Microsoft Bookings is an online scheduling tool that allows clients to book appointments with individuals, departments, units, and organizations. There are two versions of Bookings:
When should I use a personal booking page (Bookings with me)?
- When you want to schedule interviews
- When you want to set up client meetings
- When you want to schedule technical support
- When you want to set up an office or mentoring hours
- When you want to set up 1:1 meetings with direct reports
- When you want to schedule virtual meetings with Teams or in-person meetings.
When should I use a shared booking page?
- When you want to schedule interviews or meetings with multiple individuals.
- When you want to schedule meetings with a particular office.
- When you want to schedule virtual meetings with Teams or Zoom or in-person meetings.
Microsoft Bookings (Shared)
Microsoft Bookings (Shared) is an advanced online scheduling tool designed for scheduling for a group of people.
Creating a New Bookings Calendar
- Visit the Bookings homepage at https://outlook.office.com/bookings/
- If you are not prompted to set up your first Bookings calendar automatically, click the Create New Calendar button.
- Click Create from Scratch.
- Give your new Bookings calendar a name. Type a name that represents the purpose of your booking calendar in the Name textbox. Do not use generic names, including "Ithaca College." While Ithaca College or your department's official name may be a part of your new booking calendar, it should not be the entire booking calendar name. Examples of good booking calendar names include Professor Smith's Office Hours or IT Service Desk Drop-In Appointment.
- Select a business type that's relevant to your department or organization in the Business Type drop-down, or you may leave this blank.
- Select your business hours which are hours that you are generally available, exclusive of your service hours or personnel hours.
- Click Next.
- Invite staff by searching for people in the College, and assign them an appropriate role. Most will be an administrator or team member.
- Click Next.
- Set up your first service by customizing its name, duration, availability, time, and type.
- Click Next.
- Set up who can book appointments, whether it's just people at the College or anyone.
- Click Create Calendar.
- In the left-side pane, review and configure each section (Calendar, Booking page, Customers, Staff, Services, Business Information) before publishing your page.
Open Existing Bookings Calendar
To open an existing Bookings calendar:
- Visit the Bookings homepage at https://outlook.office.com/bookings/
- Click your Bookings page.
Microsoft Bookings (Personal)
Microsoft Bookings (Personal) in Outlook is a personal scheduling page that integrates with your free/busy information from your Outlook calendar and allows people to schedule a meeting with you. You both get an email confirmation, and attendees can update or cancel scheduled meetings with you from your 'Bookings with me' page.
Creating a Meeting
Meeting types can be public or private. Public meeting types are available to anyone that you share your Bookings page link with. Private meeting types are only available to people that you share the individual private meeting type with. Private meeting types can also generate single-use links which expire after their first booking.
- Visit the Bookings with me homepage at https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/me
- Click + next to Public or Private to create a public or private meeting type.
- Configure the meeting type with a title, category, description, location, whether it is an online Teams meeting, duration, type (public or private), and whether it uses your regular meeting hours or not. Advanced options include customizing the buffer time before and after a meeting, limiting start times to specific intervals, and modifying lead times.
- Click Save.
Sharing Your Meeting Links
You can share out your personal Bookings with me page with anyone who needs to book personal meetings with you:
- Visit the Bookings with me homepage at https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/me
- Click the Share button.
- Click Copy link to share your Bookings with me page with anyone.
- Click Share via email to email your Bookings with me page with anyone.
- Click Add to email signature to add your Bookings with me page on your email signature in Microsoft Outlook.
If you created a public meeting type:
- Visit the Bookings with me homepage at https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/me
- Next to the public meeting item, click the ellipsis and click Copy link. You can share this link with anyone and include it in your email signature. You can also click Share to email the link to someone.
If you created a private meeting type:
- Visit the Bookings with me homepage at https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/me
- Next to the private meeting item, click the ellipsis and click Copy link. You can share this non-expiring link with anyone. Click Copy single-use link to share a single-use link with anyone. You can also click Share to email both a non-expiring and a single-use link to someone.
Further reading