We use MRBS extensively, for managing about 60 rooms and have been quite happy with it for years.
When we first began using it we needed to heavily customize it. In more recent years development of the software has been quite active and almost all our customizations are now available in the main core. We have groups of rooms which are fully unmediated (subject to set rules) with other rooms requiring staff booking. MRSB has capacity for provisional booking subject to approval, etc, although we are not using that function at the moment. IIRC it is flexible in back end database selection, and I don't recall encountering much outdated/deprecated functions, although we don't run it in the most advanced server in the world :) - Edward Spodick, HK Univ of Science & Technology Library, lbspo...@ust.hk - - - - - Sent from my iPhone - please forgive any wierd spelling errors. On 5 Apr, 2015, at 7:10 AM, Dominic Bordelon <dborde...@ebrpl.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > we are looking for an open-source solution to manage scheduling for our > meeting rooms, including a way for patrons to reserve the rooms (with staff > approval). We are happy to modify something to fit our exact needs if it is > already solid. We've been trying to work with the vendor Evanced for their > Spaces product, but we have been disappointed by the lack of customizability > and the black box problem. > > I'm aware of OpenRoom and MRBS, and searching the c4l archives I've found > discussion on this topic, but that thread was from nearly three years ago. > What are people using nowadays? > > I like OpenRoom's apparent simplicity, and that its feature set is nearly > exactly all we need. However, my concerns with it are the use of php's > mysql_* functions, which have been deprecated in favor of mysqli; and the > many notices/errors it shows when I've run it on a test server. (The > installation guide seems to anticipate this: "If you are experiencing > problems with OpenRoom such as being unable to log in, modules (such as the > calendar or day view) not loading, or random warnings or notices appearing on > pages, until the code has been corrected to fix these issues, you may want to > try suppressing notices and warnings by modifying your php.ini file in your > PHP installation, and restarting PHP." But that provides scarce comfort.) > Also, I can see recent patches on Sourceforge, but the forum there seems > basically dead. > > I'm also looking at MRBS, but haven't installed it yet or formed a clear > opinion. I'm interested to hear others' thoughts, and whether there is a good > solution out there I haven't heard about yet. > > P.S. Hat tips to Matt Sherman for suggesting OpenRoom, and Peter Murray of > Lyrasis for doing a free webinar about FOSS4Lib, which led me to MRBS. > > > Best, > Dominic > > > Dominic Bordelon > Librarian I > Computer Services > East Baton Rouge Parish Library - www.ebrpl.com > (225) 231-3720
