How to Use Microsoft Bookings

What is Microsoft Bookings?

Microsoft Bookings is an online and mobile app that allows students, faculty and staff, as well as individuals external to UA, to easily book face-to-face or virtual meetings. Microsoft Bookings is an ideal tool for faculty and staff seeking a simplified scheduling process to book meetings with students or schedule office hours.

The application integrates with Microsoft O365 calendars to help quickly find available times and avoid double-booking. Microsoft Bookings provides a custom webpage where individuals can book appointments. To see an example of Microsoft Bookings in use, check out the Center for Instructional Technology’s booking site.

Microsoft Bookings has built in flexibility and customization options that are designed to fit a variety of scheduling needs, including across departments and individuals’ calendars. Learn more about Microsoft Bookings and get started with the instructions below.

Get Started with Bookings

1. Get started by visiting portal.office.com. Log in using your myBamausername@ua.edu (or Crimson) email address and myBama password.

2. Once logged in, find the Bookings app under the app launcher menu on the upper left side of the page.

3. Once on the Bookings landing page, click Get it now.

4. Users will be prompted to add their information to start using Bookings. Here, you may enter your name, class name, or a creative name to describe the type of meetings you will be hosting.

Using Bookings

1. On the Bookings dashboard, review your location, schedule of availability and other information.

2. A menu on the left allows for additional customization options.

   • On the Calendar page, you can add or update appointments. You can view your calendar by day, week, or month.

   • On the Customers page, new customers (students) can be added or imported from other accounts like Gmail, or a device.

   • The Staff page allows you to add and manage your staff if you need to be able to set up bookings for someone other than yourself. It’s important to add your team’s email addresses so they can receive immediate notifications of new appointments.

   • The Services page allows you to add or manage the services that students choose when booking an appointment.

Publishing your Bookings Calendar

Select Booking Page from the left menu on the bookings page to customize your page. On the Bookings page, you’ll find many settings like your scheduling policy, email notifications, time zone settings, and more.

Users can customize the following:

• Booking page access control

• Customer data usage consent

• Scheduling policy

• Email notifications

• Staff

• Availability

Once you have customized your bookings, simply select Save and Publish at the top of the page to publish your bookings page.

Once you’ve saved and published your Bookings calendar, it can be embedded on your website, Blackboard course, syllabus or emailed as a link to students. To copy the embedded code, select the Embed option from the top of the page and copy and paste the code where desired.