Database Setup - Function Rooms

For each function room imported from your Sales and Catering system The system that you use to manage the bookings for your function rooms. Also known as a diary management, or meetings and events reservation system. Examples include Delphi and Opera., enter the values for Optimum Attendee Capacity, Optimum Revenue, and Room Size. These values enable a comparison of your bookings against the optimum values and help you assess the efficiency of you function space utilisation. For example, in Space Utilisation you can monitor function space occupancy and the daily or monthly revenue per area (square metre or foot) .

You also use these values to set your Pricing Strategy, for example, to define the minimum revenue for a function room on a high demand date.

See Multi Property Mode to learn how this page functions when you have access to several venues Any business that sells function space. For example, hotel, conference centre or a sporting arena..

Setting Up Function Rooms

On the Database menu, click Database Setup.
Click the Function Rooms tab.
To view a specific function room, type the name in the Search box. Click a column name to sort in that order.
Click Edit.
Make the appropriate configuration changes, and then click Save.
To avoid losing your updates, save your changes as you make them. When you configure the Database Setup for the first time, all columns other than Room Name are set to zero, and the checkboxes are cleared.

Data Details

Column	Action
Room Name	The name of the function room, as imported from the Sales and Catering system The system that you use to manage the bookings for your function rooms. Also known as a diary management, or meetings and events reservation system. Examples include Delphi and Opera.. You can't change the name.
Optimum Attendee Capacity (Meeting)	The greatest number of attendees that this room can comfortably accommodate for a meeting Event types and seating styles where a lunch or dinner is not the main purpose. Used to differentiate from Banqueting and Wedding event types., based on the most popular seating style. See Best Practices for help with determining this value. If this room will not be used for meetings, or if it is a Child Room A function room that you can combine with another room into a larger room. The larger, combined room is called the "parent"., leave this cell blank. SmartSpace uses this information to calculate Space Utilisation metrics if you select Meeting as the Default optimum attendee for occupancy % calculation in Settings.
Optimum Attendee Capacity (Banqueting)	The greatest number of attendees that this room could comfortably accommodate for banqueting Someone who attends a meeting or event at your venue. Also called Delegate. Might refer to a seat paid for by a client regardless of attendance., based on the most popular seating style. That is usually banquet style, in some cases cabaret or cocktail style. See Best Practices for help with determining this value. If this room will not be used for banquets, or if it is a child room, leave this cell blank. SmartSpace uses this information to calculate Space Utilisation metrics if you select Banqueting as the Default optimum attendee for occupancy % calculation in Settings.
Optimum Attendee Capacity (Wedding)	The greatest number of attendees this room could comfortably accommodate for a wedding Event types and seating styles that accommodate a lunch or dinner, plus a dance floor and a head table for the wedding party. Used to differentiate from Meeting and Banqueting event types.. See Best Practices for help with determining this value. The optimum capacity might be banquet, cabaret, or cocktail style, but the value is usually reduced by requirements like a dance floor and a head table for the wedding party. If this room will not be used for weddings, or if it is a child room, leave this cell blank. SmartSpace uses this information to calculate Space Utilisation metrics if you select Wedding as the Default optimum attendee for occupancy % calculation in Settings.
Optimum Revenue	The optimum revenue that the function room could earn in one day. Your selections impact the values for your Pricing Strategy. SmartSpace also uses your selections to measure Revenue Yield, or the percentage of achieved revenue compared to optimal revenue. To calculate Optimum Revenue: Select the Optimum Attendee Capacity of the event type (Meeting, Wedding, or Banqueting) with the largest share of your property's meeting and event revenues. The choice varies by property, but typically it is Meeting. Multiply this number by the average price that you charge for a booking. This can be the minimum delegate package for medium demand periods or the achieved average catering and rental revenue per person. This might be difficult to determine during the initial implementation. We recommend that you review this value after you have set your Pricing Strategy. If this room is a child room, leave this cell blank. If this room hosts multiple events in a single day, actual revenue for that day might exceed the Optimum Revenue value that you calculate here.
Room Size	The number of square metres or feet in the room. The values impact the calculation for revenue per area (square metre or foot) in Space Utilisation.
Parent Room	If this room is a Child Room A function room that you can combine with another room into a larger room. The larger, combined room is called the "parent"., select the name of its parent room from the alphabetical list. See Best Practices for more information about how to configure child and parent rooms.
Include in Pricing Strategy	You want to set and sell rates for this function room.
Include in Daily Demand	Select this checkbox to include the room's booking details in the calculation for Daily Demand by Number of Function Rooms. We recommend that you include all function space that clients regularly request, including all child rooms and parent rooms. Don't use for function spaces that are service areas, for example, corridors and foyer areas.
Include in Occupancy (Calculation)	Use for all rooms that usually host a main event. Do not use for rooms where attendees gather temporarily for food and beverage, for example for coffee or cocktails. For example, if a corridor or a lobby is only used for attendee drinks, and the main event is always in the ballroom, select this option only for the ballroom and not for the lobby and corridor to avoid double counting. Do include the corridor and lobby in Occupancy (Revenue). If selected, SmartSpace uses the room's booking details in calculations for Venue Occupancy and Utilisation by Function Room in Space Utilisation.
Include in Occupancy (Attendees)	Use this option for all rooms that usually host a main event. This applies regardless of whether the room is a parent or child room. Do not use for rooms where attendees gather temporarily for food and beverage, for example for coffee or cocktails. For example, if a corridor or a lobby is only used for attendee drinks and the main event is always in the ballroom, check the box only for the ballroom and not for the lobby and corridor to avoid double counting. Do include the corridor and lobby in Occupancy (Revenue). SmartSpace uses attendee occupancy to calculate Attendee Density in Space Utilisation.
Include in Occupancy (Revenue)	Use to include the room in revenue calculations. We recommend that you select it for all function rooms. The exception would be a function room where the revenue is never allocated to meetings and events, for example, Golf Club or Spa. SmartSpace uses revenue occupancy in its calculations for the Venue Occupancy and Revenue per Square Metre charts in Space Utilisation.

