How to...
use Microsoft Bookings
What is Microsoft Bookings?
Microsoft Bookings is a personalised bookings page that allows people to show their availability for 1-2-1 meetings. It presents a bookings page that allows people to organise a 1-2-1 meeting with the calendar owner. Microsoft Bookings is not designed for managing internal resources like meeting rooms or shared equipment. A personal bookings page also syncs with the user's Outlook and Teams calendar, to prevent double bookings and appointment clashes.
How to access
The Microsoft Bookings application is accessible here: https://outlook.office.com/bookings/homepage Where you can sign in with your normal account details.
How to use
Two ways of using Bookings, either create a meeting that lets the recipient choose a time within a frame that you set, like an invite in Teams via email. Or you can create a Booking page that has its own URL, a bit like a website, from there users can choose an appointment they would like within a timeframe you have set.
Create a bookings page -
- Go to MS Bookings
- Click the ‘Create meeting type’ box under the 'Personal booking page' heading.
- Add a title for your page. This can be your name or course.
- You can set the location to your office or an online Teams meeting
- You can set the duration of the meetings
- Make the calendar Public or Private.
- It would be recommended to untick the box to "Append your personal booking page in your email signature"
- You can then manage your availability for your meetings
- There is a further advanced settings page. If you need more help there is a Microsoft guide available here
Sharing your page –
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On the main homepage select the share icon on your page's tile under the Personal booking page heading. The share icon looks like this
- Then either copy the link provided and share it directly with the users or select the email option to create an email to send out the link directly to users. To see what this looks like you can send a test email to yourself before sending to others.
- If you want to see what your bookings page looks like, you could also copy the link and paste it into your own browser. This will show what others will be able to see.
Tips for Use:
- Keep the Display Name For your calendar to the point. E.G “John Smith – Student Engagement Bookings”
- As mentioned, keep this person based. Once your employment with the University finishes the license will be automatically revoked.
- This is a hosted system surfaced through the Microsoft Office 365 Platform. ITS will not be able to provide much support on this as the administration is done through your own Office365 account.
- If you are going to use a room on-premise to meet physically then ensure you book the room separately.
- Booking Calendars are non-transferable and need to be kept related to you. If you leave the University, you cannot pass the Booking calendar on to your predecessor or colleague.
- Think carefully about the naming of the Booking Calendar – Inappropriate naming or names that are too vague or breach common use may be removed. E.G Finance, HR etc
created on 2024-08-22 by Benoit Sharp
last updated on 2024-10-04 by Michael Taylor