Meeting rooms are becoming a bit of a problem for us at work with squatters, over-stayers and interrupters.

We have Office 365 and all the meeting rooms are available to be viewed and booked through Outlook, but the biggest problem is the meeting rooms are the only place in our open plan offices to either have a private phone call/conversation or get away from work interruptions and noise.  This is likely to get worse as we look towards a possibility of renting space on another floor as office space.  At the moment in our Wellington office we only have 5 meeting rooms but there is a high throughput from unscheduled use.  I know it's not many but that is actually part of the problem which makes them sought after.

While at other customer sites, I have seen digital signage on the door/wall (tablet in a holder running an app) that clearly displays if a room is booked, for how long and by whom.  It also has the option to press a couple of buttons to create and "impromptu" meeting - great for a phone call or quick conversation.

I've looked online but the details around pricing are scarce and none of them appear to have an NZ presence.  Some have central management and phone apps to simplify the booking along with analytics on usage. Some other great features are "check-in" where if the room is not used the booking is released stopping the bookings for recurring meetings that get verbally cancelled or the ability to extend/shorten at the touch of a button.

My question then is do you have any experience with such a system in NZ? If so what kind of cost to implement and ongoing fees/subscriptions? Do they work or is it just lipstick on a pig and the same problems remain?

Many thanks