick overview of expected visitors and their state. From here, we added a quick widget to add new visitors as soon as you know about them.

Here, you have an overview of:

• Today’s upcoming visitors.
• A quick search option by visitor reference (visit code).
• A chart displaying upcoming visitors, visitors in the building, and visitors who have already been checked out.
• A quick-access tile to add a visitor to the system ad-hoc if not already invited by a member of staff.

Read more about the concept and usage of Visitor Dashboard here: Visitors in OneLens 360 

Setup and reset times for linked spaces

On the Advanced Booking page, when linked spaces are booked, IBSS creates two more space bookings before and after that initial booking to reserve time for operational teams to setup the space to the needed layout and then clean-up and reset the space after the meeting to its default state. Automatically the responsible person – Floor Manager who is defined by the corresponding Booking Policy – will assign the resolver to complete the task.

Orphaned bookings

Using OneLens360, it is now possible for workplace services to view users which have been removed from the system (removed from AAD) but may still have records assigned.

This interface allows you to:

• See when the user was removed.
• View any future bookings still associated with their account.
• Delete any bookings to free up allocation.

Read more about the concept and usage of Orphaned bookings here: Orphaned bookings 

What's changed

• We removed filter commands from pages with lists on due to performance issues.
• Made several improvements to user interface elements to provide better compatibility at different resolution and screen scaling options.

What's fixed

• We’ve made the following and other performance improvements:
• From the Analytics > Space > Heatmaps page, it is no longer possible to select a floor which does not have a corresponding floor map.
• Analytics > Sustainability > Floors/Levels, it is also no longer possible to select a floor which does not have a corresponding floor map.
• Made various UI fixes and visual improvements.
• Made various WCAG compliance improvements.
• Now, you cannot edit time, date, and booking description for inactive bookings that are cancelled or auto cancelled after a no show.
• Space overview page now displays Today’s bookings accurately.
• Space type utilisation default filter now changes properly according to changed search criteria.
• When creating a notification on the Notification page, and then changing a building in the building selector, notification is now properly created for the newly selected building and not for the initial building.
• Task page now correctly displays double linked space name in the Location column.
• A task that was created by the system (for example, equipment task) can be safely edited now.
• On the Space Utilisation page, the Day default filter is not using the current day as the End Date anymore.
• The search on the visitor list data grid pages is now case insensitive.
• The My Visitors list now shows both first and last name in the Visitor column and the Filter button.
• When adding a visitor, PACS is no longer a mandatory field and arrival/departure time validation happens before added visitor is saved.
• Fixed filtering by status on the Visitors List page.
• The Building Selector in the Heatmaps and Space Overview pages is disabled under Edit search criteria and is now restricted to only allow selection from the OneLens360 main menu.
• The Download button on the OneLens360 Booking List page reflects the correct number of bookings, irrespective of the user's choice to display 25, 50, 100 rows per page.
• Enabled check in to the booking on behalf of someone else if having relevant role permissions.
• Fixed ownership issues for booking a space for someone else and when adding a host.
• Added details to the error message for a raised task for moving equipment.
• Resolved an issue, where applying the permission to add a visitor would also show the Admin button in the application selector.
• The Select Building dropdown now shows the list of buildings in alphabetical order. If you select the preferred building, this building is shown at the top on the next page load/refresh.

• After cancelling a booking, user is returned to the previous page.
• Fixed the date format for export actions across the app.

Known issues

• Column sort options have been disabled in the user interface, the ability to sort will be added directly to the API in an upcoming release.
• For the catering menu configuration, image in the SVG format cannot be added.
• We are still to solve WCAG compliance issues on the Order Policies page within Catering section.
• Editing notifications still doesn’t allow adding more than two pictures by copying and pasting them. OneLens 360 doesn't save the images, and then it shows "Problem Occured" when re-amending.
  Also, when adding a notification by copying and pasting the content, OneLens 360 removes HTML tags.
  Please see the explanation on how to work with notifications here: https://ibssanswers.iconics.cloud/23-user-guides/notifications
• Navigating away from the Space Analytics page resets the Edit search criteria back to their defaults.
• Building announcements are sent on creation time instead of the selected Active / Start time.

What's new

• We added Catering Manager and Floor Manager fields to the Booking Policy configuration page under the External Services section. These are responsible persons to assign task resolvers for catering orders and setting up linked spaces.
  Read more about the concept and usage of External Services here: Catering Manager and Floor Manager roles 
• We added the Format button to the JSON View popup on the App Permissions tab.
• When assigning spaces to a Booking Policy, we now display the list of spaces that are already assigned in the Assign Policy to workspace page.

