Room Scheduler Calendar Setup

Background Information

Skip below to "Setup Steps" to skip all the background information, this is for troubleshooting or future understanding of how the system works.

Crestron Panels

These panels get installed on the walls and have network infrastructure in place in order to get them power and communication via a Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) cable and PoE switch in a network closet. Those panels will need a set of IP space dedicated to them (called a VLAN) to get them on the university network, so they can phone home to a command-and control server. Sometimes the panels are placed on the Classroom VLAN for a given building (VLAN 60) if the VLAN is large enough.

Crestron Fusion Server (lsa-prod-crestron)

The Crestron Fusion server is managed by LSA TS Infrastructure. It's here that the panel receives its configuration settings, such as:

  • What Building the device is in
  • What room the device is assigned to
  • What calendar the device is sharing out with the world.

Calendar

There are two main ways to get calendar data onto a Crestron panel:

Standard Google Resource Calendars. These have traditionally been created by Facilities, and then access is granted to the space owners in order to control what happens in a space. Space owners or departments may also own these calendars.

Data Warehouse Calendars: These calendars are from centrally-scheduled classroom spaces, which are controlled by the registrar. Any classrooms which have a room scheduler has a Room Record Number (RMRECNBR) and we pull that data directly from the Data Warehouse into a Google Calendar, and then display a read-only copy of the calendar on the Crestron touch panel.

Setup Steps

The Scheduling Devices

Ensure they receive a 10.x IP address on a campus  VLAN. If not, please work with a member of RCI, Instructional Computing, or ITS / LSA Network folks to move the device in question to a typical 10.x VLAN. Make sure to have the device's MAC address, or IP address if already plugged into the UMNet, ready for them to provision or move. For a large number of devices, we recommend keeping a room / MAC address spreadsheet, example linked here: Sample Google Sheet

Please note that all new Crestron devices require a username and password set up on them in order to configure them. Scheduling panels typically require no onboard configuration since the server manages them and so the credentials can be left unset, but if any configurations are required (brightness adjustment, hostname change, time zone, etc.), a username and password will need to be set on them. It should be generally set to the standard Crestron touch panel password stored in Passwordstate. This can be done either from the setup menu on the panel itself -or- from SSH / Crestron Toolbox Text Console.

Keep note of the final IP address(es) for the last step.

The Calendars

To use a standard Google Resource Calendar, you must add the following service account to the calendar with the ability to at least view the calendar. If there is desire to allow scheduling directly from the panel, in theory it is possible to give the service account the ability to edit calendar events as well, which would allow the panel or the server to make reservations on the Google Calendar, however we do not necessarily recommend doing this.

  • lsa-crestron-test@lsa-crestron-test.iam.gserviceaccount.com

To use a Data Warehouse Calendar (for a centrally-scheduled classroom):

  • First, identify the calendar's "FacilityID" (This is typically formatted like BSB1060).
  • On the lsa-prod-crestron server, navigate to C:\scripts and edit the ClassroomList.txt file. Add the FacilityID to a new line at the bottom and save the file.
  • Open a powershell prompt, and run
    • . 'c:\scripts\SyncClassroomEvents.ps1'
  • Note the Google calendar resource address, which should be the last entry onscreen.
  • Add the Google calendar resource address to the room in the Crestron Fusion user interface using instructions below.
Note: The scheduling panel will not be able to edit reservations for this calendar, it will be view-only.

 

Next, you will need to get the Calendar IDs of all of the Google Calendars in question

Steps to get the Google Calendar ID

  1. Open Google Calendar in a browser
  2. Navigate to the calendar list on the left.
  3. To get to the calendar settings, hover your mouse over the calendar you wish to work on and click the 3 vertical dots that appear to the right of the calendar name. This brings up a drop-down menu. Click "Settings"
  4. It will open the settings for this calendar. Scroll down toward the bottom and you will see a section for "Integrate Calendar". The first item in the list is "Calendar ID." It looks like this:
  5.  
  6. The ID circled in red above is the Calendar ID you will need. Keep these noted (or add them to your spreadsheet), and continue to the next step.

Provisioning on the Crestron Fusion Server

Required Information from previous steps:

  • Device's assigned IP address (or hostname, if relying on DNS)
  • Calendar ID from Google (above)
  • Building and Room Number/Name
  • CTRL-#### for the device itself (Optional but recommended!).

You should have this information already from the above steps.

  1. The server to log into is here (AD credentials -- if you do not have access, please see LSA TS Infrastructure)
  2. See attached video to this KB on provisioning directions. This is typical of single-scheduler rooms for which we have created the room template that is used in the video. Rooms with more than one may require custom setup by someone who knows Crestron Fusion a bit better.

If you wish to verify that the Crestron Fusion server can communicate with the calendar, you can go to the "Setup" menu as shown at the beginning of the video, navigate to the room in the tree to the left, double click it, go to the "Scheduling" tab and use "Verify Mailbox". This will only work *after* the Calendar ID has been entered and the room saved afterward -- you cannot verify the calendar while entering it for the first time.

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