GB2625981A - System integration in a distributed computing environment - Google Patents

Abstract

A computer system 100 for communicating with a booking service 120c which manages bookable areas within one or more workplaces is provided. Scheduled meeting data comprising a scheduled meeting time and a plurality of contact identifiers is obtained via a first interface of the computer system120b. Each contact identifier is associated with a respective one of a plurality of meeting attendees. The system communicates, via a second interface of the computer system, with the booking service to determine, for each of the plurality of contact identifiers, if there is an existing work area booking associated with the contact identifier and with a booking time in overlap with the scheduled meeting time, and, if there is an existing work area booking, extract the existing work area booking. A physical meeting suggestion is generated based on the extracted existing work area bookings and rendered in a user interface.

Description

System Integration in a Distributed Computing Environment

Technical Field

The present disclosure pertains generally to improved system integration in a distributed computing environment.

Background

The use of productivity applications and software, corresponding to service systems, are becoming widespread in the workplace. Such service systems include communications systems which allow users to communicate with each other via email or video calls for example, scheduling systems which maintain and manage user's schedules or calendars, and booking systems for booking desks or rooms in a building.

A user is able to access each of these systems via the corresponding application or software. If a user wishes to access functions of each of the services, a different application must be used for each service. This is both time-consuming for the user and requires the user to manage any interactions between the services themselves. Different productivity systems generally operate largely independently of each other, in a distributed computing architecture, with limited or sub-optimal integration (if any) between the different systems. Among other things, this can lead to duplicate information being stored and managed across different, independent systems, often in different formats or schemas, and a high degree of manual effort required (often by end users) to access and correlate information across different productivity services.

Summary

It would therefore be desirable to provide improved integration between different and (largely) independent productivity systems, application, services and the like deployed in a distributed computing environment. Improved integration may, for example, streamline user access to the functions provided by the services, this removing or reducing the onus on the user of the services. Another benefit is the improved management of information and data between independent productivity systems.

According to a first aspect herein, there is provided a computer system for communicating with a booking service, the booking service for managing bookable areas within one or more workplaces, wherein the system is configured to: obtain, via a first interface of the computer system, scheduled meeting data, wherein the scheduled meeting data comprises a scheduled meeting time and a plurality of contact identifiers, wherein each contact identifier is associated with a respective one of a plurality of meeting attendees, and; communicate, via a second interface of the computer system, with the booking service to: determine, for each of the plurality of contact identifiers, if there is an existing work area booking associated with the contact identifier and with a booking time in overlap with the scheduled meeting time, and, if there is an existing work area booking, extract the existing work area booking; and generate a physical meeting suggestion based on the extracted existing work area bookings; wherein the physical meeting suggestion is rendered in a user interface.

The integration system set out above uses data collected from multiple different systems, for example a communication system and the booking system, to provide the user with the most relevant information relating to in-person meetings. The user, therefore, does not need to separately access the systems and then determine for themselves whether a physical meeting is possible. The user is therefore provided with the most relevant information, without the risk of incurring human error.

In some embodiments, the computer system may be further configured to determine that a physical meeting criterion is met based on the extracted existing work area bookings.

In some embodiments, the physical meeting suggestion may comprise a vacant bookable area, wherein the computer system may be configured to determine the vacant bookable area by: determining, based on a stored fioorplan associated with the one or more workplaces and the extracted existing work area bookings, at least one bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings; obtaining, from the booking service, a vacancy status of the at least one bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which is associated with a vacant vacancy status in the booking service.

In some embodiments, the computer system may be configured to obtain the vacancy status of the at least one bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings at a time corresponding to the scheduled meeting time; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which is associated with the vacant vacancy status in the booking service at the time corresponding to the scheduled meeting time In some embodiments, the computer system may be configured to obtain the vacancy status of the at least one bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings at a time after the scheduled meeting time; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which is associated with the vacant vacancy status in the booking service at the time after to the scheduled meeting time.

In some embodiments, the computer system may be further configured to determine the vacant bookable area by: determining a number of extracted existing work area bookings associated with a same workplace of the one or more workplaces; and obtaining a set of stored bookable area attributes associated with the at least one bookable area, wherein the set of stored bookable area attributes comprises a capacity; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which has a capacity of at least the number of extracted existing work area bookings associated with the same workplace.

In some embodiments, the computer system may be further configured to determine the vacant bookable area by: determining that at least one of the plurality of meeting attendees is not associated with an extracted existing work area bookings; and obtaining a set of stored bookable area attributes associated with the at least one bookable area; determining that the set of stored bookable area attributes comprises a conferencing hardware indicator, wherein the conferencing hardware indicator indicates that the bookable area is associated with conferencing hardware; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which has a conferencing indicator.

