Bookings

Microsoft Bookings: "Book with Me"

Microsoft released a newer version of bookings intended for one person to use for personal appointments, like you are doing with advising.  It has fewer screens to go through than the "old" bookings, which is still available, but was intended more for a business like a hair salon.

It is recommended that all faculty switch to using "Book with me"  Please review this video on that process.

One feature that is not available in "book with me" is to set different times for advising week 1 vs week 2.  To get around that, we recommend setting up time block that encompass all advising times, then putting appointments or blocks on your Outlook calendar to block times that work for one week but not the other.

You can still update your "old" bookings calendar if you wish, continue reading.

Adjusting "old" Bookings if you used it last semester

  1. Update your Staff page with current general availability.  Do not set advising time windows on this page, 8am - 5pm defaults are fine here!
  2. Update your Services page with your specific advising time periods
  3. Check your Outlook calendar and remove anything during advising times, or if you want a "hold" set it to "Free" in Outlook.
  4. Update / verify your Bookings page settings, delete old dates if present, check other settings

First-time setup guides

New users should use "Book with me" shown above

Think about how you currently use your Outlook calendar.  If you use it a lot and have your classes and other commitments on it, go for option 2 below.  If you're a sporadic user and/or want to block out very specific times for advising, option 1 is probably your best bet.

  1. Setting up bookings only for specific time blocks
  2. Setting up bookings based off time windows and appointments currently on my calendar

Go to Bookings...

Note: this video covers the procedure for method 2 above

 

What if...

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I'm getting too many emails

If you're getting multiple emails each time a student books, or don't want any, check through the following places and make sure only one is checked.

  • Staff tab - Edit Staff - Notify the staff member checkbox
  • Services tab - Edit services, Notifications, notify the business (that's you)
  • Booking Page tab - Default scheduling policy, email notifications

A student wants to reschedule or cancel

Ask them to find their confirmation email, they have a special link there to cancel or reschedule.  If they lost their confirmation email, ask them to make a new appointment via your main bookings link, and then cancel their current appointment on your Bookings calendar.  Canceling via Outlook may not free the slot depending on your setup.

I need to reschedule or cancel

You can cancel a booking via your Bookings calendar.

This will notify the student, but you should also follow-up with an email asking them to reschedule during your remaining free times.  You may want to adjust your bookings availability on your Services page so the bad times are no longer available. 

There is an illness and we need to meet online

There is currently no way to add a Teams link to an existing appointment through Bookings.  Use Outlook to create a "duplicate" meeting at the correct time and date, and enable Teams, and then send this meeting to the student, or just send them the link.

Hey, I like this and want to use it for office hours or something else!

Great!  Just setup a new service with the hours you'd like to be available for it, on your bookings page then students will see Advising and Office hours.  You can delete the Advising service when that period is over and set it up again next time.

The times are off by an hour or more

Check your time zone setting at https://portal.office.com under the settings gear icon. Make sure it is set to Central time.  Also check the time zone settings on your Bookings Page settings, under region.  If you are actually working in a different time zone then have your PC set to the local time and use the Outlook desktop client, that will make the necessary adjustments for you so your calendar remains accurate, while other Bookings users still see Central time.