Room Utilization from Outlook and Meeting Maker
Overview
Many departments and units use calendaring software, such as Microsoft Outlook and Meeting Maker, to schedule and manage conference and meeting rooms. While these tools provide an easy way to schedule activities in these rooms, they do not provide reports or tools to indicate actual room utilization.
The following instructions and sample documents provide information to help your unit calculate room utilization for spaces that are scheduled in Meeting Maker or Microsoft Outlook. The result will show the percent time utilization by comparing the scheduled hours in a room to the actual hours available.
NOTE: The instructions will describe how to calculate utilization for a single room for one calendar month. If you are interested in creating summaries for multiple rooms and/or larger date ranges, please refer to the examples below. These include formulas that calculate utilization by date, day of week, or comparing room to room.
What You’ll Need
- Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Excel
- For Outlook Users: Administrative access to export calendar information for rooms and resources. Contact your IT department to request this access or to have them export this information on your behalf.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Example Reports
- Sample Room Utilization Calculation (Meeting Maker) for a single room [Excel]
- Sample Room Utilization Calculation (Outlook) for a single room [Excel]
- Sample Room Utilization Calculation (Meeting Maker) for multiple rooms [Excel]
- Sample Room Utilization Calculation (Outlook) for multiple rooms [Excel]
For Help and Information
If you have questions, need additional information, or would prefer to have the Space Utilization Initiative calculate your room utilization using your raw Excel data, contact space.utilization@umich.edu or 734.763.9973.