In some embodiments, the physical meeting suggestion may be selectable to cause a booking request to be submitted to the booking service via the second interface, the booking request comprising the vacant bookable area.

In some embodiments, the scheduled meeting data may be obtained from a communication system for effecting one or more communication modalities between users thereof In some embodiments, the physical meeting criterion may define a threshold number of meeting attendees, wherein the physical meeting criterion is met if the number of extracted existing work area booking at a same workplace is equal to or greater than the threshold number.

In some embodiments, the computer system may be configured to generate a plurality of physical meeting suggestions, wherein the plurality of physical booking suggestions are rendered in the user interface In some embodiments, the physical meeting suggestion may comprise an indication of a location of the plurality of meeting attendees at the time corresponding to the scheduled meeting time based on the extracted existing work area bookings In some embodiments, the computer system may be further configured to provide the physical meeting suggestion to a physical meeting suggestion module of a communication system via the first interface, wherein the physical meeting suggestion module is configured to render the physical meeting suggestion in the user interface, wherein the user interface is a user interface of the communication system.

In some embodiments, the computer system may comprise: a communication management module configured to communicate with a communication system via the first interface; and a booking management module configured to communicate with the booking system via the second interface.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer implemented method for communicating with a booking service, the booking service for managing bookable areas within one or more workplaces, wherein the method comprises: obtaining, via a first interface of a computer system, scheduled meeting data, wherein the scheduled meeting data comprises a scheduled meeting time and a plurality of contact identifiers, wherein each contact identifier is associated with a respective one of a plurality of meeting attendees, and; communicating, via a second interface of the computer system, with the booking service to: determine, for each of the plurality of contact identifiers, if there is an existing work area booking associated with the contact identifier and with a booking time in overlap with the scheduled meeting time, and, if there is an existing work area booking, extract the existing work area booking; and generate a physical meeting suggestion based on the extracted existing work area bookings; wherein the physical meeting suggestion is rendered in a user interface.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer program product comprising code stored on a computer readable storage medium and configured to implement a method for communicating with a booking service, the booking service for managing bookable areas within one or more workplaces, wherein the method comprises: obtaining, via a first interface of a computer system, scheduled meeting data, wherein the scheduled meeting data comprises a scheduled meeting time and a plurality of contact identifiers, wherein each contact identifier is associated with a respective one of a plurality of meeting attendees, and; communicating, via a second interface of the computer system, with the booking service to: determine, for each of the plurality of contact identifiers, if there is an existing work area booking associated with the contact identifier and with a booking time in overlap with the scheduled meeting time, and, if there is an existing work area booking, extract the existing work area booking; and generate a physical meeting suggestion based on the extracted existing work area bookings; wherein the physical meeting suggestion is rendered in a user interface.

Brief Description of the Drawings

To assist understanding of embodiments of the present disclosure and to show how such embodiments may be put into effect, reference is made, by way of example only, to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of an example computer system for implementing an integration system; Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the integration system comprising a set of modules processing information obtained from integrated systems; Figure 3 provides an example method for providing a user with a physical meeting suggestion, Figure 4 provides an example method for booking a meeting room for the physical meeting based on a physical meeting suggestion; and Figure 5 provides an example method for automatically booking a meeting room

Detailed Description

An integration system is provided which integrates a variety of services to provide user-friendly relevant information and services for use in a working environment. The integration system is intended for use in a working environment comprising at least one office building with a set of bookable work areas. The bookable work areas may be single desks or whole rooms, for example a meeting room.

Example services which can be integrated include a communication system 120b such as a Microsoft Office suite or Zoom, a desk booking system 120c such as Condeco, and a scheduling system 120d such as Microsoft Office calendars. It will be appreciated that one or more of the service systems 120b-d may be combined. For example, the communication system 120b and scheduling system 120d may be comprised in a single service system 120.

Figure 1 shows an example computer system for implementing the integration system 100. The integration system 100 comprises application program interfaces (APIs) 110b-d for communicating with each of the service systems 120b-d respectively. APIs are a type of interface which provides a connection between computer programs and are known in the art.

The integration system 100 also communicates with a user device 102, such as a mobile phone or personal computer, and with room hardware 104a-c.

