Appointment Scheduling with Microsoft Bookings

is an online platform that allows users to make appointments with the calendar's owner. Once set up, appointments can be made on a handy web page that can be distributed through e-mail, Blackboard, or any messaging app. Bookings is fully integrated with the Microsoft Office 365 suite, so any appointments made will appear in your Outlook calendar.

 

Choose Your Calendar

If you do not have a Bookings Calendar, start by creating a new Bookings calendar. If you do have a Bookings Calendar, it鈥檚 best to use the existing one. In your Bookings calendar, click over to the Services tab and create or modify an existing service. Most advising calendars use two separate services for the first and second advising days, this makes it harder for students to accidentally choose a day unavailable to them.

microsoft bookings, with the button Edit Service highlighted

Appointment Details

When editing each service, first set its name and duration. If you鈥檙e meeting in-person, put your office number under Location; if you鈥檙e meeting online make sure to provide a link to a Zoom or Teams session. 

microsoft bookings edit services menu

Set Your Schedule

Under Availability Options, your Time Increments should match your Duration. Setting Lead Time tells the calendar how far in advance students may book an appointment. General availability should be set to Not Bookable, then use the 鈥淪et Different availability鈥 button to set up a range of time on one advising day. Click on Save Changes to finalize your settings for this service. Repeat this for as many services as you need. 

microsoft bookings edit service availability options screen

Share Your Page

To retrieve and test your shareable link, click on the Booking Page tab. From here you can view your Bookings page as students will see it, it; you may also copy your link to share over e-mail or post in your Blackboard advising section. 

Booking Page menu, with a hand cursor hovering over the Copy Link button

Need Help?

If your Bookings page doesn鈥檛 show the appointments you expect it to, check your outlook calendar and remove any existing events that occlude your advising hours. If you have any issues not solved this way, please contact the ITS Help Desk at 609-652-4309.

 

While Bookings is for the most part a move-in-ready experience, it鈥檚 possible to make it a little more personal using these features:

Adding a logo

To add an image to the top of your Bookings page, click on the 鈥淎dd logo鈥 button at the top of the Bookings navigation menu.

 an image of the Bookings interface, the "add a logo" button is highlighted

 

Click on 鈥淯pload a new logo鈥 to select an image from your computer or device, then use the zoom and rotation functions to make any necessary changes to the image鈥檚 positioning. Click Save when you鈥檙e ready to finalize your logo.

 

 Setting a color theme

Navigate to the 鈥淏ooking Page鈥 menu, and you鈥檒l be able to access the color palette for your Booking page. Select a color scheme to preview it, then click 鈥淪ave and Publish鈥 at the top of the page when you鈥檝e chosen your favorite look.

a screenshot of the Bookings color theme menu