Microsoft Bookings is a web-based application that integrates to Outlook calendars so that students and colleagues can schedule appointments with faculty and staff. We hope it will provide an intuitive and integrated solution to replace Calendly or other scheduling applications.

Please reach out to IT Support Services with questions or support regarding your options within Bookings.

Access

Bookings is currently accessible via the O365 web application.

The Microsoft shortlink is https://book.ms/

https://outlook.office.com/bookings/

Personal Bookings

Microsoft provides a Personal Bookings account that connects to a user’s Outlook calendar.

If you need to create a Bookings page to manage calendars for more that yourself (your area or department) you will likely need a Shared Bookings page. See below and contact IT Support Services for more information.

If the Bookings page is to help others create meetings with only you, then the Personal Bookings page should be exactly what you need.

You can access this page here: https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/me

Create

The Personal Bookings page has options for Public or Private services. Public services will appear on your booking page, while Private services require users to have a link.

Open

Choose the “+” to create and edit a new meeting type.

Open

Enter the details for your meeting type.

You can use your regular meeting hours (specified in your Outlook settings) or use custom scheduling that you define. For example, you could create a meeting type that only occurs on Tuesdays from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

Share

Once you save one or more meeting types, you can share them via link to your Personal Bookings page or links to individual types.

On the Personal Bookings page, choose the Share menu and select the appropriate option.

Most people will want to copy the link into an email signature or paste into an email or other message.

You can also choose the three dots on an individual meeting type to share that directly.

Shared Bookings

Departments that need to manage services and appointments for several staff may want to use Shared Bookings.

The Personal Bookings page is preferable for scheduling appointments for only yourself.

Please contact IT Support Services with any questions or for help before setting up a Shared Bookings page.

NPU Policy

• All new shared Bookings pages will automatically have the “APPT-” prefix added.

• Business Name: person/team name (e.g., Rita Book, or Sales). Be descriptive and specific, but succinct.

Background

• The “Business Name” (see Bookings Terminology below) becomes the email address and part of the URL for that Bookings calendar.

• The Business Name can easily be changed. The email address and URL cannot be changed. Therefore, the Business Name must be correct before the Bookings site is published the first time.

• In order for you to see all of your Bookings sites (e.g., personal plus departmental), the Bookings email address must be visible to everybody who uses Outlook. That is why it is important to adhere to the Business Name policy; the resulting email address will be visible to everybody. It should be obvious to them which address is for you and which is for your scheduling.

Bookings Terminology

Business

A scheduling page in Bookings is based on a "business." We recommend setting up one business for your individual scheduling and a separate business for each group calendar. Within a business there may be several "services" that you can make available (e.g., Advising, Subject Matter Assistance, Career Counseling).

Services

Each service within a Bookings business can have its own set of appointment parameters, email reminders, and custom questions. For example, an Advising service might have a default duration of 30 minutes, while a Subject Matter Assistance meeting might default to 60 minutes.

NPU Best Practices

Business Name

The Business Name determines the URL (Web address) and underlying email address for a Bookings calendar. Once created, the URL and email address of a Bookings business CANNOT BE CHANGED. Your Business Name should begin with the word "Schedule" followed by a hyphen and then your name or the name of your team: Schedule - person/team name. Calendars with business names that do not meet this standard may need to be replaced, along with their URLs.

Group Calendar

To allow people to schedule appointments with any member of a group, set up a Bookings business and invite the other members as Staff. Each group member can have a separate set of available hours. Individual calendars and bookings can be taken into account when presenting staff availability to end users. Those making appointments can be allowed to choose a specific staff member. As with an individual's calendar (see Business above) a group calendar can present different services, each with its own set of scheduling parameters.

Access Beyond North Park

Whenever possible, IT recommends enabling the option to "require a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 account from my organization to book" in any Bookings business. This option will allow only @northpark.edu accounts to schedule appointments from that Bookings page. That setting will prevent abuse by anonymous users.

A Bookings Example

Professor Rita Book is chair of the Basket Weaving department. She creates a Bookings business named "Schedule - Rita Book" and sets up its business hours to match the time she has set aside for office hours, 1-4pm Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Rita then creates a service within that business named "Basket Weaving Assistance" with a default meeting duration of 60 minutes. The calendar presented to students on the "Schedule - Rita Book" page will only allow the scheduling of "Basket Weaving Assistance" appointments from 1:00 to 4:00 MWF at times when Rita has nothing else scheduled in her Outlook calendar.

During the busy advising period, Rita needs to allow her students to schedule 30 minute advising appointments. She creates another service in her "Schedule - Rita Book" business with a default of 30 minute appointments. When her advising load lessens, she hides that service from her Bookings page. She can re-enable that service at any time.

Later, Rita and her departmental colleagues decide to offer their students opportunities to schedule one-on-one and group meetings for more in-depth explorations of the basket world. Rita creates a new business in Bookings called "Schedule - Basket Case" She schedules available hours to be 6-8pm Wednesdays and adds her departmental colleagues as staff. On the "Schedule - Basket Case" page, students can schedule Wednesday evening sessions with any of the Basket Weaving instructors who are available.

Options with Bookings

Business and Services

Staff