The user device 102 may store, in a memory, an application for accessing the integration system 100. Alternatively, the user device 102 may access the integration system 100 via a web browser. The user device 102 therefore provides an interface via which the user can interact with the integration system 100 and the service systems 120b-d. The integration system 100 and the service systems 120b-d may be implemented locally on the user device 102 or remotely to the user device 102 for example on a cloud computing device or a server or other computing device of the working environment or service system The room hardware 104a-c comprises hardware devices for effecting a conference call, such as speakers, camera, and/or a computer device. The room hardware 104a-c may also comprise devices such as lighting, heating, and/or other environment controllers. Three sets of room hardware 104a-c are shown in the example of Figure 1. Each set of room hardware 104a-c may correspond to a different room of the office building. In such an embodiment, the room hardware 104a-c may comprise a central room hardware module which communicates with each of the other elements of the room hardware and the integration system. Alternatively, the integration system 100 may communicate directly with each element of the room hardware 104a-c.

The integration system 100 communicates with each of the service systems 120, the user device 102, and the room hardware 104 via a wireless network, such as the Internet The integration system 100, user device 102, and room hardware 104 may form a local area network (LAN).

The integration system 100 comprises service management modules 114b-d, as shown in Figure 2. Each service management module 114b-d corresponds to one of the service systems 120b-d with which the integration system 100 communicates, and communicates with its respective service system 120b-d via the corresponding API 110b-d, such that the service management modules 114b-d can obtain information from and store information to the corresponding service systems 120b-d.

The service management modules 114b-d are in communication with one or more of the other service management modules 114b-d In the example of Figure 2, each service management module 114b-d is able to communicate with each of the other service management modules 114b-d. The communication links between the service management modules 114b-d may depend on the function of each management modules 114b-d and the information required for the modules 114b-d to perform their functions The service management modules 114b-d of the integration system 100 comprise a contact management module 114b, a booking management module 114c, and a schedule management module 114d. The contact management module 114b and the booking management module 114c are each shown to comprise a database 130. These databases 130 may be used to store rules, user data, and/or data extracted from the associated service system 120 as required for the function of the management module 114. It will be appreciated that any of the management modules 114b-d may comprise a database 130, as required by their function.

One or more of the service systems 120 may comprise an additional software module 150, referred to as an "add-in", which can provide additional functionality to the service system 120. Add-ins are additional pieces of software which can be added to a software program to provide additional capabilities of the software program. Add-ins are known in the art and therefore will not be described in any further detail.

Figure 1 shows an add-in 150 provided in the communication system 120b, and may also be referred to herein as a physical meeting suggestion module. As the add-in 150 forms part of the communication system 1206, it communicates with the integration system 100 in the same way as the communication system 120b, i.e, via the API 110b.

The integration system 100 communicates with external devices such as the user device 102 and the room hardware 104 via a network interface 118.

The integration system 100 may be used to integrate any combination of the service systems 120b-d with which it communicates.

Scheduled Meeting Based Booking Figure 3 shows an example use case for the integration system 100 in which a scheduled meeting and user booking information is used to generate a physical meeting suggestion The integration system 100 uses data extracted from the booking system 120c and communication system 120b in the example of Figure 3.

The communication system 120b stores scheduled meeting data. The scheduled meeting data comprises a set of meeting attendees, identified by unique user identifiers, and a meeting time. The meeting data may comprise other information such as a meeting duration, a meeting subject or title, a meeting organiser, etc..

The add-in 150 obtains the scheduled meeting data stored in the communication system 120b and provides it to the communication management module 114b via the communication API 114b. The add-in 150 may obtain the scheduled meeting data for implemented the method at the time the meeting is scheduled, at a predefined time before the meeting is scheduled to begin, or in response to receiving a user input requesting a physical meeting suggestion.

The communication management module 114b obtains, from the received scheduled meeting data, the user identifiers of the meeting attendees and a meeting date.

The integration system 100 requests booking data corresponding to the identified meeting attendees on the day of the scheduled meeting from the booking system 120c. In order to request this data, the communication management module 114b passes the attendee identifiers and the meeting date to the booking management module 114c, which then requests the booking data using the attendee identifiers and the meeting date via the booking API 110c The booking data associated with each of the identified meeting attendees on the day of the meeting is provided to the booking management module 114c via the booking API 110c from the booking system 120c. Booking data relates to a booked bookable work area within one of the buildings of the working environment, and comprises an identifier of a user who has made the booking, and identifier of the bookable work area, and a date of the booking. For some bookable work areas, the booking data may further comprise a booking time.

In some instances, only some of the meeting attendees have booked a bookable work area on the date of the meeting, that is there is no booking data stored in association with one or more of the attendee identifiers In this case, there are fewer bookings retrieved from the booking system 120c than meeting attendee identifiers of the meeting data.

The bookings are processed at the integration system 100 to determine if one or more defined physical meeting criterion are satisfied. Meeting criteria are discussed in more detail later. An example of a physical meeting criterion is that at least two of the meeting attendees have a booking in the same workplace building on the date of the meeting. It is assumed in the example of Figure 3 that the meeting criterion is satisfied.

