Using Microsoft Bookings to Schedule Appointments

Making Student Appointments with Microsoft Bookings

January Institute presentation by Claire Ehrlich and Bedour Soliman, January 2022.

Today You Will:

• Learn what Microsoft Bookings is and does​

• Brainstorm ways this software could be useful in your area​

• Practice creating a Bookings page and making and managing appointments. ​

What is Bookings?

Microsoft Bookings is a scheduling tool and is part of the Microsoft Office 365 family of products.  ​

Bookings allows end users: ​

• View booking calendars and schedule appointment.  ​

• Bookings uses a person's Outlook calendar to find available times real-time.  ​

• Bookings gives you a fast, easy alternative to time-consuming, frustrating email phone scheduling. ​

• An easy-to-set-up, customizable web page lets people find available times and book appointments 24/7.​

Bookings Terminology

• Bookings = Appointments​

• Staff: anyone who is taking appointments through Bookings. (MVCC Staff and Faculty)​

• Business: Is the organizational unit through which people will provide appointments. Examples of a “business” might be a section of a class, a lab, a research group, or an academic department. Within that business, you assign one or more staff who can all accept appointments using the same calendar.​

• Customers: these will probably be students but could be anyone else inside or even outside MVCC you expect to request appointments using the calendar.​

• Booking page: this is the appointment calendar that people use to request appointments.​

• Services: The type of appointment that is being offered it can be tutoring, consultation, office hours.....etc.​

How to Access Bookings

*Booking is available to any full-time MVCC employee/ faculty member. ​Part time employees can view existing bookings and customers can be ,,book sessions with them, but they cannot edit any of the bookings. ​

*To delete a booking calendar put a help desk tickets. ​Once deleted it cannot be retrieved. ​

​

1. Login in to portal.office.com with your MVCC email and password.​
2. Click All Apps> then Bookings.​

Time to Reflect

How could this software be useful in your area?

How the Library is Using Bookings

• August 2021, two librarians began using free Calendly accounts to schedule 1-on-1 meetings with students about their research. Software was user-friendly and students seemed to like the service, but free version lacked some useful features. ​

• October 2021, we learned about Bookings, which has more features than free version of Calendly (and is also free to us through the college). Claire began using it in one course as a pilot.​

• Spring 2022, library plans to go live with the feature on our website. Experimenting with using it to book spaces as well as people (study rooms- software not set up for this yet, but coming soon!)​

What We've Noticed So Far

• Students book more appointments with librarians than they used to​

• Students are more likely to show up if they get a reminder ​

• Saves the librarian a LOT of time over emailing back-and-forth to schedule​

• Best practice: maintain your Outlook calendar zealously- block off any/all times you do not want students to book (lunch, doctor's appointments, grading time, etc.)​

• There are a lot of options, and they may behave in surprising ways: test, test, test​

• This feature is not available to part-time faculty and staff :(​

Setup Demo

Follow along while we demo initial setup!

Build Your Own Bookings Page!

Ask for help while you work! ​

Team up with others to test your page: make, reschedule, and cancel appointments; practice meeting over Teams (if desired)​

Final Questions?

Claire Ehrlich​

Cehrlich@mvcc.edu​

​

Bedour Soliman​

Bsoliman@mvcc.edu ​