What's fixed

• Made various UI fixes and visual improvements.
• We’ve fixed managing role permissions under Setup > Roles & Data Security to be properly reflected in the JSON script.
• Enabled the Save button to ensure creation of a new role.
• Made the default Booking Offset time to 9:00 to accommodate for building working hours.
• Under Setup > Identity Providers > select a provider > Azure AD Properties the Client Secret field now shows only the first 4 characters, and the rest of characters is replaced with asterisks.
• Search and filter fields on the Booking Policies pages now match the look and feel of other search and filter fields of IBSS products.
• We’re now using top 1000 for Booking Policy cache refreshes.

Known issues

• When editing role permissions under Setup > Roles & Data Security > App Settings, you can select checkboxes to grant or remove the lowest-level permissions in the permission tree, but sections of permissions or higher-level permissions can be edited in JSON script only.
• There are a few cosmetic issues that affect user experience.
• HTML editor removes content from HTML for the notification setup: When entering the code in the code editor on the left and then swapping to preview and back to code view, it changes the code and gets rid of the <head>, <html>, and <body>.

What's changed

• Introduced new interface for privacy policy acceptance used by OneLens or Flex when logging in
• Added ODATA pagination options to the /api/users end point.
• Improved handling AAD users with the same email but different OID values.
• Improved handling of Client Secret ID within the IdentityProviders API.
• Made several Booking Policies changes:
  • Added ExtendedServices to the BookingPolicy object.
  • Adjusted Booking horizon for Building Working Hours.
• Improved how the system carries out lookups of data at the API level.
• Optimised of background scheduled tasks to improve performance and ensure correct actions are being taken by the system.
• Introduced the ability to send utility commands to unity and Inspire panels. 
• Added several new API endpoints to support new/updated features, including:
  • New Orphaned bookings functionality
  • Updated Visitor endpoint
  • Application permissions
• Made security improvements for PIN usage and caching nodes.
• Made several performance improvements to how the backend and API work, including:
  • Notification changes
  • Booking data archiving
  • Caching changes/optimisations
  • Cancelling booking calls
  • Enabling/disabling a space handling
  • Startup prioritisation when APIs are restarted
• Added new capabilities to the API to handle record data changes:
  • Notification changes
  • Booking data archiving
  • Caching changes/optimisations
  • Cancelling booking calls
  • Enabling/disabling a space handling
  • Startup prioritisation when APIs are restarted
• Added several new fields to the database and APIs to support elements, such as:
  • Booking Parties
  • Visitor Dashboard
  • V2 Catering
  • Task Resolution description
  • Booking overlap checking
• Changed to the identity provider calls:
  • Added new PUT and Patch methods
  • Added support for isDefault and TenantID
• Improved API to handle internationalisation, including:
  • Better language support
  • TimeZone handling
• Updated performance for diagnostics logging.
• Improved app initialization with a new config.
• Cache is automatically refreshed after updating a booking policy.
• Updated security permission lists.
• Updated wording for custom notification message.

What's fixed

• Fixed various issues with Notifications duplicates, error messages, push notifications, validations.
• Fixed getting guest user details of the AAD and enable user login.
• Fixed returning the historical booking data.
• Made several performance improvements.
• Optimised how cost codes work.
• Fixed numerous error messages for correctness and readability.
• Improved filtering for space search.
• Fixed several issues related to time zones and time amendments for visitors and bookings
• Spaces search shows now only available spaces that are attached to recurring policies when more than one date is provided.
• Fixed check in and cancelling to the booking that was created for the user by someone else.
• API changes made for IBSS connectors to fix issues during bookings and checking in.
• Fixed the version of API that connectors should be using.
• Made changes to end point used by booking policies to target spaces.
• Fixed how Booking Policy slots are reflected for a workplace user with no additional permissions.
• Fixed booking status changes into In Progress to enable check out.
• Search results for linked spaces now show only available spaces.
• Search results for spaces with similar Space IDs now show only available spaces.
• Fixed returning the CreatedBy or Booking_Owner fields on the My Schedule page.
• Searching for bookings returns only results for correct building where they have been created.
• Nodes cache loads correctly now.
• Fixed the issue with setting a PIN for users with email address that is different from their NormalizedUserName or UserName record.
• Fixed the security issue with user PIN.
• Updating the Occupancy of a space now updates the space state.
• Fixed UI issues with updating the Space Record that has set the Space_UI_Colour & Space_Status_Text to a blank string.
• Fixed issues with V2 Bookings methods:
  • POST /v2/Bookings returns all booking parties correctly.
  • POST /v2/Bookings counts attendees correctly.
  • PUT /v2/Bookings keeps the URL if online meeting link is added.
• Search for a specific booking policy isn't failing anymore.
• Updated repository for querying nodes.
• Email confirmations about the new and modified bookings are properly sent.
• Short message is now populated for the automatic check-in notification.

Known issues