Applicable plans: ❌ The free plan, ❎ The complete plan

💡 If your meeting rooms are constantly booked but mysteriously empty, the check-in feature might be your new best friend.

This feature cancels ghost meetings automatically — freeing up space for others who actually need it.

1. How to it works?

No changes needed! Just create an event in Outlook or in your Teams calendar, as usual—invite your colleagues and add the meeting room. If the meeting room has a check-in policy, Waldo will handle the rest. ✅

2. Give consent to connect with Microsoft 365

First thing to do is to give consent to the Waldo app. Go to 👉 https://admin.hellowaldo.app/policies

Under Room policies, click Consent. ✅ You must use a Microsoft 365 admin account

3. Create a check-in policy

• Go to Policies and click Add Room Policy
• Give your policy a clear name (e.g. Check-in within 2 hours)
• Select a building and one or more meeting rooms

⚠️ No meeting room in the list? You probably haven’t added them in Waldo yet.
Here’s how to configure your meeting rooms

4. First notification time

Define when Waldo sends the first reservation notification.

Only the organizer receives this notification, by email, and can confirm or cancel the meeting. If no action is taken, nothing happens.

5. Who can check-in

When enabled, Waldo cancels the reservation if it isn’t confirmed before the check-in deadline.

You can allow check-in by the organizer only, or by both the organizer and attendees.

⚠️ If one user clicks Cancel and another clicks Confirm, the meeting is canceled.

6. Check-in deadline and second notification

Set the check-in deadline. If no one confirms by this time, the meeting is automatically canceled.

Waldo sends a second notification 15 minutes before the check-in deadline. ℹ️ This setting cannot be changed.

The second notification is sent to those allowed to check in — either the organizer only, or both the organizer and attendees.

Example:

If the deadline is 30 minutes before the meeting starts, Waldo sends a reminder 45 minutes before the meeting and cancels it 30 minutes before if still unconfirmed.

7. Instant bookings

When a user books a meeting room before the first notification time, nothing happens.

Example:

If the first notification time is set to 4 hours before, and Bob books a meeting room at 11 a.m. for a 2 p.m. meeting, no notification is sent. Waldo won't interfere.

8. Workflow overview

Here's an overview of the process:

9. Room booking and Check-in strategies

Depending on your goals, you may want to apply different strategies.

Freeing up rooms in advance:

If many meeting rooms are booked but remain unoccupied and you want others to be able to reserve them, set the check-in deadline well before the meeting (for example, the day before).

Making rooms available for instant meetings:

If many rooms are booked but unused and you want them to become available for spontaneous use, set the check-in deadline shortly before the meeting starts (for example, 5 minutes before).

Measuring actual room occupancy:

If your goal is simply to track how occupied your meeting rooms are, set the check-in deadline during the meeting or even after it ends (for example, 2 hours after it starts).

10. Licenses for the meeting room check-in feature

If the Waldo app is not installed, users will be prompted to add Waldo to Microsoft Teams when they check in for the first time.
⚠️ During the beta phase, you don’t need to assign licenses to these users. After the beta phase, make sure all meeting participants have a Waldo license. No license = no email notification = no check-in = lost reservation.

🪄 Once it’s set, Waldo will take care of the rest. Less ghost meetings. More space for real ones.

11. Check-In Outcomes Summary

The following table summarizes the outcomes of different check-in scenarios:

This table illustrates how the Waldo check-in feature automatically manages meeting room reservations to prevent ghost meetings.