The operations manager in Digital Technology at UAL describes their role, which includes booking meeting rooms and supporting the digital technology senior leadership team. They explain the process of booking rooms across UAL, using systems like Cell CAT for timetabling and Matrix for central booking. The manager notes that some rooms aren't on Matrix and require contacting specific teams.
The rooms are primarily used for meetings, interviews, and presentations. The manager books more rooms than they personally attend, using them about 2-3 times a week. They discuss the process of setting up technology in rooms, mentioning occasional issues with screens or connectivity.
Comparing UAL to previous workplaces, the manager notes an increased reliance on technology for hybrid meetings post-Covid. They describe Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday as busy days for room bookings, with Mondays and Fridays being quieter.
The manager suggests improvements such as better soundproofing, increased availability and visibility of rooms, and easier access to information about room capacities and booking processes. They mention difficulties with using Cell CAT and suggest adding more information to Matrix about rooms that can't be booked through the system.
Okay, that's just started. So could you tell me what you do at uel?
Participant 3
6s
Yes. So I'm operations manager in Digital Technology. So I report to the head of business operations Elliot, who I think you met earlier and we're a team of four together and we support digital and technology, well the wider digital technology department. But also we have core support for the digital technology senior leadership team as well, diary management and organising meetings. So yeah, we have to, me and my team have to book a lot of meeting rooms and also we have three meeting rooms on the second floor as well that we, you know, have to monitor and make sure things are set up.
Researcher
54s
And okay, when you say you book a lot of rooms, are they here or are they across ual?
Participant 3
59s
Here mainly, but also across ual we sometimes have to kind of contact other colleges to check, you know, availability of meeting rooms or see whether there's any teaching rooms that we might be able to use for things such as. So usually if like the SLT or one of the service areas maybe want to do a team day in another college team away day or something and you have to try and find space at colleges which can prove quite difficult.
Researcher
1m 30s
And how do you do that? You have to contact people there and sort of beg them.
Participant 3
1m 34s
So usually there's a few things you could do. Usually, I mean before I had contacted the college exec offices there's you know, usually like the ea, the college, the college. So the head of college is EA because they sometimes have access to meeting rooms that aren't bookable by everybody else because Chris Condren who is the chief digital officer because he's on accept board they would kind of allow us to use those spaces if they're free. But mainly we'd have to look on Cell Cat and I don't know what that stands for. You might actually someone might have explained.
Researcher
2m 18s
I've not heard of that one though.
Participant 3
2m 20s
Cell CAT is like a timetabling, it's like the timetabling service and you can check the availability of teaching rooms.
Researcher
2m 30s
Okay.
Participant 3
2m 31s
So and then you have to contact the things timetabling teams in each college and some areas of a timetable team like CCI who I think are on the third floor here have the right timetabling team to see whether those rooms are available, whether you're allowed to book them. And yeah, if you're looking to book an event you usually have to go to like the colleges eventually events team to ask about space. And then of course on Matrix, the booking system there's, there's rooms available There at different colleges. But I feel like unless you're at that college, you already work at that college. It's a bit limited, but in Holborn, the majority of the room bookings are done by on Matrix.
Researcher
3m 26s
There's Matrix, a central booking system.
Participant 3
3m 28s
Yeah, yeah. So I don't know what that stands for. I don't know why it's called Matrix. But that's where we book our meeting rooms and our desks on Matrix, basically. But not all meeting rooms are on Matrix, so that's where it gets a bit confusing. You're having to like message individual teams to try and get them booked.
Researcher
3m 50s
And how do you know if a room isn't on it? Like how. Sorry, if a room isn't on it, how do you know how to book it?
Participant 3
3m 59s
At Holborn, I believe a list was shared in the building user group on teams of rooms that aren't on Matrix. So there's like some spaces on second and third floor and who to contact about them. So on second floor you'd contact the timetable team. So that's the third floor, second floor. I'm not sure. Then there's so. So yeah. At colleges, though, I don't know, there's just room which people just don't know about. I think you only find them out if people share them or, you know, you hear about it, basically. Yeah, nice.
Researcher
4m 46s
So when you're doing these bookings, what is it mainly for? What kind of activities is it for meetings, presentations, teaching? What kind?
Participant 3
4m 54s
Yeah, mainly we don't. Because our. Because digital technology is like professional service department, we don't do teaching. So we book meet. We book rooms for meetings which can range from like anything like one to ones or, you know, like informal kind of meetings to like digital board and meetings with the SLT and heads or interviews. Have to book, you know, quite a few interviews now in person. So they like.
