OfficePlace & Resource Central Integration Guide

Overview

The OfficePlace & Resource Central Integration Configuration Guide outlines the Step-by-step process for setting up an integration between OfficePlace and Resource Central. Configuration will be done in both OfficePlace and Resource Central.

Important consideration: When you save the integration to OfficePlace in Resource Central (Step 5 below), a synchronization process will be initiated in the background which can last several hours depending on the number of resources and associated reservations. We recommend that you perform the switch outside office hours when booking of resources is at a minimum as Resource Central performance will be significantly reduced while the synchronization takes place.

Step-by-Step instructions

Follow the steps below to configure and set up the OfficePlace & Resource Central integration.

Prerequisite: Customer information for creation of the customer tenant in OfficePlace has been delivered to Add-On Products, who will inform you when the access has been granted.

Step 1: Login to OfficePlace

Begin by launching your web browser and entering the URL of the web server hosting OfficePlace in the address bar: https://admin.officeplace.global/

This will display the OfficePlace login screen as shown below:

Then, log in with your user account credentials provided, which have been assigned the appropriate permissions to access the required sections by Add-On Products. You will then be directed to the Organization Management section where you can view and manage the organizations you belong to, provided you have the appropriate permissions.

Step 2: Configure Entra Applications for Organization

Navigate to the Organization Management section and open the created organization. E.g.:

In your organization, you can configure settings to enable the connection to Azure AD / Exchange Online data for resources and users under the Application tab. The application configurations are necessary to sync data between the Organization and Azure AD / Exchange Online.

The Application Configuration section must be configured by selecting one of the two Permission types that will enable the ability of searching and synchronizing of identity information for users, resources, and groups, as well as calendar details between Entra ID / Exchange Online and your Organization. There are two permission types: 

After filling in the required fields, you need to retrieve a token from the service account to ensure it has the necessary permissions to access the users, resources, and groups within the application. Click [Get token], and a pop-up window will appear. Enter the service account from your organization's Azure AD tenant to obtain an Access Token for accessing user and group identities, as well as resource calendar and mailbox. Refer to OfficePlace Administrator Guide – Appendix B to learn more about the requirements and rights needed for the service account used in this case. 

Once the account is authenticated and authorized, a message will display confirming that the token has been successfully retrieved from that account. 

Upon successful token retrieval, click [Save] to apply the configuration settings.

Step 3: Import resources in use within Resource Central to OfficePlace

After successfully configuring the Application tab, you can import groups of resources from Azure AD / EXO that are currently in use within Resource Central to OfficePlace. To add new group(s) from Azure AD / EXO, click [Import] to open ‘Import groups’ screen.

Here, you can enter their information in the search bar to find groups within your Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) or Exchange Online (EXO) tenant. Click [Next] and the confirmation screen will appear. 

Select the group type = 'Resource' of the group by clicking the small arrow beside the group’s name. 

Click [Next] to finish. With this, both the group itself and its resources are added to the OfficePlace Organization. Click on the button  of a group to see its general information and list of members.

Important note: After importing the resource groups into the OfficePlace system, OfficePlace will automatically trigger a full identity and calendar synchronization for them in the Sync tab.

After the full-syncing progress, check the "Sync Calendar" and ”Sync Identity” tabs to see whether the synchronization was successful for each resource. 

• If the status of the resources is "Synced", you can proceed to the next step.
• If any resource shows an “Error” status (i.e.: resource not found or insufficient permissions), please take the following actions:
  • Ensure the Entra application for organization has the correct permissions as guided in Step 2 and verify that the service account has the necessary permissions for the resources.
  • Once the permissions are confirmed or adjusted, perform a full sync for these resources again to attempt the synchronization. If the sync status of the resources is ”Synced”, you can proceed to the next step.

Step 4: Configure integration on OfficePlace

The next step is to set up the connection to your Resource Central application. For this, navigate back to the Tenant Management section, click the button next to your tenant, and then select the Integration Configuration tab to proceed with this step.

4.1. RC Integration

The Disable/Enable button helps configure the integration between Resource Central and OfficePlace.  Toggle the button to automatically generate the Metadata Url. Copy this Url for future reference and usage. It is needed under Resource Central → System → Parameters͢ → Basic parameters when setting up Resource Central to connect with OfficePlace.

4.2. Authentication Client Information

In this section, you will create a client application that is used to set up the secure integration between Resource Central and OfficePlace. 

On ‘Authentication Client Information’, you can click [Add more] to open the “Create client configuration” screen:

Then click [Create] to finally create this client application. Click [Yes] when the following confirmation emerges. The created client credential will then be shown below, e.g.: 

You can add multiple client secrets to a client credential by clicking [Add more] in Client Secret section. A new client secret is automatically created for you. You can also click [Generate client secret] to retrieve a new one. Then, select expiring duration for this client secret and click [Save].

Copy the following values for using in Step 5:

• Metadata Url
• Client ID
• Client Secret

Step 5: Configure integration on Resource Central

After configuring the integration on OfficePlace side, you need to input the details retrieved in the previous step into Resource Central side to complete the connection between OfficePlace and Resource Central. 

Login to Resource Central backend and navigate to SYSTEM → Parameters, then click the [BASIC] button on the toolbar. 

The Basic Parameters screen will appear as below: 

Select ‘Use OP’ as the Exchange/AD connector and enter the Client ID, Client Secret, and Metadata URL obtained in the previous step. Click on the  icon to retrieve data from Metadata Url and the remaining fields will be automatically populated.

Click [SAVE] then.

Step 6: Monitor the synchronization of resources in OfficePlace

To ensure all meeting data is up to date, OfficePlace automatically performs a Full Sync of all resources when you save the integration setting in Resource Central. You can track the progress of the synchronization within OfficePlace under your organization by navigating to the sync tab and choose Sync Calendar in the dropdown. 

Here you will see a list of your resources, and you can track the progress by looking at the Sync Status column, which when done will look similar to below screenshot.

If you sort the resources by the Sync Status column and then wait until there are no more listed as "Sync Pending", then the synchronization is complete. If you see a few resources with Sync Status listed as "Sync Error", then please select those resources and press the Full Sync Items button and track the progress. Should the full sync not complete, then please look at the listed error information and contact us if in doubt. You can notice that the RC resources that are enabled for OfficePlace to sync from are marked  in the “RC Registered” column.

Step 7: Verify OfficePlace connection status

Now where the OfficePlace connection has been established, you will see the details of the Basic parameters under SYSTEM → Parameters:

From this page, you can also get the status information about the services and connections by pressing the "Service Status" button at the top.