Microsoft Bookings can be used to easily schedule meetings, check-ins, office hours with students, and more. Appointments appear in your Microsoft 365 calendar in Outlook and Teams. Bookings helps optimize your schedule, gives others the flexibility to book a time that works best for them, and uses automated notification emails to reduce no-shows.

With built-in flexibility and the ability to customize appointment types, Bookings is a tool worth checking out. Bookings is available to most faculty and staff (including student employees). For more information about Bookings licensing, see Eligibility for Microsoft 365.

For more information, instructions, and self-paced training, see: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/publish-your-business-calendar-online-with-microsoft-bookings-47403d64-a067-4754-9ae9-00157244c27d

Use Microsoft Bookings when you need self-service scheduling for repeatable appointment types, including faculty office hours, academic advising, career coaching, IT or service desk appointments, consultations, group events, workshops, trainings, and shared team services.

• Offer self-service appointment scheduling for one-on-one or group services

• Manage many appointments across one or more staff members

• Let multiple attendees reserve seats for the same event or service time

• Create both in-person and virtual appointments

• Send automatic confirmations and reminders

• Add custom questions to collect goals, discussion topics, accessibility needs, preparation details, or other information before the appointment

• Publish availability to people inside or outside the university, depending on the setup

1. Go to https://bookings.cloud.microsoft/bookings/ . If prompted, sign in with your UT Microsoft 365 email address or your IID (Your-EID@eid.utexas.edu).

2. From the Bookings home page, manage your personal booking page and any shared booking pages you have access to.

A personal booking page is tied to one person’s Microsoft 365 account and is useful when others need to schedule time directly with that person. This works well for office hours, consultations, and meetings that are primarily owned by one person. You can define appointment types, control duration and availability, add buffer time between meetings, and share the booking link by email, on a website, or in other communications.

To set up a personal booking page, go to the Bookings home page, choose Go to my booking page, then create public or private booking services for the types of appointments you offer.

For more information about Personal Bookings and how to set it up, see Microsoft’s documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/create-new-meeting-type?view=o365-worldwide and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/personal-bookings-faq?view=o365-worldwide

A Shared Bookings page is a Microsoft Bookings calendar used when a service is delivered by a team rather than one individual. It gives customers one place to book appointments based on team availability, lets multiple staff members be assigned to services, and allows administrators or schedulers to manage appointments on behalf of the group.

For more information about Shared Bookings and how to set it up, see Microsoft’s documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/enter-business-information?view=o365-worldwide

To learn about different staff roles, see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/staff-roles?view=o365-worldwide

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Bookings relies on availability rules and, in many cases, Microsoft 365 calendars. In shared environments, local setup decisions matter. Some organizations use a staff member’s calendar directly, while others manage work hours inside Bookings.

Buffer time is especially helpful for setup, travel, notes, or follow-up. Although customers do not directly manage those buffer settings, the buffer still affects what time slots appear as available.

A one-hour appointment with a 15-minute pre-appointment buffer requires at least 75 minutes of actual availability.

Yes! Bookings allows for scheduling virtual appointments via Teams: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/bookings-overview?view=o365-worldwide#microsoft-bookings-lets-you-conduct-virtual-meetings

Use a combination of individual staff availability and Bookings-level closures, depending on what needs to be blocked:

• For an individual staff member: add time off in Bookings, or create a Busy/Out of Office event on that person’s calendar if Bookings uses their calendar availability.

• For one-off days, such as a staff event for your department: block the time at the service level or business level in Bookings so customers cannot book during that window.

• For University closures or longer periods of time: set a closure at the business level, or update affected services, so the closure applies consistently across the booking page.

For instructions, see Microsoft’s guidance here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/schedule-closures-time-off-vacation?view=o365-worldwide

To get started and set your department and customers up for success:

1. Get everyone on the same page about scheduling expectations: Decide how the team will use Bookings with customers and how staff should keep their Microsoft 365 calendars up to date.

2. Create the Bookings page and add services: Set up the page, add the staff members who will take appointments, and define each service, including duration, availability, location, and any customer questions.

3. Test the experience before sharing it widely: Book a sample appointment, confirm that staff and customers receive the expected notifications, and check that calendar availability, buffers, and service settings work as intended.

4. Share the booking link with customers: Publish or send the link through the places customers already use, such as websites, course materials, service pages, or email signatures.

Yes! Bookings can be used to allow a customer to book an appointment with a student employee or to assign tasks to a student employee during their shift. A shared Bookings calendar allows for seeing all appointments and easily reassigning an appointment to a different staff member.

If you need more workflow control, Microsoft Bookings can be paired with Power Automate.

• Power Automate is well integrated with Microsoft 365 apps and services

• Flows can run from manual actions or automated triggers

• This can help connect Bookings events to notifications, follow-up actions, or other business processes

• If you are new to Power Automate, iterative testing is often the most effective way to learn what works

For more, see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/power-automate-integration?view=o365-worldwide