O365 Bookings
What is Bookings
Microsoft Bookings provides an easy way to schedule and manage appointments through a web-based booking system. The Bookings calendar can integrate with Staff Member’s Outlook calendar in order to streamline their availability. Bookings can also be integrated and viewed in Microsoft Teams.
Get Access to Bookings
Only Office 365 A3 (or greater – faculty, Staff & Students should have A5 licenses now) licenses have access to Microsoft Bookings. Office 365 A1 licenses do not have access to Bookings. Most faculty and staff should have A3 or A5 licenses, but some may not. If you do not have access to the Bookings app, please contact the Software and Application Support (SAS) or EIT
Accessing a New Booking form
- Navigate to Office.
- Sign in with your @smu.ca email address and password.
- On the left navigation bar, select the All apps button at the bottom left corner.
- Find and select the Bookings icon. If you do not see the Bookings icon, click on All apps and type Bookings in the search box. If still does not show up, please contact EIT or SAS to check your Office 365 license
Creating a New Booking Form
- Once you select the Bookings icon from the Office Home Page, a new tab will open in your browser. Click on the Get it now button in the new tab.
- A pop-out window will appear. Select Add a booking calendar.
- Fill in the Business name text box with the desired title of your Bookings calendar (for example, Professor Carlton’s Office Hours). In the Business type text box, start typing Universities and select Colleges & Universities from the drop-down menu.
- Click on Continue. Once the new Bookings calendar is created, you will get an email notifying you that the calendar is ready (it may take a few minutes to load and for the email to send, please leave the browser and tab open while you wait).
-
We recommend using the New Bookings Experience. To enable this option, toggle on the Try the new Bookings button at the top-right corner of the screen.
Setup a New Booking Page
- Now that you are all set with a new Bookings calendar, click Settings on left navigation bar and you will be able to manage your booking page.
-
Under Business page access control, please make sure the use newest version of Bookings box is checked. There is also an option to require a one-time password to create bookings that can be selected according to preferences.
- Customer data usage consent can be used to select whether users see a message and choose whether you can collect their data.
-
From the Booking page, click on the Default scheduling policy drop down menu and select the Time increments that you would like appointments to be scheduled for from the drop-down menu. (You can also select Minimum and Maximum lead times for bookings and cancellations by editing the numbers on the relevant boxes.
-
If you would like to automatically have a meeting invitation sent to individuals for their Bookings appointment, select the Send a meeting invite to the customer under Email notifications. For the Staff control option, this allows individuals to book appointments for services where there are more than one staff member to chose from.
How to save and share link of the Booking page
After everything is set up in the Booking page, please select save at the top of the screen to make sure any/all changes are being saved. Once everything is saved and ready to go, you can find the link to the Booking page you just created and will be able to share or embed or copy the link and share it
How to view your Booking page
You can click on the link provided under Your booking page to view your booking page in a new tab.
Customize your page allows you to choose a color theme (can also be customized by checking the set custom color box and display business logo on your booking page.
Region and time zone settings allows to set the language and current time zone of the calendar. You can also force the calendar to show attendees the business time zone instead of the time zone where the attendee is located.
Next, we want to set up the basic information of the Bookings Calendar. This can be found under the Business Information tab of the Settings.
Business Information
-
Basic Details – Basic details allows you to write the name of your business, address, phone number, email address for customer replies, website URL, privacy URL, terms and condition URL, currency, and the business type.
- Privacy policy and Terms and conditions tab allows you to link to the URL where these resources are kept – this is typically not used at SMU
- Business Logo – Here you can enter your department’s logo or enter the New SMU logo, found here
-
Business Hours - Enter the general availability for the business hours – or your general availability. You can also click the + button next to the day of interest to add split shifts.
When you are finished entering all the Business Information, click the Save button at the top of the page.
The next thing to do after setting up the Business Information and Booking Page is to set up which staff members will be bookable through the Bookings Calendar. Go to Settings, then select the Staff tab.
Staff Tab
To add new staff to the Bookings Calendar, click Add new staff
A new window will open. Here you can search for the person you want to add (using @smu.ca email address), their role (see descriptions below), set the colour you want them to appear as, edit their availability, etc. Click on Save changes when complete.
- Administrator - Administrators can edit all settings, add and remove staff, and create, edit and delete bookings.
- Scheduler - Schedulers can manage bookings on the calendar. They have read-only access to settings, staff, and services.
- Team member - Members can manage bookings on their own calendar and their availability in the booking mailbox. When adding or editing a booking in their calendar, they’ll be assigned as staff.
- Viewer - Viewers can see all the bookings on the calendar. They cannot modify or delete them. They have read-only access to settings.
- Guest - Guests can be assigned to bookings but they can’t open the booking mailbox.
- Overview tab – consists of upcoming appointments, contact info, and services they can be booked for.
- Contact tab – shows contact information.
- Calendar and Availability tab – shows their availability and appointments.
- Services tab – shows which services they can be booked for.
