Book a workspace in Outlook

What about adding some "intelligence" into Outlook and Outlook on the web? For years we were requesting that Outlook takes the "Capacity" of rooms into consideration when booking a room. So for example: I book a room for a meeting (or a workspace...) and add 6 people to the meeting. However the room I booked, has only a capacity of four. Outlook/Outlook on the web should notify the user about this. Or even offer only rooms with a capacity that fit all people. Notes/Domino btw. does this since decades... Christian

Good Morning, 

CustomAttribute11 doesn't appear to work for me:

Can anyone point out what I'm doing incorrectly? Many thanks!

Also here:

'Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 includes 15 extension attributes. You can use these attributes to add information about a recipient, such as an employee ID, organizational unit (OU), or some other custom value for which there isn't an existing attribute. These custom attributes are labeled in Active Directory as ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute1 through ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute15. In the Exchange Management Shell, the corresponding parameters are CustomAttribute1 through CustomAttribute15. These attributes aren't used by any Exchange components. They can be used to store Active Directory data without having to extend the Active Directory schema.'

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/custom-attributes-exchange-2013-help

And on this very blog itself:

'For a while now, Exchange provides 15 custom attributes. Those are still there and you are free to use them as you used them before. They are known as CustomAttribute1 to 15 (or can also be referred to as ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute1 to 15). For more on those, please see this. So nothing has changed with those.

...

New! Finally, we have also added ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute-16 to 45. Those are not exposed to various CMDlets and Exchange management UI, because they were added for future use. As such, we cannot recommend that you use non-Exchange tools to edit their values (Exchange 2010 SP2 or any later version) because we might use those attributes in the future for various Exchange features. If and when we add management tools access to them, we will definitely let you know!'

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/custom-aka-extension-attributes-in-exchange-2010-sp2-and-later/ba-p/602113

Hey,

This is a really helpful feature, and I can see lots of other uses (like a pool of laptops where you don't want to create an equipment mailbox for each piece of equipment, but can book them out all through one resource.

Have to agree with Peter Forster and diecknet though - this should be in a new attribute, not in CustomAttribute11

Here's the promise you've made in the Exchange documentation about CustomAtrribute1 to 15 (emphasis mine):

The custom attributes available to Exchange Server are labeled in Active Directory as ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute1 through ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute15. In the Exchange Management Shell, the corresponding parameters are CustomAttribute1 through CustomAttribute15. These attributes aren't used by any Exchange components. They can be used to store Active Directory data without having to extend the Active Directory schema.

This should be a new attribute, or at the very least you should be using CustomAttribute16 to 45, which the documentation indicates might be used in future:

ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute-16 to ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute-45 are present in Active Directory, but aren't available in the Exchange admin center (EAC) or the Exchange Management Shell. Don't use non-Exchange tools to edit these attributes because they might be used for future Exchange features.

Don't break the promises you've been making to users for such a long time. You shouldn't be using CustomAttribute1 to CustomAttribute15 for any internal purposes.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/Exchange/recipients/mailbox-custom-attributes?view=exchserver-2019

Neat new feature. But I have to agree with David and Peter: The usage of the CustomAttribute for this is weird. Why did you not implement a new Attribute or extended a non-custom attribute?

Great feature - can see a lot of useful scenarios (for example, where a pool of equipment like laptops exist, but we don't want to create an individual resource for each piece of equipment).

However PeterForster is completely correct - you shouldn't be using CustomAttribute11 for this purpose.

Here's the promise you made to customers about these attributes since they first existed, stating that you won't use them in Exchange attributes (emphasis mine):

'The custom attributes available to Exchange Server are labeled in Active Directory as ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute1 through ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute15. In the Exchange Management Shell, the corresponding parameters are CustomAttribute1 through CustomAttribute15. These attributes aren't used by any Exchange components. They can be used to store Active Directory data without having to extend the Active Directory schema.'

You've even got the custom attributes 16-45 that we were told not to use, since they might be used in future versions:

'ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute-16 to ms-Exch-Extension-Attribute-45 are present in Active Directory, but aren't available in the Exchange admin center (EAC) or the Exchange Management Shell. Don't use non-Exchange tools to edit these attributes because they might be used for future Exchange features.'

Who on earth decided to re-purpose an attribute that for years we have been promised would not be used by Exchange components, instead of creating a new attribute (or at least using one of the ones that we were told might be used by Exchange features)?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/Exchange/recipients/mailbox-custom-attributes?view=exchserver-2019

This is good. I had originally looked at using Microsoft Bookings for this but it's really not designed for it.

As part of our Covid management we have three things

1) Number of people on the floor of the building will be limited

2) Number of people in a shared office space will be limited

3) Our facilities company need to be aware of what floors and offices are in use each day so that they can be cleaned in the evening.

It would be great if we could connect or limit office space by number of people on floor. I could probably use Power Automate for item 3 but again, would be great if that could be linked too. I imagine most companies would be doing similar in offices?

Edit: would agree that using the customattribute is unfortunate. 

Hi,

wow - that is fixed to "CustomAttribute11"?

What do customers do when this attribute is already in use?

BTW: Before building that solution it would be great to have resources like Beamer, Cars etc. as a Type too and make it easier to book such resources. But please do not use CustomAttributes. Custom Attributes have many letters from "Customer" included. So the manufacturer should not use them. Otherwise they would be called "ManufacturerAttributes"