How to Create a Microsoft Bookings Service

Purpose

Bookings can be customized for faculty and staff to manage their office hours by allowing others to book appointments or timeslots.

Video Tutorial

Explanation 

• Log in to Bookings. 
  • If you have not already, create a new Bookings Calendar.
• Create your service by clicking on Services on the left navigation.
• Click Add new service at the top.

• Enter the name and description of your service.
  • Both will be visible on your Bookings site.
• Enter a default location and choose whether you would like a Teams meeting to be generated by selecting Add online meeting.
• Choose the default duration, and then choose if you want to add buffer time before or after each booking slot as shown below.

• Scroll down and set the following:

1. Choose the number of attendees that can book each appointment slot. Generally, this will be set to 1 for Office Hours appointments.
2. Price – skip this option.
3. Notes (internal only) – these are internal notes for you on this service. Generally, this will be blank for Office Hours appointments.

• "Custom fields" allow you to collect information when someone is booking this service.
  • Click the Modify button to edit these fields: Customer Information fields show in dark gray if selected/shown and can be marked "required" by selecting the slider.
• It is recommended you keep the email required and enable the phone number, as shown below.

• If you want to collect additional information or ask questions, you can use the "+ Add a custom field" option.
  • Enter your question and then use the arrows to determine the order of the questions.

• Click on Save Changes.
• Enable text message notifications by selecting notification and checking the option.
  • This is currently included in our Bookings plan and only works if you enable the "phone number" field above.
• Slide the box for "Show this service on the booking page".
• Email Notifications:
  • We recommend unchecking the "Notify the business via email…" option when only one user is assigned to the Bookings Calendar (generally true during Office Hours).
  • We recommend enabling "Send a meeting invite to the customer, in addition to the confirmation email".
• Next, set what reminders you want enabled for your service. Select Add an email reminder.

• You can add as many of these by selecting the time, setting reminders, and customizing the text in your reminders.
• You can also add reminders to the staff member who is assigned the booking.

• Add any additional information you would like included in the service email confirmation.
• To set custom scheduling policies, uncheck the box that states, "Use the default scheduling policy".

• Navigate to "Assign Staff". 
  • This box can be left unchecked since only one Staff member is assigned to the service.

• Next, select the following by navigating to "Availability options":
  • Time increments: Determines the available times displayed.
    • For example, if you choose 5 minutes, all available times will appear on 5-minute marks: 1:00, 1:05, 1:10, etc.
  • Minimum lead time (hours): How far in advance can someone book time on your calendar.
  • Maximum lead time (days): How far into the future can someone book this service.
  • Availability: You have three options here:
    • Bookable when staff is free: This will keep your Bookings service open indefinitely, subject to the lead time settings you have set above.
    • Not bookable: This keeps your Bookings service unavailable. You can add a specific date range below under "+ Set different availability for a date range".
    • Custom hours (recurring weekly): This allows you to set specific available hours for this service. Helpful for office hours that repeat at the same time every week.
  • Below is a sample of the scheduling policy options for reference:

• Click on Save Changes.
• Change to the "Booking Page" tab in Bookings, then set the following:
  • Select Business Page Access Control > choose the triangle dropdown > select available to people in your organization (this allows anyone at UTD, including students, to book).
  • Check the "Disable Direct search engine indexing of booking page", as shown below.
• Your Bookings link will appear. Copy and paste into eLearning, email, or other communication tools.
• Click Save.