A physical meeting suggestion is then generated by the integration system 100 and provided to the add-in 150 at the communication system 120b The meeting suggestion is then rendered within a user interface of the communication system 120b on the user device 102.

The meeting suggestion rendered at the user device 102 may comprise a list of the bookings of the meeting attendees on the date of the meeting in a user-interpretable manner. For example, the user interface may comprise a name of each attendee and an indication of whether they are booked into a workplace on the date of the meeting. If the attendee is booked in, the indication may be the location (e.g. building name, floor, and/or desk) at which they are booked on the date of the meeting. Other indications may be used, such as "tick" and "cross" symbols for booked-in and not booked-in attendees respectively, highlighting booked-in attendees, etc..

If multiple meeting attendees are physically present on the date of the meeting, an attendee may wish to book a meeting room, or other suitable meeting place, for the meeting to be held in person. Alternatively, an attendee may wish to book a meeting space for an in-person discussion to be held after the meeting Figure 4 provides a further example method for generating a physical meeting suggestion in which the user is able to book a meeting room based on the meeting suggestion. The meeting room may be booked for the time of the scheduled meeting, or for a time after the meeting i.e. for an in-person post-meeting "catch-up".

Steps Ito 4 of the method of Figure 4 are the same as those of the method of Figure 3. That is, the steps of obtaining the meeting data, requesting and receiving the booking data of the attendees, and checking the meeting criterion are the same In the method of Figure 4, once it has been determined that the meeting criterion has been satisfied, the integrations system 100 requests vacant room data, that is data associated with rooms which are stored with a "vacant" vacancy status, from the booking system 120c.

The scheduling management module 114b sends an indication that the physical meeting criterion is satisfied to the booking management module 114c. The booking management module 114c sends a request, via the booking API 112c, to the booking system 120c comprising the date of the meeting, extracted from the meeting data. If there are multiple possible buildings at which users are able to book bookable work areas, the request may also comprise a building identifier at which the attendees are booked. This building indictor is received at the booking management module 114c from the scheduling management module 114b together with the indication that the meeting criterion has been met.

The vacant room data is provided to the integration system 100. The vacant room data may be provided for the date of the meeting, for a time in overlap with the time of the meeting, or for a time following the time of the meeting. The time in overlap with the meeting time may start at a meeting start time and end at a meeting end time. In some embodiments, the time in overlap may end after the meeting end time.

The vacant room data may be processed by the booking management component 114c. The vacant room data may comprise an identifier of the room and a vacancy status for the room at time intervals throughout the day. For a room to be included in the vacant room data, the room identifier of the room is stored at the booking system 120c in association with a vacant" vacancy status for at least a portion of the date of the scheduled meeting.

The integration system 100 generates a physical meeting suggestion based on the obtained bookings of the attendees and the vacant room data. The meeting suggestions may comprise, as discussed with reference to Figure 3, a list of attendees and their bookings. The meeting suggestion may additionally or alternatively provide one or more vacant bookable meeting rooms. The time at which the meeting room is available may also be provided in the meeting suggestion.

Other information about the meeting room may provided in the meeting suggestions, such as a room capacity and/or available room hardware 104c in the vacant room. The booking management component 114c may store, in its memory 130c, a floorplan of the building(s) and bookable work area attributes associated with each desk and/or meeting room. The work area attributes may include data such as the room capacity and room hardware 104c specifications. The booking management component 114c may access this data in order to provide the data in the physical meeting suggestion.

The integrated system 100 provides the meeting suggestion to the add-in 150 at the communication system 120b. The meeting suggestion is then rendered at the user device 102 within the user interface of the communication system 120b The meeting suggestion, when rendered, may further comprise a user selectable element which allows a user to book a meeting room provided in the meeting suggestion.

The user selects at the user device 102 a meeting room to book. The user selection is subsequently used to book the user selected room. To do so, an identifier of the user selected room is obtained at the add-in 150 of the communication system 120b, provided to the integration system 100, which generates a booking request at the booking management module 114c to provide to the booking system 120c via the booking API 110c. The booking request is used at the booking system 120c to book the meeting room selected by the user at the user device 102.

The booking request may include a date, time, and user identifier. The booking request may also include an identifier of the scheduled meeting.

It will be appreciated that the user may be able to select a time for booking the meeting room within the rendered meeting suggestion. For example, the user may be able to select, or otherwise provide an instruction, that the meeting room is to be booked for the duration of the scheduled meeting and/or for a period after the scheduled meeting. This timing information is provided with the user selected room identifier to the booking system 120c via the add-in 150 and the integration system 100.