Researcher
5m 30s
Like job interviews.
Participant 3
5m 31s
Yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, job interviews. So we have to book space on site for. For those interviews to take place and. Yeah, presentations. I think, you know, whenever I walk past the meeting rooms on fourth floor, most people are using the screens and the presentation equipment. So that's used a lot. And obviously if they're hybrid meetings as well, need to be able to link up to people so they can speak in teams.
Researcher
6m 1s
And you do a lot of booking. Do you attend many meetings yourself?
Participant 3
6m 6s
No, not really. I attend, I book more meeting. Like I plan more meetings and book more meeting rooms than what I actually attend. They're mostly for other people.
Researcher
6m 18s
How often do you go and use the rooms or any facilities. Is it like weekly, monthly still?
Participant 3
6m 27s
Weekly, yeah, but I wouldn't say daily.
Researcher
6m 30s
Okay.
Participant 3
6m 31s
Yeah. I'd say like maybe like two, three times a week. Yeah.
Researcher
6m 38s
And when you do use the rooms, I think the past few times you actually use them. The real times from when you got there to when your meeting started, is there like a set process you go through? Is there anything that, you know, needs doing? When is it different every time?
Participant 3
6m 54s
If you're. If you need to use the screen, like for presentations or for calls, you always have to kind of figure that out using these Kreston phones, going to call them phones. So yeah, often you have to like, you know, plug in your laptop to present on screen or start the team's call.
Researcher
7m 22s
Does it work? Does it tend to work?
Participant 3
7m 25s
Tends to work for me. But for example, I did have a message on what day was it? It must have been last Thursday, I think, because in 704 we had digital board booked in there and my colleague turned up early, which was good to set up the presentation and none of the screen or anything wasn't working, so they had to get somebody to come have a look at it. But I'd already booked a backup room on fourth floor just in case.
Researcher
7m 57s
Is that common? Do you book backup rooms? Quite a lot?
Participant 3
8m 0s
I try to do something that's important, which you shouldn't really have to do, but you just do sometimes because of technology or something like that.
Researcher
8m 10s
But did you think. Did they figure out what was wrong? Did it get fixed?
Participant 3
8m 13s
I actually don't know. In the end, I. I recommended that IT just really. The person using the room before probably should have reported it and it might have been reported, but then something, the door really to be like, you know, it's not working.
Researcher
8m 29s
How do you report issues? Like, what's the support process?
Participant 3
8m 34s
I would go through IT help desk, probably.
Researcher
8m 39s
Would that be like a phone call or email?
Participant 3
8m 41s
I think. I think it's IT help desk, IT support. So it's just like you basically go on and you log a ticket. Yeah, yeah. With your issue. So that's what I do. I think I probably should, but I don't actually know of like an emergency contact here with something going on with rems. I'd probably go down to the guys on fifth floor in our IT support team and just physically go and see them. Yeah. Maybe see what they knew.
Researcher
9m 15s
Have you had to do that before?
Participant 3
9m 17s
No, I haven't. I think my colleague did the other. The other day though.
Researcher
9m 20s
Yeah.
Participant 3
9m 21s
Yeah. So, I mean, there's People in that room now. So I see it's working.
Researcher
9m 27s
Yeah. Do you know, do you have a find or do you hear about issues that don't get fixed, like things get reported but there's still an issue next time or anything like that? No. Okay.
Participant 3
9m 39s
No, don't. I mean, that's. That's not to say that there isn't, you know, instances of that happening, but I think things. I've not heard of a room being out of use, you know, for like a long period of time.
Researcher
10m 1s
When you're booking these rooms for people or when you're in meetings yourself, do you ever bring external people in either remotely on video or physically into the rooms?
Participant 3
10m 10s
Remotely on video? I think so. I think sometimes people extend the inner. The only other time I think is when, you know, for interviews, basically people would be external, people might be brought in.
Researcher
10m 27s
And how's that process, do you know? It's fine if you don't know.
Participant 3
10m 32s
Yeah, I don't know. I think because I'm not in the meetings, I'm not sure. Yeah, of course, I would assume. Yeah. I don't know actually about. How about, you know, connectivity and sound and everything like that. Any experiences I've had of that in the meeting rooms and they seem to work. It seems to work well.
