The Software Application & Support Centre (SAS) has developed the PDF documents attached to this article that will help understand Microsoft Bookings, if you have any further questions about using Microsoft Bookings, please contact the Software Application & Support Centre (SAS) via email at sas@smu.ca.
In addition, below are links with more generic information and some generic tips to keep in mind when setting up Bookings.
Microsoft Step by Step Guide
Microsoft Bookings Tutorial Video
Additional Tips
- The Bookings Calendar can see when you have meetings scheduled on your Outlook calendar and will not allow for appointments to be scheduled during other meetings
- The Scheduling policy section on the Booking Page will set your default availability, but individual services can each have their own availability windows that override the default scheduling policy
- Use a good naming convention for your Booking site display name, do not name it the same as an individual. The page will be, by default, available in the global address list, and this could cause confusion. Make the name be unique. For instance, prepend the name of the office - example: IT Services - Collaboration Tools.
- Add Buffer time if you need to allow for transit time between appointments, or if you would like time before the next appointment.
- Set up more than one service to allow for appointment times of varying lengths.
- Change the theme of your booking page to personalize it.
- If you are holding your appointments in a shared resource location (e.g. a meeting room on campus), then create meetings with those resources in your Outlook before publishing your Bookings page. Bookings will not book meeting rooms for you; those have to be done in Outlook.
- Customize the notifications for your services
- Maximum number of attendees for an event is greyed out and set at 1. You can only change the maximum number of attendees when you create a new service from the Services page. Click on Add a service and the Maximum Attendees field should no longer be greyed out.