A booking notification may be rendered within the user interface of the communication system 120b by the add-in 150 once the booking request has been sent or once a booking confirmation has been received at the add-in 150 from the booking system 120c. The add-in 150 may also update the scheduled meeting data stored at the communication system to include the booking information, for example the location of the booked meeting room, or an identifier thereof, and the time of the booking.

In the method set out above, the meeting rooms provided in the meeting suggestion are located within the same building as the bookings of the attendees The meeting room may be said to be within proximity of these bookings. In some embodiments, the meeting room(s) provided in the meeting suggestion may be selected such that they are on the same floor as the attendees' bookings or within another defined area of the building which is the same as or near to the bookings of the attendees. These areas may also be considered to be within proximity of the bookings of the attendees.

In the method set out above, the booking management module 114c requests vacant room data from the booking system 120c by requesting booking data associated with any meeting rooms in the building in which the attendees are booked which are vacant for the time of, or after, the meeting. That is, the request is for data associated with any meeting room which is vacant.

In some embodiments, the booking management module 114c may request the vacancy statuses of all meeting rooms in the building at or after the meeting time, and determine based on the received vacancy statuses which meeting rooms are vacant at or after the time of the meeting. That is, the request is for all rooms in the building, irrespective of their vacancy status.

In another embodiment, the booking management module 114c determines one or more meeting rooms to query the booking system 120c about. The booking management module 114c may determine using a floorplan stored at its memory 130c meeting rooms which are within proximity to the bookings of the attendees. The booking management module 114c may also determine meeting rooms of the building, based on stored work area parameters, which are suitable for the meeting. A room may be suitable if it has sufficient capacity for all attendees, for example.

The booking management module 114c may request vacancy data for those rooms as identified as being associated with required work area parameters only. Alternatively, the booking management module 114c may request and receive the vacancy statuses from the booking system 120c for all rooms, and use the vacancy statuses of the rooms and the stored room parameters to determine which rooms to provide as part of the meeting suggestion.

Figure 5 provides a further possible modification to the methods set out above with respect to Figures 3 and 4 in which a meeting room is automatically booked.

At step S502, the bookings of the meeting attendees on the date of the meeting are obtained. As set out above, these are obtained by the booking management module 114c from the booking system 120c.

At step S504, the office locations of the obtained bookings are determined. It will be appreciated that this step may not be implemented if there is only one office associated with the working environment At step S506, it is determined if the physical meeting criterion is satisfied based on the received attendees' bookings. This may be, for example, that at least two of the meeting attendees are booking into the same office on the date of the meeting. Physical meeting criterion are discussed in more detail below.

If the meeting criterion is not met, the process ends at step S508 If instead the meeting criterion is met, room requirements are determined at step S510. The room requirements may be determined based on the obtained bookings. An example room requirement is a capacity, such that the capacity of the room must be at least equal to the number of attendees booked into the building on the date of the meeting. Room requirements are discussed in more detail below.

At step S512, an available suitable meeting room is determined. In order to determine the available suitable meeting room, the vacancy statuses of the meeting rooms on the date of the scheduled meeting are obtained from the booking system 120c and the room parameters obtained from the memory 130c of the booking management module 114c. The meeting rooms which are both available (have a "vacant" vacancy status stored therewith at the booking system 120c) and associated with room parameters meeting the room requirements are determined to be both suitable and available.

Once the available suitable rooms have been determined, one of the rooms is selected for booking, step S514. In some instances, there may only be one available and suitable meeting. If this is the case, then the one suitable and available room is selected for booking.

However, in some instance, there are multiple rooms which are available at the time of the meeting and satisfy the room requirements. The suitable and available rooms may then be ranked to determine which room is preferred for the meeting. Rooms may be ranked based on distance from the attendees' bookings (closer rooms are preferred), capacity of the meeting rooms (rooms with a capacity closer to the number of attendees are preferred), room hardware (hardware with better specifications preferred), etc.. The ranking of the rooms can be used to determine the room to be booked, with the most preferred room being that which is selected.

At step S516, the selected suitable available room is booked by sending a booking request to the booking system 120c comprising a room identifier of the selected room and the time of the booking (corresponding to the time of the scheduled meeting). The request may also comprise an identifier of one or more of the meeting attendees and/or a meeting identifier.

At step S518, a confirmation of the booking is provided to the add-in 150 of the communication system 1206 for rendering in the user interface of the communication system 120b on the user device 102. The scheduled meeting data stored at the communication system 120b is updated to include the meeting room booking.

