24 work smarter

Text: Patrick Mackaaij

Photography: Robin Kuiijs

PATRICK MACKAAIJ
is a consultant and team leader at TOPdesk. He specializes in technical issues and optimizing processes

INFORMATION SCREEN DISPLAYING NEWS AND RESERVATIONS

The Reservations information screen add-on lets you create an informative dashboard, displaying reservations and news on a single page. This can be particularly useful at your reception desk: your customers can see at a glance exactly where each meeting will be held.

You can use information registered in TOPdesk to easily set up dashboards, such as the Reservations information screen. This add-on uses information from the Reservations Management module to display todays meetings in a clear overview. The graphics are suitable for a TV screen or large monitor. Whats more, publishing news items or a welcome message will make your visitors wait more pleasant.

The URL for the Reservations information screen is http://TOPdesk-server:port/[realm]/resinfoscherm/ If you remove [realm] from this URL, you will open the information screen web page without logging in. If your TOPdesk server can be accessed via the internet, you might consider deleting the bespokework-web\open folder on the TOPdesk server. You can then open the information screen by replacing [realm] with tas/public or tas/secure.

How does the Reservations information screen work?

The information screen is a web page that you access from a PC or thin client connected to a large screen. The screen displays both current reservations and reservations that are due to start today. If there are too many reservations to fit on one screen, the add-on will display these on additional pages, which are displayed sequentially. You can also include a news overview page in the sequence.

TIP: Ask your system administrator to disable sleep mode and the screensaver on the machine that runs the information screen. They should also set up the web page to open in full-screen mode upon start-up (iexplore k). These steps will save your reception a lot of time.

Photography: Aad Hoogendoorn

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Displaying branch-specific information

If your organization comprises several branches, you can limit the information displayed to a particular branch. You can do this by adding the branch, location or a selection of locations to the URL: 1. Branch: ?branchUnid=[branch unid] 2. Location: ?locationUnid=[location unid]

3. Selection of locations: ?locationSelectionUnid=[selection unid] The UNID of a location, branch or selection is displayed in the overview. Click on the desired branch or location in this list. The UNID is part of the URL, which you can copy by right-clicking on the pi symbol at the bottom right corner of the screen. The symbol can be found on the same row as 0 of X selected, as illustrated below.

Basic settings
The Reservations information screen automatically uses the images displayed on your login screen and reports, therefore matching your corporate identity. You can upload your logo to TOPdesk 5 under Settings > Functional settings > Look and Feel. The remaining basic settings for the Reservations information screen are located in the Operators Section of TOPdesk. The settings URL is: http://TOPdesk-server:port/tas/secure/resinfoscherm/settings/

Reservations informations screen at one of TOPdesks customers

You can edit the following settings: Set up the number of reservations displayed on each page and the display duration (in seconds). Limit the reservations displayed to reservations due to start within X hours. Set up a message to be displayed when there are no upcoming reservations.

Individual reservation settings

TIP: Copy the URL of the Reservations information screen settings to the Quick Launch bar of the operators who keep the news overview up to date. The information screen displays each reservations location(s), brief description, start and end times, branch, number of attendees and requester. If you have issued a reservation to someone other than the requester, this name will appear as well. You can, however, adjust the settings to hide the branch, number of attendees and the requester.

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Editorial
TIP You can adjust the layout of the news overview with HTML, enabling you to display images alongside your news items.
Want to comment? Go to www.topdeskmagazine.com The TOPdesk Magazine covers subjects

TIP The Reservations information screen settings are saved in the bespokeresources\current_reservation_overview.settings file on the TOPdesk server. Create a copy of this file to quickly find these settings after an upgrade.

that are topical in the world of professional service desks in IT, facilities and other service providing organizations. TOPdesk Magazine is intended for managers, service desk employees, facilities organizations and electronic city councils anyone who is involved with supporting clients on a daily basis. This concerns both the processes and the technology behind these services. TOPdesk Magazine is a TOPdesk publication Tel: +44 (0) 207 803 4200 Email: editorial@topdesk.com Chief Editor: Nienke Deuss Editors: Nienke Deuss, Timme Hos, Milou Snaterse Translators: Leah Clarke, Nicola van de Velde, Hazel Hollis Contributors: Renske van der Heide, Bart de Kort, Patrick Mackaaij, Lydje Snieders, Anneke Westerman Layout: Louise van der Laak Photography: Aad Hoogendoorn, Robin Kuijs, Mark Kuipers Copy editor: Nicola van de Velde A print run of 5,000 Quarterly magazine Languages: Dutch, English

Advanced settings
The Reservations information screen only displays reservations for which the display on information screen option has been ticked on one of the linked locations. By default, the add-on will assume that your TOPdesk application manager has made the first logical tick box available on the Location Cards first optional field tab. It is also possible to exclude particular reservations. To do this, the TOPdesk application manager must add an optional logical field to a tab containing optional fields on the Reservations Card. There is no interface for the advanced settings. You can set up the database field names directly on the TOPdesk server in the file bespokeresources\current_reservation_overview. settings. This file includes the following options: reservationinfo.location.freelogic=vrijelogisch1 reservationinfo.reservation.freelogic=

You can find the database field names in TOPdesk 5 under Help > Datadict. Go to Category and click on the name of the table. The relevant tables are called locatie and reservering respectively. The field name that TOPdesk uses is located in the Field name in current language column and the corresponding database field name in the Field column.

Matching your corporate identity

You can adjust the default layout of the Reservations information screen to exactly match your screen resolution or corporate identity. You can customize the colours, font and the positioning in great detail using the CSS file bespoke-work-web\[open|public|secure]\resinfoscherm\css\ resinfo.css on the TOPdesk server. Where open, public or secure appears, enter the data that corresponds with [realm] in the information screen URL. The CSS tutorial from w3schools. com is a good source of additional information about CSS: http://www.w3schools.com/css/. It is also possible to edit labels, such as the title of the Reservations information screen or the date format. To do this, open the language files in the bespoke-work-resources folder on the TOPdesk server. The date uses SimpleDateFormat: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html

About TOPdesk add-ons

TOPdesk offers add-ons to Enterprise customers to help them better meet their customers needs. TOPdesk consultants usually oversee add-on installation, provide bespoke work information and take care of the initial set-up. For more information, contact your local TOPdesk representative.