Scheduling with the Bookings App to Save Time

We love using the functionality that comes out of the box in Microsoft 365 to save time or make it easier to get our work done.  Two things we were working on recently made me appreciate how powerful one of these hidden gems is…I’m sure we saved hours of going backwards and forwards trying to find mutually agreeable times to meet with people!

BTW – you can attend a 1-hour course to learn all the ins and outs of how the Microsoft Bookings App works in our instructor led online class 20 February 2024 – Only $55!

1. Speaker Interviews

Pretty soon you’ll be able to watch some little videos of the amazing speakers at the Digital Workplace Conference NZ 2024, answering some hairy interview questions.  Each speaker needed to meet with Danielle (our wonderful conference administrator) online for their interview – and there were 36 of them.  Quite a time-consuming task to get them all booked in at a time that suited them as well as us.  Enter Microsoft Bookings!

First, we set up a service called Speaker Interview – this is essentially an appointment type.  What makes it especially useful is the specifics you can add into an appointment type, like:

• Make appointments based on Danielle’s Outlook calendar availability – but ONLY on Wednesdays in Oct / Nov.
• Each appointment would have an added buffer time in Danielle’s calendar.  That buffer time gets marked as time she is unavailable, so no 2 appointments get booked right butted up against one another.
• Teams meeting link would be included.
• Information we needed about each speaker in advance was collected as part of the booking process.
• Both the speaker and Danielle were sent a confirmation email and a calendar invite.

2. Private Virtual Classes

We had a client booking a series of one-hour virtual classes for people in their company over a 16 week period.  Two trainers have to be available for each of those virtual classes.  We could have sat there with multiple Outlook calendars open looking for days and times that would be suitable, and then emailing all those to the client so they could choose which ones they wanted.  But that takes ages – and what if none of those timeslots suited them?  We’d have to do that all over again!  Bookings to the rescue again! 

This time the service (which we already had and use for other clients as well) is called 1-hour Virtual Class:

• It doesn’t have an online meeting link: the client creates their own meeting invite to their staff which would have the Teams meeting link created from within their environment. 
• It has a 30-minute buffer time before and a 15-minute buffer time afterwards – that gives the trainers time to get sorted out before the start and make sure they can take a bio break before their next meeting starts. 
• It needs 2 people to be available – so those staff are added in to that service and both their calendars will be checked when providing possible timeslots to the client.  

Want to read some of Microsoft’s great case study examples?

Want to experience what it’s like to book an appointment using Bookings?  Visit Microsoft’s sample pages to have a go: Financial services, Healthcare or Education.

Are there any ‘gotchas’?  Yup!

• Staff MUST keep Outlook calendars up to date – including blocking out any time they need to protect
• Like everything – it does not suit every scenario – there are some things it is not going to work for!
• Sometimes automated email confirmations / invitations go into client’s junk email!  Also some people on Google platform had quite unfriendly formatted confirmation emails / invites.
• People booking appointments who have a Microsoft account but no Exchange mailbox associated with it may get an error message – if they use an in-private/incognito browser this should resolve that issue.
• There are a few more… register for the next virtual class if you’re still hungry to know more about Bookings!