Booking a lab, a room or equipment
How to find what your centre has, check whether it is free, and request it - plus the difference between requesting a slot and having one.
What you will learn
- What facilities your centre makes available to you
- How to check a specific date before you ask
- Why a booking is a request rather than a reservation
- Where to find what you have booked
What is available to you#
Facilities are whatever your centre has chosen to make bookable - meeting rooms, labs, testing equipment, studio space. What you can see depends on which centre you are associated with, so two startups in different programmes see different lists.
Good to know
If you are associated with more than one incubator, the list is per centre. You are booking that centre's equipment, not a shared pool.
Check the date first#
Each facility has its own availability, and you can look at a specific date before asking for anything. Doing that first saves the round trip of requesting a slot that was never free.
Requesting is not reserving#
You request a booking and somebody at the centre confirms it. Until they do, you do not have the room - which matters if you are arranging anything around it.
Important
Do not invite people to a session in a room you have only requested. Wait for the confirmation, or book far enough ahead that a rejection is not a problem.
What you have booked#
- Requests you have made, and where each one stands
- Upcoming bookings - what is confirmed and coming up
- Past bookings, which is the record if anyone ever asks what you used