Once staff have been added to the Bookings Calendar, it is time to create different Services. Services (in the case for SMU) are the same as appointments. Here you can add multiple different services (i.e. 1 hour consult, Office Hours, 3-hour exam help session, 15-minute quick help, etc.)
Services
From the left navigation bar, under Settings, click on Services. Now, there is an option to search for services as well as add a new service. Click on add a new service and a window will pop up.
Basic Details
In the basic detail section, you will first create a service name for the service you are creating. This will later appear in the drop-down menu on the calendar page. Add a description which explains what this service is about. Finally, you can add a Location if needed.
Add online meeting, this button will enable or disable online Teams meetings for every appointment.
When enabled, a link will be added to the bookings calendar event on both the user’s calendar and the Staff member’s calendar.
Duration can be used to set up the length of the meeting (i.e. 30 minute or 60 minute slots). We recommend enabling buffer time, this allows the staff member to block some extra time at the end of the meeting. For example, if you set an hour-long appointment that ended at 1:00pm, and you set a 10-minute buffer time to gather your thoughts and prepare for the next meeting. The staff member’s calendar would show as busy and non-bookable until 1:10pm.
Price not set – Not used at Saint Mary’s University.
Maximum number of attendees can be changed to 1 or more. This setting allows multiple users to book a particular appointment at the same time. The recommended setting for Saint Mary’s is 1 (i.e. 1 student per meeting).
Let the customer manage their booking, meaning if the Booking’s calendar admin or a staff member manually books an appointment for someone (i.e. a student) the student is able to manage their booking (i.e. change meeting time, cancel, etc.). It is recommended to enable this option.
Availability Options
Here you can set the time increments of the appointment (i.e. I only want students to schedule 30 minutes appointments with me).
You can also set the minimum and maximum lead time (how soon/far in advance can a student schedule an appointment with me). It is suggested to lower the Maximum Lead time to 2 weeks (you don’t want a student in the Fall semester booking an appointment with you in the summer term). Make sure to toggle off Default scheduling options if you want to change the lead times.
Leave all other options as default.
Assign Staff
Here you can assign certain staff members to a service. For example, in a lab help session you can add all the TA’s to be bookable. In the case of office hours, it would only be the instructor that is bookable.
Custom Fields
Custom fields allow you to collect additional information from the user that signs up for the service (i.e. what do you need help with? What form needs to be signed). You can make this question required or optional.
Reminders and Notifications
Here you can customize the reminders and notifications for your service. You can customize reminder emails, additional information for confirmation emails, etc.
To the right of the service window, there will be a similar layout of options as in Staff Overview discussed earlier. After all the changes have been made, make sure to Save changes before closing the window
Add time off for individual staff members and schedule holiday closures
Under the Calendar tab, select the Add time off button to add time off for specific staff members.
A new window will open. Set the time off for the staff member and remember to select the relevant staff member. Click Create time off
If you want to schedule a closure, repeat the above steps but select all staff.
How to delete a booking calendar
Email EIT (helpdesk@smu.ca) with the Bookings Calendar name indicating that you would like the calendar deleted.
Use Bookings in Teams
The Microsoft Bookings app for Teams is only available in the desktop version of the Teams app.
To add the Bookings app in Teams, click the Apps button on the bottom left-hand side and search for Bookings and click Add
Once added to Teams, you will also be able to access another tab called Bookings in the Teams calendar to view Bookings information.
Bookings Calendar in Teams
If this is your first time using the Bookings app for Teams, click the … on the left-hand side and search for and select Bookings. Then click Get started.
You can create a New Bookings calendar in Teams, or access an existing calendar. Setting up a New bookings calendar is similar to the steps above, although you do not get access to as many settings. To select an existing bookings calendar, select the bottom button, then search for the name of your Bookings calendar hit enter and select the pop-up name of your Bookings Calendar. Then click Done.
Note: all Bookings calendars are searchable in the Saint Mary’s organization, but you will only have access to the ones that you are a Viewer/Team member/Scheduler/Admin of.
The Bookings calendar in Teams will show you the schedule of your staff on a day-by-day view
You can click the date to bring up the calendar and select another date to view staff members’ availability. You can also schedule a New booking by clicking the +New booking button. This will provide you with a variety of options, similar to the manually booking an appointment in the above sections
Once all the fields are filled in, you can click the Send button at the top-right to schedule the Bookings appointment. A confirmation email will go out to Attendee and the Staff member with a link to the Teams meeting (if applicable)
If you need to manage settings of the Bookings calendar, it can be done in the Teams Bookings app. To access settings, click the More options button … and select Settings
The settings tab will allow you to make changes to the Business details, appointment types, and *add/edit/remove staff members depending on your role within the Bookings calendar.
Note: the settings are limited in the app. To access all of the settings available, please use the web version of Bookings.
Tips
- 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 unique. For instance, the name of the class –‘ Intro to Geological Processes 1201 – Fall 2022’.
- Change the theme of your booking page to personalize it.
- Customize the notifications for your services.
- 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. Be sure to select this setting when adding staff.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