Researcher
10m 55s
Okay, so you feel like the technology works well, like teams and screens and stuff like that?
Participant 3
11m 3s
Yeah, I'd say so.
Researcher
11m 4s
Okay. Have you had any issues with either the video calling or just with any of the technology, apart from the one you mentioned the other day?
Participant 3
11m 12s
Yeah, I mean, there were some issues once when I was up on 8th floor in their meeting rooms that I mainly use for the executive board. We had some issues there with the tech and how the camera was picking people up on teams as to who was talking on our. So I think that was a bit of an issue. That was quite a while ago now though, so I can't remember what else happened. But yeah, there was just a bit of an issue with kind of the camera facing people in the room.
Researcher
11m 51s
And when you book a room, do you feel confident that things will work when you're booking backup rooms? Why are you doing that?
Participant 3
12m 1s
I always, I think for me, when it comes to kind of those big, quite important meetings, the whole idea of booking backup rooms is just. I've always done that, even before I worked at ual, when I worked at previous universities, I just always book it back up room just in case.
Researcher
12m 22s
So you've done similar roles in other places?
Participant 3
12m 24s
Yeah.
Researcher
12m 25s
And how does the system here compare to other places? That you've worked by the system, I mean booking the rooms themselves, anything basically.
Participant 3
12m 34s
Yeah, I think it's a bit different. It's a bit difficult to answer that because we're now like post Covid, you.
Researcher
12m 43s
Know, the world's changed.
Participant 3
12m 45s
World's kind of changed, yeah. And people I think rely on technology a lot more in meeting rooms now. Whereas before there was obviously technology in meeting rooms, but it was mainly for sharing documents, sharing presentations. It wasn't also for relying on the technology for teams calls. So my experience like, you know, meeting rooms, yeah, the tech and everything would all work well and where I worked previously at ucl, I worked in a research division so we didn't actually have a lot of meeting rooms. I mean a lot of meetings took place online, you know, in teams and obviously a lot of work was mainly done in labs and things. So I would say the tech in those meeting rooms wasn't like, wasn't as advanced as it was here, I think it's fair to say.
Researcher
13m 54s
And how long ago was that, if that's okay to ask?
Participant 3
13m 56s
A couple of years ago. Okay, yeah, yeah. But then again, as I said, like I don't. Elsewhere in UCL it might have been a bit different. I think it was mainly just because the building we're in and the kind of priorities of the department and everything. I don't think there are a lot of like hybrid meetings as such. I think a lot of meetings were, you know, held in line or in person so because people were on site a lot more as well, a lot busier people for their research and stuff. So yeah.
Researcher
14m 37s
Is it different here because the team you're in or because of the university or something else?
Participant 3
14m 42s
I think it might be the university. I think it also might be the fact that I don't know what it's like in colleges, but here people tend to only be in like around two days a week. So there are a lot of hybrid meetings here. Like in our open plan office a lot of people wear headphones to join meetings because with colleagues who might not be in. And I think that's why the meeting rooms, especially at Holburn get so, so busy during, during the week because yeah, there's a lot of kind of, I think there's a lot of in person meetings but there's also a lot of hybrid meetings going on as well.
Researcher
15m 31s
And you said about being busy when, when are the busy times?
Participant 3
15m 37s
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are busy days here. So if you want like a last minute meeting room on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you're Kind of very unlucky to find a meeting room.
Researcher
15m 49s
Mondays and Fridays pretty quiet.
Participant 3
15m 51s
Yeah, definitely. Especially Friday.
Researcher
15m 55s
I think it's the same everywhere these days.
Participant 3
15m 57s
Yeah, it is.
Researcher
16m 3s
Excuse me. So we talked about Microsoft Teams. So you do teams calls in rooms like this, but also online, just through your laptop?
Participant 3
16m 12s
Yeah.
Researcher
16m 14s
How do you feel about the difference between the two experiences?
Participant 3
16m 19s
Laptops, obviously a lot quicker. Whenever you do teams calls on these, there's usually like, you know, you might have to adjust the sound or mute something. So yeah, I asked for like teams is teams on laptops just a lot quicker?
Researcher
16m 37s
By quicker do you mean quicker to set up or.
Participant 3
16m 39s
Yeah, quicker to set up, I think. But you know, there's, as I said when I was like, well, downstairs there's quite a lot of. There's always a lot of hybrid meetings going on. So, yeah, people. People must be finding it, you know, even though it's a little bit longer to set up than your laptop, it must still be working for people, I think.
