ROOMS & BUILDINGS: Setting Blackout Dates

Tiffany Winters

Modified on: Tue, May 30, 2023 at 5:43 PM

Table of Contents

Overview

Coursedog allows you to define “blackout dates”: Dates during which a room, building, or your institution will be unavailable for events.
There are three blackout options. You can set blackout dates for: an individual room or building, your institution, or multiple rooms at once (“mass room blackouts”).
All three options give you the ability to block certain times on recurring days.

The ability to edit blackout dates and mass blackout dates is tied to role-based access control (RBAC) permissions.
Admins can access these settings at Event Scheduling > Roles > (Select Role) > Settings.
In order for a user to be able to edit blackout dates, the below permissions need to be set to “allow”.

ROOM PATH: Event Scheduling > Rooms > (Select Room) > Room Settings > Blackout Dates

BUILDING PATH: Event Scheduling > Buildings > (Select Building) > Building Settings > Blackout Dates

This option allows you to black out dates for an individual room or building.
If you set blackout dates for a building, that is the same as setting a blackout date for every room in that building.
By default, every blackout begins at the start date/time and extends 24 hours a day until the end date/time. If you would like to have only certain hours be blocked on certain days, see “Blocking Specific Times on Recurring Dates” below.

Click “Add New Blackout Dates”.
Click into the date field and enter the dates and times when the building and/or room will not be available to be scheduled.

PATH: Event Scheduling > Settings > Blackout Dates

This option allows you to black out your campus, which means nothing can be scheduled anywhere on campus during the selected dates/times.
This is particularly useful during holiday breaks.
By default, every blackout begins at the start date/time and extends 24 hours a day until the end date/time. If you would like to have only certain hours be blocked on certain days, see “Blocking Specific Times on Recurring Dates” below.

Select “+Add New Blackout Dates”.
Fill in the required information.
In the second example below, no rooms on this campus can be booked for events between 7 a.m. on Nov. 25 and 6 p.m. on Nov. 27.

PATH: Event Scheduling > Settings > Mass Room Blackouts

You can set blackout dates for multiple rooms at once.
Each blackout is defined by a time period for the blackout and a list of filters used to dynamically determine the set of rooms to be included in the mass blackout.
By default, every blackout begins at the start date/time and extends 24 hours a day until the end date/time. If you would like to have only certain hours be blocked on certain days, see “Blocking Specific Times on Recurring Dates” below.

Step 1: Click “+Add New Blackout”.

Step 2: Input the dates and times you wish to black out the rooms.

Step 3:

Add a filter or even multiple filters to indicate which room(s) and/or building(s) you wish to set blackout dates for.
You can add multiple filters.
When creating a filter, be sure to use the correct field and input the value exactly as it appears in the room’s settings (Event Scheduling > Rooms > (Select Room) > Room Settings). For example, if you set a filter for “Room Name”, the value you enter must be the room name listed in the room’s settings.

All three blackout date options give you the ability to block specific hours on a per-day basis.
Just exactly how you set this up will depend on whether or not there is a change in the day within the designated hours.
- If there’s NO CHANGE from PM to AM during the designated hours, e.g. 12AM-1AM or 5AM-5PM, you only need to add one “recurring” blackout date to set this up.
- If there IS a change from PM to AM during the designated hours, e.g. 8PM-8AM, you will need to add two “recurring” blackout dates to set this up to account for the change in day.
- Examples for each scenario are shown below.
If you do not check the “Use Recurring Dates” box, the blackout will last 24 hours a day, every day, from the start date/time until the end date/time.

In this example, Room 1 will be blacked out every Monday and Wednesday, between 12:00AM-1:00AM, from September 14 to September 30.

If the timeblock starts in the afternoon (p.m.) on one day and extends into morning (a.m.) on the following day, you will need to create two sets of recurring dates: One for p.m. (e.g. 8 PM - 11:59 PM) and one for a.m. (e.g. 12:00 AM - 8 AM).
In the example below, the amphitheater will be blocked from 8 PM- 8 AM Monday-Thursday, from May 29 through August 18.

The system will not alert you of any potential Event Conflicts on the "Blackout Dates" page while creating the blackouts as it assumes all blackouts are intended and added by admins (usually during setup periods).
Conflicts will show up on the event page itself for any affected events.
Users can download a report after they set blackout dates to see if they created any new conflicts. To do this, run the Event Conflict report by navigating to Event Scheduling > Reports and selecting “Download” next to the “Event Conflicts List” option.
A notable nuance is that the Events Conflict List report will not detect conflicts between events and Mass Room Blackouts (as opposed to institution-wide Blackout or room Blackout).

In the Events, Rooms, and Building calendar views, blackout dates are displayed as red lines across the blocked out periods in the calendar.
In the Room Calendar, it will show the Room Blackout Dates, Building Blackout Dates & Institution Blackout dates.
In the Event Calendar, it will show the Institution Blackout dates.
In the Building Calendar, it will show the Building Blackout Dates & Institution Blackout dates.
Users can still click on those blackout periods in the calendar and open the event form, because the user may or may not have the "Request Event With Conflicts" permission.
Blackout periods will only display in the "Week" or "Day" view.