How many times have you double-booked yourself, forgotten about an appointment, or assigned the wrong team member to a meeting? Probably more times than you’re willing to admit! Calendar and schedule management can be tricky, especially if you’re trying to do it manually.
Microsoft Bookings is a free app that is part of the Microsoft 365 Suite. If your business pays for a Microsoft 365 subscription, it’s a free resource to help you streamline bookings and appointments for your team. Instead of manually scheduling appointments, Bookings offers a simple, streamlined option to keep track of appointments throughout the day, week, or year.
Benefits of Microsoft Bookings
With so many different calendar and scheduling apps out there, you may wonder why Bookings is worth your time. As IT professionals who are familiar with various Microsoft apps, we can easily say that there are many benefits of Bookings for your organization!
Advantages of Using Microsoft Bookings to Manage your Calendar:
- Free Microsoft app with Microsoft 365 subscription—no need to pay for a new calendar service.
- Easily integrates with Microsoft Teams to ensure everyone is up to date on current appointments and scheduling.
- Option to use Bookings from desktop, mobile, or tablets.
- Customizable based on your needs. You can adjust your appointment offerings, notifications, reminders, and other details that help both your team and clients easily manage their calendars.
If your team already uses Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft apps, incorporating Bookings into your workflow is an easy decision. It’ll streamline your process and make things simple for your team and clients.
How to Create and Customize a Bookings Calendar
Within Bookings, you can create as many calendars as you require. For example, you may create one calendar for the IT department, who offers 30-minute consultation appointments. Another calendar can then be created for the HR department, who uses the app to schedule interviews.
Let’s start by creating one calendar in the Bookings App. Follow the steps below or watch the video tutorial to create your own Bookings calendar for your organization.
Step 1: Open Bookings App
- Go to Office.com and sign in with your company login information.
- Go to “All Apps” and click Bookings.
Step 2: Create a new Bookings Calendar
- Open the Bookings app and click “Create a new calendar” on the home page.
- Input information about your company, what you offer, and the parameters of your appointment offerings. You can include information such as work hours, other colleagues to include, your services (i.e., IT support session for 30 minutes), and permissions for who can book.
Step 3: Review and Manage Your Calendar
Once you’ve made a calendar, you can book appointments, assign staff, and manage all bookings. This is what the homepage looks like.
1. Open Bookings page to manage settings and view the calendar
2. The “calendar” page shows you all the current appointments
3. The “booking page” shows you the settings and options for set up. From here you can customize:
- Business access control.
- Password protection.
- Data collection and consent.
- When people can book appointments.
- Notifications and meeting invites.
- Staff availability to take appointments.
- Color and layout customization.
- Time zone to be displayed for the person making a booking.
Step 4: Integrate Bookings with Microsoft Teams
To get the most out of MS Bookings, you’ll want to integrate it with Microsoft Teams.
- Go to “Apps” in MS Teams.
- Search for and click “Bookings” to add it to the Teams homepage.
- Review your Bookings schedule in Teams from two different views. From the “Schedule” view, you can see what team member has appointments and when they’re booked. The “Queue” view will give you an overview of the upcoming appointments.
- Review specific details of an appointment by clicking on it. It will open a window with details, where you can add notes, send an email, or text a reminder.
We always recommend spending some time playing around with the different settings and familiarizing yourself with the platform. MS Bookings is a great tool with tons of customizable options to give your team exactly what they need to stay organized and streamline their schedule and appointments.
Managed IT Services and Microsoft Consulting
If you are looking for more simple, effective, and easy to implement IT tips and tricks, make sure to follow along with us at the Kite Technology Group YouTube Channel . Our goal is to provide you with a variety of resources to help you maximize the value you get from Microsoft 365 and the technology you use.
And, if you’re looking for something more, take some time to look around our website to learn more about our Managed IT and Consulting Services. We provide strategic IT solutions to help you achieve your objectives and drive business performance.
Our proven process starts with discovering your company’s unique needs and goals, deploying best-in-class technology solutions, and continuing to delight you with proactive maintenance and on-demand help desk support. Contact us today to get started!
Adam Atwell
Cloud Solutions Officer
Kite Technology Group