Best Practices

Understand how Optimum Attendee Capacity supports Space Utilisation

Analysing and understanding your Space Utilisation metrics helps you improve your revenue strategy. To calculate the space utilisation metrics SmartSpace needs you to define the Optimum Attendee Capacity for each room. To understand these terms, let's use a hotel example. If you manage a 100-room hotel, you maximize occupancy, or space utilisation, when you sell all 100 rooms. As the person responsible for function rooms, you also want to maximize space, but your task is more complex. That's because each function room can accommodate varying numbers of attendees based on the type of event and based on the seating style. If a function room can seat 100 attendees, then selling a booking with only 10 attendees is likely not the optimal choice. The optimal choice for each room represents the Optimum Attendee Capacity. Once you configure Optimum Attendee Capacity, you can compare your bookings against this threshold and assess how efficiently you use your function space.

Set realistic values for Optimum Attendee Capacity

The Optimum Attendee Capacity varies based on the type of event. That's why you can set different values for three main event types: Meeting Event types and seating styles where a lunch or dinner is not the main purpose. Used to differentiate from Banqueting and Wedding event types., Attendee Someone who attends a meeting or event at your venue. Also called Delegate. Might refer to a seat paid for by a client regardless of attendance., and Wedding Event types and seating styles that accommodate a lunch or dinner, plus a dance floor and a head table for the wedding party. Used to differentiate from Meeting and Banqueting event types.. For each type, select the highest number of attendees that a function room can comfortably hold, based on the most popular seating style.

Use historical data to determine the most popular style

Use the room’s historical booking data to find the most popular seating style. Don't use the capacity from your website or brochure, because they usually represent the maximum and not the optimum attendee capacity. For example, Boardroom style is often popular for meetings in smaller function rooms. Larger rooms might accommodate U-shaped or Hollow Square seating. If the space is often used for large-group meetings, optimum capacity might be Classroom style. Theatre-style capacity is generally not a realistic expectation. Enter a capacity that is a true, realistic expectation you have to fill your function rooms to their maximum occupancies.

Correctly configure Child and Parent function rooms

Parent rooms are function rooms that you can divide into smaller spaces, or child rooms. For example, by removing a wall you can split your Ballroom into the smaller Ballroom A and Ballroom B.

