Microsoft Bookings is a tool that simplifies the process of scheduling and managing bookable meetings.
Features include:
- Booking Page: A page for users to select and book available appointments.
- Appointment scheduling: Set up recurring bookable slots based on your or your teams availability
- Integrated with Outlook: Meetings booked through a booking page are automatically added to calendars.
- Personal or Shared Bookings: Users can create their personal booking page or shared booking pages for meetings run by more than one person.
Use for:
Online Office Hours, Support Sessions, meetings that require one or more users to book a slot.
Example video: Create a Booking Page for Office Hours using MS Bookings
Alternatives:
- Use Webinars for non-recurring online sessions that require sign-up options for users.
- Create recurring meetings for drop-in meetings without a sign-up
Personal Booking Page
Users can set up a personal booking page to share bookable slots for 1:1 meetings.
The example below shows a Personal Booking Page with two types of meetings available for booking. Users choose the meeting they want to book for and then select a date and time for the meeting.
Create new Meeting type
Open Outlook in a browser > Click on ‘More apps’ icon > Select ‘Bookings’
Once the Bookings App has opened, click on ‘Create meeting type’
The ‘New meeting type’ dialogue opens.
Add a Title and a description and check that Teams meeting is enabled in the location field.
Select the length for appointment slots from the dropdown next to clock icon.
Meeting will be set to ‘Public’ by default. Set the meeting to ‘Private’ if you don’t want it to appear on you Personal Booking page and share it via a link instead.
Schedule Meeting Slots
By default, meetings slots will become available for booking when you appear as free on your calendar.
Click on the ‘Use my regular meeting hours’ dropdown and select ‘Use customised availability hours’.
If you want to restrict the meeting to specific time frames, tick ‘Only during the following data range’ and specify a start and end date.
Select the days and times when the meeting slots should be available for booking.
- Click on the button with an ‘x’ to remove a slot.
- Click on the button with a ‘+’ to create an additional slot for a weekday.
- Select a start and end date for each slot.
Set scheduling intervals and lead time for bookings
Click on ‘Advanced options’
Note: Avoid using ‘Buffers’ for short booking periods. A 5 minute buffer will reduce a one hour booking period with three 20 minute meetings to a 55 minute slot that can only accommodate two 20-minute meetings.
Set the interval with which meetings will appear on the booking page. The Limit start time value should match or exceed the duration you defined for booking slots.
Example:
Meeting duration and Interval are set to 15 minutes each:
Booking calendar will show 4 meetings per hour at 00, 15, 30 and 45 minutes past the hour
Meeting duration set to 15 minutes and Interval set to 20 minutes:
Booking calendar will show 3 meetings per hour at 00, 20 and 40 minutes past the hour.
- Set the minimum lead time to define when the meetings become unavailable for booking
- Set the maximum lead time to define when a meeting opens for booking
Click the ‘Save’ button at the top of the page to complete the set-up
Manage Bookings
Add a ‘free’ placeholder link to your calendar
Meetings will only appear in your calendar once a user has booked a meeting slot.
If you want to add a reminder of your bookable meeting times to your personal calendar, create a meeting that shows your status as ‘free’. If your status were set to busy, the Booking Page would not show any bookable slots.
Share a booking link
Open the Bookings App from Outlook and select a share option for the Personal bookings page. This will allow users to book any ‘public’ meeting.
Alternatively, click on the share option of a meeting type to share a link that only shows appointments for the meeting. This option can be used for private or public meetings.
Access booked meetings
Booked meetings will appear in your calendar and you will receive an email when a slot has been booked.
Open your calendar and click on the meeting to join, edit or cancel the meeting if needed.
The meeting will show the name of the person who booked
Hide Bookings from all users
You can hide all bookings by clicking on the 3 dots to the right of the Personal bookings page section on the Bookings app. This will disable bookings for all private or public meetings until you switch it on again.
Shared booking page
Shared booking pages allow multiple users to book for one meeting, or multiple organisers to manage the booking and running of meetings.
Shared bookings must be set up from the Bookings Page in Outlook to work correctly.
Users create a shared booking page and add ‘services’ to the booking page. Service are a series of bookable meetings or an individual bookable meetings.
Shared Booking pages can’t be deleted. Avoid setting up multiple test pages.
Create a Shared Booking Page
Open Outlook in a browser > Click on ‘more apps’ > Select ‘Bookings’
Click on ‘Create booking page’ in the ‘Shared booking pages’ section and follow the step by step instructions on screen.
Set up your shared booking page | Microsoft Learn
On the page for the shared booking, click on Business information to check the business hours are set correctly. If they do not appear correct, check that your calendar is set to the correct time zone for the UK.
Click on ‘Staff’ to add additional team members and assign them an appropriate role, eg Administrator if they will manage and create meetings for the shared booking page.
You are now ready to add a service, usually a series of bookable meetings.
Add and configure Services
To create a service, click on ‘Services’ > click on ‘Add new service’.
You can add multiple services to one Booking Page.
Services can be set up as:
- 1:1 – a meeting with one member of the team for one attendee
- 1:N – a meeting with one member of the team for multiple attendees
- N:1 – a meeting with multiple members of staff for one attendee
- N:N – a meeting with multiple members of the team for multiple attendees
Basic Details
Disable ‘Default scheduling policy’ unless you want to schedule meeting during working hours for any time of the day when staff appear as free on their calendar.
Add a title, description and enable ‘Add online meeting’ and set the duration for each bookable slot.
Set the maximum number of attendees for meetings with multiple attendees.
The attendee number can only be edited after the initial set-up if 2+ attendees were specified when the service is first created.
Availability Options
Set the time increments (intervals) at which the meeting will appear on the booking page and the lead times.
Click on ‘Availability Options’ and set ‘General availability’ to ‘Customised hours (recurring weekly)’ for meetings running every week.
Alternatively set ‘General availability’ to ‘Not bookable’ and use ‘Set different availability for a date range’ for meeting not available every week.
Assign staff to the Service
Staff can be added to the service when the Booking page is created or edited at a later point.
When setting up a service, team members will show under ‘Select Staff’ and can be assigned to the service by ticking their name.
Use ‘Assign any of your selected staff for an appointment’ to create meetings by one team member (1:1, 1:N).
Use ‘Assign all of your selected staff’ for an appointment to run meeting with multiple staff members (N:1, N:N).
Edit service
Hover over a service name on the Shared Booking page and click on the ‘pen’ icon.
Share link to a specific service
Click on the service name on the Shared Booking Page > Click on ‘Service Details’ > Hover over the Service booking page and click on the ‘copy’ icon.
Share link to Shared Booking Page
Go to the start page of the Bookings app > click on the ‘share’ link of the Shared Booking page