Meeting Criterion In the example methods provided above, a meeting criterion has been assessed to determine if a meeting suggestion is to be rendered. Some possible meeting criteria which may be implemented are provided below.

There may be a predefined number, or portion, of participants who have booked a bookable work area in the same building on the day of the meeting. For example, the meeting criterion may require at least two participants to be booked into the same building on the day of the meeting. It will be appreciated that other physical participant requirements may be implemented, such as at least 50% of the attendees being present in the building.

Attendees of a meeting may be assigned an attendee status, or may be sorted into attendee categories. As another example of a meeting criterion, attendees of a predefined status, or falling within a predefined attendee category, may be required to be booked into the same building on the date of the meeting For example, it may be possible to identify "required" and optional" meeting attendees when defining scheduled meeting data. The criterion may require all "required" attendees to be present in the building on the date of the meeting to generate a meeting suggestion It will be appreciated that other thresholds for the number of attendees of a particular status may be defined.

Other meeting criteria which may be implemented will be apparent to the person skilled in the art.

Room Requirements As set out above, there may be requirements for the meeting room(s) which are suggested and/or booked for the scheduled meetings.

Attributes associated with bookable areas of the workplace, including meeting rooms, are stored at the memory 130c of the booking management module 114c. Attributes may include a capacity of the room and/or room hardware 104 in the room A room which has sufficient hardware 104 for implementing a conference call may be stored with a conferencing indicator in the memory 130c. Other room attributes will be apparent to a person skilled in the art.

The requirements for the meeting rooms are determined by the integration system 100. The room requirements may be based on the bookings of the meeting attendees and/or the scheduled meeting data. Some possible room requirements are discussed below.

Room Capacity Requirement -The room may be required to have a determined capacity. In some embodiment, the capacity may be required to be at least equal to the number of attendees booked into the building on the date of the meeting. In some embodiments, the capacity may be required to be equal to the number of meeting attendees, irrespective of whether the attendees are booked into the building on the date of the meeting. In some embodiments, the room capacity may be required to be a predefined number of people greater than the number of attendees booked into the building on the date of the meeting, for example there may be a requirement to provide at least 2 additional seats in a meeting room.

The room capacity requirement implemented may depend on the date on which the physical meeting suggestion is provided. For example, if the meeting suggestion is provided on the date of the meeting, it may be assumed that the attendees' bookings are correct for that day and therefore the capacity may be equal to the number of attendees booked into the building. However, if the meeting suggestion is provided many days in advance, the number of attendees booked into the building on the date of the meeting may change and therefore the capacity may be required to be greater than the number of attendees booked in.

The capacity requirements of the room may be determined based on the scheduled meeting data and/or the attendee booking data. That is, if the room capacity requirements are based on the number of attendees with bookings on the date of the meeting, the attendee booking data is used. Whereas, if the capacity requirements are based on the number of invited attendees, the meeting data may be used. It will be appreciated that a combination of the booking data and the meeting data may be used to determine the room capacity requirements.

Room Hardware Requirement -A chosen meeting room may be required to have a certain type of room hardware 104 provided therein for the meeting to be held in the room. For example, if some attendees are attending the meeting virtually, hardware for implementing a virtual meeting may be required, such as a microphone and a camera. In another example, a smartboard or other touchscreen computer device may be required.

To determine if hardware for effecting a virtual meeting is required, the number of attendees defined the meeting data may be compared to the number of attendees with bookings on the date of the meeting. If all attendees are booked into the same building on the date of the meeting, all meeting attendees can be physically present in the meeting and therefore virtual meeting hardware is not required in the room. However, if some attendees are not booked into the building on the date of the meeting, the meeting is a -hybrid" meeting, in which some attendees physically attend while others virtually attend, and therefore the room is required to have sufficient hardware for such a hybrid meeting to be implemented.

It may be possible for a meeting attendee to include, in the meeting data, hardware requirements for the meeting, such as a touchscreen computing device, sounds system, etc. To determine if the room requirements are met, the hardware requirements of the meeting data are compared to the stored hardware room attributes.

It will be appreciated that other room requirements may be used to determine if a room is suitable for the scheduled meeting.

Physical Meeting Suggestions By providing a meeting suggestion, in-person collaborative working is promoted The system provided herein may provide the following features: Identify whether a user might benefit by booking a physical room for their meeting, if several colleagues will be in the same offices; 2 Encourage co-located, virtual meeting attendees to move away from an online meeting to instead meet in-person; 3. Encourage co-located, virtual meeting attendees to have follow-up conversations; 4. Suggest a physical space that is available for the event duration, and enable the user to book this space with a single tap The physical meeting suggestion rendered to the user may prompt a user as such by providing the meeting suggestion in one of many different ways In the above example methods, three different meeting suggestions have been described: a list of attendees' locations; a list of possible meeting locations for a user to select from; and a notification of an automatically booked meeting location. As described above, the list of attendee locations may be provided in each of the physical meeting suggestion user interfaces, however it will be appreciated that this is not essential.

