Getting Started with Microsoft Bookings

Overview

The Microsoft Bookings app is available to UO faculty and staff as part of Microsoft 365. It lets you create a web-based booking calendar, integrated with your UOmail calendar, that allows students, colleagues, and non-UO people to self-schedule meetings with you.

Students can interact with Bookings calendars but not create them. Bookings isn't available for departmental/role accounts.

What is a Bookings calendar?

A Bookings calendar actually consists of three components:

1. A web-based booking calendar connected to your existing individual UOmail account, for scheduling coordination.
2. A new, dedicated email address for the Bookings calendar, which will appear in the UO's Global Address List, viewable within UOmail.
3. A new UOmail mailbox for any content relating to your Bookings calendar.

Setting up a Bookings calendar

This page will walk you through the following steps:

1. Naming your Bookings calendar
2. Adding staff to your Bookings calendar
3. Create a service offering
4. Adding staff to a service offering
5. Setting your calendar's visibility and region-based settings (i.e., service availability, page appearance, default availability, and your time zone)

Step 1: Naming your Bookings calendar

Before you create your first Bookings calendar, please select a name. There are two types of calendar names in Bookings: the display name, which appears on the front page of your calendar, and the object name, which appears in UO's Global Address List, a list of UO people and other entities that appears in UOmail and other UO Microsoft services. We'll provide guidance for both of them.

Choosing an object name

First you will choose the object name for your Bookings calendar. We strongly recommend the following to avoid problems with duplicate names in the Global Address List:

• Choose a unique name, different than any other person, Bookings calendar, room, or other entity.
  • Avoid naming it after yourself.
  • If naming it after a course, please specify the term and year.
• Start the name with the following prefix: bookings. 
  • For example, if I want to call my Bookings calendar USS Knowledge Management, I would name it bookings.USS Knowledge Management when setting it up.

Once you've chosen a name, you're ready to create the calendar.

Creating the calendar

1. Log in to UO's Office 365 with your full UO email address and password.
2. You should see the Bookings icon available on the left side of the screen. Select the Bookings app icon to proceed.
   1. If you don't see the Bookings icon, click the app launcher (nine-dot grid) in the upper left, then select All apps and locate Bookings.
3. Click the teal Get it now button.
4. Recommended: Choose Add a booking calendar without entering a name for the calendar yet.
5. In the Business name field, enter the object name you've chosen according to the above guidance — for example: bookings.Econ101Spring2022
6. Complete the Business type field as desired, then select Continue.

The Bookings app interface should then appear.

Adjusting the display name

Once you've created your Bookings calendar, you can change the display name that appears on your calendar page—for example, to delete the bookings. prefix.

1. Go into the Settings for your Bookings calendar.
2. Select Business information.
3. Select Basic details.
4. Edit the Business name field as desired.
5. Click Save.

Now that you have your Bookings calendar, there are a few pieces that need to be completed before your students, colleagues, or customers can use it. 

Back to Steps

Step 2: Adding staff to your Bookings calendar

If you are creating the Bookings calendar, you will be an available staff member with a role of Administrator.

To add additional staff members, click on Settings in your Bookings calendar, select Staff, then Add new staff.

A dialog box will appear and you can add your new staff member's information and set their availability.

You can set their role within the Bookings calendar and set their availability which will interact with the available hours of any of the service offerings built within your Bookings calendar.

Back to Steps

Step 3: Creating a service offering

Service offerings provide the opportunity for your students, colleagues, or customers to interact with your service.

To create a service offering, click on Settings in your Bookings calendar, select Services, then Add new service.

A dialog box will appear and you can add the basic details of for the service offering and its behaviors within Bookings.

Next, set your availability options for this service offering. You can set minimum and maximum lead time requirements, make it available for an online meeting, and how many people can attend at once. Once the basics are entered, you can assign staff to the service offering, set your notification preferences, and set your scheduling and publishing options.

Back to Steps

Step 4: Adding staff to your service offering

Once staff are in your Bookings calendar, you can add them to your service offering. You can add them to a new service offering by selecting the Assign staff option in the service offering's settings. Note: You can also, go into your existing service offering, select Edit, then Assign staff.

The staff member's availability will interact with the available hours of any of the service offerings built within your Bookings calendar automatically. If they are available, you can assign them.

Back to Steps

Step 5: Setting your Booking page settings

Once your service offering is created and staff are assigned to it, you can set your visibility and region-based settings, like default service language and your time zone.

Go into Settings, select Booking page, to view the various options.

Look under the Configure booking page drop-down menu to set your desired visibility for your Bookings calendar.