Internal Resource Reservation

When to use internal resource reservation?

Managing your church's most valuable resources, like the cathedral or very specialised equipment, can be a challenge.

The Internal Resource Reservation tool is created to help with the process of creating events with resources that need extra approval. It is still necessary to communicate within the team to make appropriate requests and avoid miscommunications on this topic.

! Be aware, this tool adds more steps of bureaucracy to the booking and planning process of events.

In most cases, this can be avoided with good internal communication with all users who have the permission to "book & plan".

In Multiparish-Installations, the Organization Administrator can decide which parish(es) a user belongs to and therefore can allow "book & plan" only in these parish(es).

How to Set Up a Resource for Approval

Before anyone can request a resource, you need to set it up. As an Organization Administrator, you can designate which resources require approval and who is responsible for approving the requests. We recommend NOT to set up every resource as one that needs approval as it might hinder the easy workflow at the church and lead to longer processing times.

Click on your name in the top-right corner and select ChurchDesk Settings.

1. In the left-hand menu, go to Parish & Resource.
2. Find the resource you want to manage (e.g., "Main Hall") and click the "Actions" button.
3. In the "Approvers" section, click the Add users button.
4. Select one or more users from the list who will be responsible for approving reservation requests for this resource. All users on this list must have "Book & Plan" permission.
5. Click Save.

Once saved, any time a staff member tries to book this resource, the request will be sent to the approvers you just selected.

Where do the enquiries come from?

• The user, who is planning an event with resource(s) that need approval, will set up the event in the calendar as usual.
• When he/she clicks "Save", it will show a message that informs them about which resources need approval.
• At the same time, other resources that don't need approval, as well as booked users and rota plans, are booked in as normal.
• The user, who is planning the event gets an E-Mail after the request has being processed by the approving user, that tells her/him, if the resource in the event is denied or approved.
• If there were multiple resources on the event that he needs approval for, he/she will receive multiple E-Mails.
• Read more about, what to do if the resource is declined below.

How does the resource for the event gets approved or denied?

Saving the events sends out an E-Mail to the users, that can approve of the resource for that event on that date.

The users, who can approve a resource, can find the requests in the calendar module on the left in the "Enquiries".

Here are the internal resource enquiries, but also external enquiries from the book pages. Under "Booking Pages" you will be able to see if its an internal or external request.

All enquiries that can be signed off by the user(s) displayed here.

They can filter for "Internal requests" when you click on the "Booking pages" filter.

With clicking "Review", they can see an overview and decides to decline or approve the use of the resource in the event.

Bulk actions

• One event with multiple resources, that needs approval, will create an approval request for every resource, in order to decide for each resource individually.
• Recurring events will also create an enquiry for each date, in order to allow for different answers.

The user can tick multiple events, go to "Bulk actions" on the left and accept or deny them in one go.

The accepted requests are moved to the "Completed" tab.

If they accept multiple, but one has a different event at the same time, it will show an error in the "Bulk actions report" and tells them to handle it individual.

Booking conflict

The user, who is checking the request, can look at the event in the calendar with the link in the name and they can decide if it makes sense to allow a "booking conflict" when it occurs or not, if you have the permission to "force double booking".

What if the decision needs to be changed afterwards?

Internal resource reservations are moved to the "Completed" tab after a users in charge has made a decision on it.

If it needs to be changed, the event can be viewed in that tab and with "See event in calendar" that user can add or take out the needed resource and save the event again. This will NOT trigger a second Email notification. The person changing it need to communicate this directly to the requester.

A user, who can accept enquiries about that resource, can save an event himself without further steps.

What happens to declined events?

The user who booked the event in the first place receives an E-Mail about the denial and needs to take action now. She/He can delete the whole event or find a different resource for it.

This Tool is created to help with the process of creating events with resources that need extra approval. It is still needed to communicate within the team to make appropriate requests and avoid miscommunications on this topic.

Where can you see the pending events?

Go to calendar > day view > toggle the "Users & Rooms side-by-side".

Use the "Users, rooms & groups" filter on the left side and add the resources that you are looking for.

Pending events are shown in white, with only colour on the left side.

Updated on: 15/09/2025