In some embodiments, the physical meeting suggestions simply prompts the user to consider a physical meeting For example, a notification reading "consider meeting in person" may be provided at the user interface without providing information about which attendees are booked into the building. It will be appreciated that this notification being provided is dependent on the meeting criterion being satisfied In some embodiments, the notification may provide the user with limited information extracted from the booking data. For example, the notification may indicate a number of meeting attendees present in the building.

It will be apparent that other notifications may be provided which encourage the user to meet with the other scheduled meeting attendees Further Modifications In the embodiments set out above, the feature of the physical meeting suggestion is provided as an add-in 150 within the communication system 120b. The logic for generating the meeting suggestion, that is, retrieving the data from the communication system 120b and booking system 120c, and processing this data to determine the physical meeting suggestion to be provided to the user, is performed by the integration system 100 and provided to the add-in 150 for presenting to the user in a user interface of the communication system 120b.

In some embodiments, the physical meeting suggestion is provided in a user interface of the integration system 100, such that no add-in 150 is required. In such an embodiment, the integration system may comprise a rending component 116, which is in communication with each of the service management modules 114b-d. The rendering module 116 is configured to render a user interface on a display of the user device 102. The user interface rendered by the rending component 116 may comprise the physical meeting suggestion. The user interface may comprise further information extracted from the service systems 120b-d by the service management components 114b-d via their respective APIs 110b-d.

In some embodiments, the scheduled meeting data is obtained from the scheduling system 120d. The scheduling system 120d stores a calendar for each of the users of the system 120d. If a user is an attendee of a scheduled meeting, the scheduled meeting data is stored in their calendar at the scheduling system 120d. The schedule management module 114d may then obtain the scheduled meeting data from the scheduling system 120d via the scheduling API 110d and determine the attendees of the meeting therefrom. That is, the scheduling management module 114d may implement the method steps disclosed as being performed by the contact management module 114b in the description above.

The add-in 150 may be provided in the scheduling system 120d. That is, the logic for generating the meeting suggestion is implemented at the integration system 100, and provided to the add-in 150 at the scheduling system 120d for rendering in a user interface of the scheduling system 120d.

It will be appreciated that some systems provide a combined communication and scheduling systems 120b, 120d. An example of such a combined system is Microsoft Outlook, which provides email communication functionality and a user calendar. There may be a single management module 114 which communicates with this the combined system to obtain and process the scheduled meeting data.

Although the method steps above have been described as being implemented by certain management modules 114 of the integration system 100, it will be appreciated that other management modules 114 of the integration system 100, or indeed a general management module 114 of the integration system 100, may be used to implement the steps of the methods. For example, the booking management module may implement the step of processing the scheduled meeting data to extract the identifiers of the attendees and the meeting time and date. It will be appreciated that other modules may be configured to affect the method steps set out above.

The examples described herein are to be understood as illustrative examples of embodiments of the instant disclosure. Further embodiments and examples are envisaged. Any feature described in relation to any one example or embodiment may be used alone or in combination with other features. In addition, any feature described in relation to any one example or embodiment may also be used in combination with one or more features of any other of the examples or embodiments, or any combination of any other of the examples or embodiments. Furthermore, equivalents and modifications not described herein may also be employed within the scope of the present disclosure, which is defined in the claims.

Claims (16)