Researcher
17m 8s
And have you, apart from ucl, have you done in room meetings in any other places, like where you sat in a room with a screen talking to people? Was it just here in ucl when.
Participant 3
17m 21s
I worked at Kent Uni, I did, but that was very much towards the end of my time there because I left there in like 2021. So before COVID all meetings would just be in person? Yeah, in person only. So there was no talking on screens. He's always had a conference phone, one of those like old fashioned store.
Researcher
17m 46s
Store shapes.
Participant 3
17m 47s
Yeah. Starship conference calls, conference finds, which are an absolute nightmare to set up.
Researcher
17m 53s
The world has changed a lot.
Participant 3
17m 56s
I always remember whenever you had to set one of those up, you had to kind of allow yourself a bit of time to get it sorted.
Researcher
18m 4s
Yeah, nice. That's almost everything. We've kind of whisked through everything. You've just been great at describing a couple more questions. One is, imagine money was no object and time was no object. And someone said to make your life, what would make your life easier? How would you redesign room booking? The rooms themselves, the technology, the aesthetics, anything. What would. What would you change given no constraints?
Participant 3
18m 33s
I mean, I think some of the rooms need to be soundproofed better.
Researcher
18m 36s
Okay.
Participant 3
18m 38s
Especially on fourth floor. There's not a lot of soundproofing between those rooms.
Researcher
18m 41s
Is that a common complaint then?
Participant 3
18m 43s
Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of been a bit of an issue, been a bit ongoing, really. There's like obviously limited things we can do with because we lease this building. I believe so. I mean, even Now I know you can hear it now. You could hear. You can sometimes hear things between the rooms.
Researcher
19m 3s
I've been in here all day. Like, I hear every meeting, you know.
Participant 3
19m 6s
Yeah. So I think soundproofing is definitely an issue in the meeting rooms. I mean, I'd say more meeting rooms, but as I said, I think there are some. I think certain areas have rooms that they kind of hold on to and they don't make available to everybody else. So maybe that needs looking at as well.
Researcher
19m 30s
So more availability?
Participant 3
19m 32s
Yeah, I think more availability. I think more visibility as well for rooms maybe on, like, the second and third floor and when they're free and when they're not, and not having to rely on, you know, having to check in with the timetabling teams. Because sometimes, to be honest, the responses you get from the teams on the second and third floor of High Holben, it's not very quick. I don't know what else, really. I haven't used the tech enough, I don't think.
Researcher
20m 10s
Yeah. Just interested in what came straight to mind for you. So. That's really good. That's it. That's all I wanted to ask, really. Is there anything else relevant that you can think of that's come to mind while we've been talking?
Participant 3
20m 25s
Not really. I mean, I don't think. I don't find cell cat very easy to use.
Researcher
20m 31s
Use. Was that the Availability system?
Participant 3
20m 34s
Yeah, it's like where you can check the availability of teaching rooms. And to be honest, maybe it's not supposed to be super easy to use because it's kind of, you know, it is a teaching room kind of timetable system, I suppose, but sometimes I don't think. God, these are really. The chairs are really high, aren't they? You start to see them, they just hit the table. And I do think Matrix is a good system to use when booking rooms. But again, it might be, you know, you can't view everything on there. So even if there was just like information on there about. About rooms that you maybe can't book on Matrix, but they still had information about, like, you know, this is. Here's a room, here's the capacity, etc. If you want to book this, this is who you contact. Just there's a bit more visibility about rooms. What rooms are actually there actually are in Holburn.
Researcher
21m 43s
So is that a common problem, just finding that basic information?
Participant 3
21m 46s
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Like, off top of my head, I wouldn't know on second and third floor, like, what rooms, how many rooms they got or anything like that.
Researcher
21m 56s
How would you find it?
Participant 3
21m 58s
God. I'd have to either go down there and have a look or contact their teams to see what information they'd share with me. Really? I think it's more of a conversation about what space is available for everyone. Know why there are certain spaces that aren't available for everyone to book and you know who should have priority in those spaces. Yeah.
Researcher
22m 27s
Lovely. Well, thank you so much. This is really, really useful.
Participant 3
22m 32s
And like I said, that's quite quick.
Researcher
22m 34s
Yeah. A lot quicker than I expected, actually.
Participant 3
22m 37s
Yeah.
Researcher
22m 40s
Another cup of tea?
Participant 3
22m 41s