What are communities?
There is the possibility to distinguish between internal and external bookings. You use communities to manage internal bookings.
External bookings (public)
Contains all bookings directly from your public booking page.
Internal bookings (non-public)
Selected resources are made available to members only.
Example of an internal booking:
You want to make workstations available to your employees. Outsiders should not be able to see or book them.To take advantage of communities a member must have an anny account. Learn more: Invite members manually
How do I create a new community?
Click on "Communities" in the left navigation bar
Then click on "New+" at the top right
How to activate the community feature:
Click on your avatar on the upper right corner (three lines)
Account settings
Features
Communities > ON
Now you can also find them in the left navigation bar.
How do I assign resources to a community?
In order for community members to book the right resources, these must be linked to each other.
1. Add organizations
Use the ‘Add organization’ button to assign all resources in your account to your community with a single click.
2. Add resource groups
You can define resource groups yourself to help you organize and manage your admin area. You can create a resource group for each team or building, saving you from having to select individual resources in multiple places.
You can specify resource groups under General Information for the resource.
3. Add resources
Resources can be added to a community individually. Select the individual resources.
4. Add services
For granular access, individual services or booking options can be added to the community.
By default, the ‘select all services’ setting is active. Please deactivate this function to add individual services.
Visibility and access to resources
The visibility of resources/services within a community can be adjusted as needed. The default option for internal resources is ‘visible & bookable only for members’. If you want to publicly display a preview of the membership conditions, you can also select the setting ‘publicly visible & bookable only for members’.
Icon | Explanation | Example |
| This resource is visible and bookable for everyone (e.g., employees) on your booking page. | The resources are public and can also be booked without registration. However, you have connected them in the community so that they are displayed on your members' “Discover” page. |
| This resource is not visible to outsiders; only community members can see and book this resource. | You want to display the member price/conditions publicly, but booking is only possible after the subscription/membership has been completed. |
 | This resource is visible to everyone on your booking page, but only members of the community can book it. | Internal resource management |
How can customers join my community?
You can use two options in your community. There is the Auto-Join button and the Members button.
Option 1: Auto-Join
Activate Auto-Join to automatically add new members based on rules such as email domain. If this function is connected to an Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO), users can access the community's resources immediately without having to log in again.
There are two different options here:
Option | Procedure |
Auto-Join via SSO | Attribute mapping of user groups; User groups from your IDP can be synchronized to anny, and all IT team colleagues are automatically assigned to the anny Community IT. |
Auto-Join via TLD (domain) |
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Auto-Join via automatic joining through booking |
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Pro tip: Newly registered customers are added to the community if their email address matches one of your verified domains.
Option 2: Manual invitation
Option | Procedure |
Invite community members manually |
|
Your members will receive an invitation via email. By clicking on Join now, they will be redirected to the anny booking page.
Member roles
Community members can have different roles within the community:
Members: book & view (avatars of colleagues/name of meeting
Observers: read-only access (who booked which room and when?)
Guests: booking access only, no read access (personal data of the team is protected)
How can members be removed?
Option | Procedure |
Automatic removal with Auto-Join
| As soon as you change your rule in Attribute Mapping for assigning members, all users in the AD group will be removed/reassigned accordingly. |
Manual removal of members |
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Pro tip: The person will not be notified. You can invite removed members again later.
Booking quotas
You can also link communities to booking quotas, allowing you to allocate a quantity, duration, or monetary amount of resources on a one-time or recurring basis, limited to a specific period of time.
You can find more information about quotas here, in our article on booking quotas.
Good to know
Want to automate your communities with SSO and attribute mapping? Click here to set up attribute mapping.
Interested in subscriptions and memberships? Get a first impression in this article.