1. Claims 1. A computer system for communicating with a booking service, the booking service for managing bookable areas within one or more workplaces, wherein the system is configured to: obtain, via a first interface of the computer system, scheduled meeting data, wherein the scheduled meeting data comprises a scheduled meeting time and a plurality of contact identifiers, wherein each contact identifier is associated with a respective one of a plurality of meeting attendees, and; communicate, via a second interface of the computer system, with the booking service to: determine, for each of the plurality of contact identifiers, if there is an existing work area booking associated with the contact identifier and with a booking time in overlap with the scheduled meeting time, and, if there is an existing work area booking, extract the existing work area booking; and generate a physical meeting suggestion based on the extracted existing work area bookings; wherein the physical meeting suggestion is rendered in a user interface.
2. 2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the computer system is further configured to determine that a physical meeting criterion is met based on the extracted existing work area bookings.
3. 3. The computer system of claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the physical meeting suggestion comprises a vacant bookable area, wherein the computer system is configured to determine the vacant bookable area by: determining, based on a stored floorplan associated with the one or more workplaces and the extracted existing work area bookings, at least one bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings; obtaining, from the booking service, a vacancy status of the at least one bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which is associated with a vacant vacancy status in the booking service.
4. 4. The computer system of claim 3, wherein the computer system is configured to obtain the vacancy status of the at least one bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings at a time corresponding to the scheduled meeting time; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which is associated with the vacant vacancy status in the booking service at the time corresponding to the scheduled meeting time.
5. 5. The computer system of claim 3, wherein the computer system is configured to obtain the vacancy status of the at least one bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings at a time after the scheduled meeting time, wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which is associated with the vacant vacancy status in the booking service at the time after to the scheduled meeting time.
6. 6 The computer system of any of claims 3 to 5, wherein the computer system is further configured to determine the vacant bookable area by determining a number of extracted existing work area bookings associated with a same workplace of the one or more workplaces; and obtaining a set of stored bookable area attributes associated with the at least one bookable area, wherein the set of stored bookable area attributes comprises a capacity; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which has a capacity of at least the number of extracted existing work area bookings associated with the same workplace.
7. 7. The computer system of any of claims 3 to 6, wherein the computer system is further configured to determine the vacant bookable area by determining that at least one of the plurality of meeting attendees is not associated with an extracted existing work area bookings; and obtaining a set of stored bookable area attributes associated with the at least one bookable area; determining that the set of stored bookable area attributes comprises a conferencing hardware indicator, wherein the conferencing hardware indicator indicates that the bookable area is associated with conferencing hardware; wherein the vacant bookable area is a bookable area within proximity of the extracted existing work area bookings which has a conferencing indicator.
8. 8. The computer system of any of claims 3 to 7, wherein the physical meeting suggestion is selectable to cause a booking request to be submitted to the booking service via the second interface, the booking request comprising the vacant bookable area.
9. 9 The computer system of any preceding claim, wherein the scheduled meeting data is obtained from a communication system for effecting one or more communication modalities between users thereof
10. 10. The computer system of any preceding claim, wherein the physical meeting criterion defines a threshold number of meeting attendees, wherein the physical meeting criterion is met if the number of extracted existing work area booking at a same workplace is equal to or greater than the threshold number.
11. 11. The computer system of any preceding claim, wherein the computer system is configured to generate a plurality of physical meeting suggestions, wherein the plurality of physical booking suggestions are rendered in the user interface.
12. 12. The computer system of any preceding claim, wherein the physical meeting suggestion comprising an indication of a location of the plurality of meeting attendees at the time corresponding to the scheduled meeting time based on the extracted existing work area bookings.
13. 13. The computer system of any preceding claim, wherein the computer system is further configured to provide the physical meeting suggestion to a physical meeting suggestion module of a communication system via the first interface, wherein the physical meeting suggestion module is configured to render the physical meeting suggestion in the user interface, wherein the user interface is a user interface of the communication system
14. 14. The computer system of any preceding claim, wherein the computer system comprises: a communication management module configured to communicate with a communication system via the first interface; and a booking management module configured to communicate with the booking system via the second interface.
15. 15. A computer implemented method for communicating with a booking service, the booking service for managing bookable areas within one or more workplaces, wherein the method comprises: obtaining, via a first interface of a computer system, scheduled meeting data, wherein the scheduled meeting data comprises a scheduled meeting time and a plurality of contact identifiers, wherein each contact identifier is associated with a respective one of a plurality of meeting attendees, and; communicating, via a second interface of the computer system, with the booking service to: determine, for each of the plurality of contact identifiers, if there is an existing work area booking associated with the contact identifier and with a booking time in overlap with the scheduled meeting time, and, if there is an existing work area booking, extract the existing work area booking; and generate a physical meeting suggestion based on the extracted existing work area bookings; wherein the physical meeting suggestion is rendered in a user interface.
16. 16. A computer program product comprising code stored on a computer readable storage medium and configured to implement a method for communicating with a booking service, the booking service for managing bookable areas within one or more workplaces, wherein the method comprises: obtaining, via a first interface of a computer system, scheduled meeting data, wherein the scheduled meeting data comprises a scheduled meeting time and a plurality of contact identifiers, wherein each contact identifier is associated with a respective one of a plurality of meeting attendees, and; communicating, via a second interface of the computer system, with the booking service to: determine, for each of the plurality of contact identifiers, if there is an existing work area booking associated with the contact identifier and with a booking time in overlap with the scheduled meeting time, and, if there is an existing work area booking, extract the existing work area booking; and generate a physical meeting suggestion based on the extracted existing work area bookings; wherein the physical meeting suggestion is rendered in a user interface.