Use the Parent Room column to assign each child room to its parent room. For Optimum Attendee Capacity, Optimum Revenue, and Room Size, enter values only for the parent and set the child rooms to zero. Measuring Space Utilisation only at the parent room level has several advantages:

The biggest opportunity exists when the parent room is booked as a whole, because adding a divider to a room reduces the total occupied space.
Counting both parent and child room values skews results and shows higher occupancy than the actual numbers.
Parent rooms with multiple child rooms produce many child room combinations in the Function Rooms table. Measuring the parent room as a whole is easier to manage and gives the best picture of overall space utilisation.

Always select Include in Pricing Strategy for the parent room. Clear the child rooms if their pricing policy follows the parent room policy. Otherwise, select child rooms.

For both the parent and child rooms, select the Include in Daily Demand, Include in Occupancy (Attendees), and Include in Occupancy (Revenue) checkboxes.

Select the Include In Occupancy (Calculation) checkbox only for the parent and not for the child room. Otherwise, a booking for one child room means that SmartSpace counts the parent room with all its child rooms in the Occupancy Calculation, meaning the system double counts these spaces.

Example of a configuration for a parent room with multiple child rooms

Room Name	Optimum Attendee Capacity (Meeting)	Optimum Attendee Capacity (Banqueting)	Optimum Attendee Capacity (Wedding)	Optimum Revenue	Room Size	Parent Room
Cedar Hall	200	250	250	$8000	400m²	-
Cedar East	0	0	0	$0	0m²	Cedar Hall
Cedar Central	0	0	0	$0	0m²	Cedar Hall
Cedar West	0	0	0	$0	0m²	Cedar Hall
Cedar East+Central	0	0	0	$0	0m²	Cedar Hall
Cedar Central+West	0	0	0	$0	0m²	Cedar Hall

Impact of child room configuration on space utilisation metrics

Let's use the above configuration for Cedar Hall. With its three child rooms, it is the only function room at this property. The Optimum Attendee Capacity (Meeting) of 200 is the configured default.

Only one evening booking for Cedar East, with 50 attendees. Room Occupancy is 100%. Attendee Density is 25% (50 attendees divided by the Optimum Attendee Capacity (Meeting) of 200, equals 0.25)
Three bookings, one for each of the Cedar rooms, with 200 attendees combined. Room Occupancy and Attendee Density are both 100%.
In the morning, the parent room Cedar Hall is used with 200 attendees. In the afternoon, Cedar East is used with 50 attendees. In the evening Cedar Central+West is used with 150 attendees. Occupancy is 100%. Attendee Density is 200% (200 + 50 + 150) : 200, equals 2).

The examples show that only a review of Room Occupancy and Attendee Density show how efficiently your function space is used. Occupancy is 100% in all three examples, but Attendee Density is higher in the examples when the rooms are sold more often.

Consider how to configure public function space

Your list of function rooms might include public spaces, for example, foyers, lounges, and restaurants. If so, it's because they were booked in your Sales and Catering system, maybe in combination with another function room. For SmartSpace, we recommend that you focus your strategy setting and space utilisation only on dedicated function rooms.

For any public function space, we therefore recommend setting Optimum Attendee Capacity, Optimum Revenue and Room Size to zero so that they don't impact performance calculations. Also clear all checkboxes to exclude these rooms in Space Utilisation charts and calculations.

The exception to this is if a space like a foyer sells refreshments or if a restaurant is run by your property. In that case, keep the zero value settings but select the Include In Occupancy (Revenue) checkbox if you want to monitor the Revenue per Attendee metric in Space Utilisation.

Correctly configure placeholder space

Your list of function rooms might contain a "_NULLROOM" value. SmartSpace uses this as a placeholder room to capture data of bookings that don't have a function room assigned. Leave all selections at zero and unchecked, but do check the box for Include in Occupancy (Revenue).

Manage Name Changes to Function Rooms

What if you change the name of your function rooms? SmartSpace receives booking data for the new room but doesn't display it until you complete its configuration in Database Setup. For the old room, clear all checkboxes except Include in Daily Demand and Include in Occupancy (Revenue). Once completed, you can view historical data for the old room and statistics for the new one.

Note: You can't compare data for all of your rooms from before the change to after the change.