Forum Discussion
Microsoft Bookings-Availability dependent on multiple staff member schedules
Is there a way to make service available date/times dependent on multiple staff members' schedules instead of 1 person?
We have 2 staff members setup in Microsoft Booking
Both staff members have a checkmark next to 'Events on Office 365 calendar affect availability'
On the Booking Page:
- Availability is set to 'bookable when staff are free'
- Unchecked allow customers to choose a specific person for the booking
We setup a service setup so customers can't select individual staff members. I assumed that meant that it would depend on both of the staff members. But when people try to schedule events, it seems on only look at 1 of the staff member calendars instead of 2 staff members to check if they are both available.
I hope that makes sense!
- Hi Everyone ... I noticed a "New" feature in bookings today. There is now a "Multiple staff" option under the service ... assign staff to the service ... and choose service type. This could be it. This could be what I've been waiting for! I'm going to give it a try. Excited!
MikeFM2063 Yep, that option will only show times when all staff are available 👍🏻. It does allow you to only assign a subset of the staff assigned to that service, if you like.
Then, on the Bookings page for that service, "Staff group" with the names of the assigned staff members, is shown above the calendar.
I've had some users waiting for this feature as well!
- Any update on this consolidated feature of multiple calendars? I know many of us are eagerly waiting on this and checking back daily.
- I have a slightly manual workaround for scheduling more than one Team Member to an Appointment - once the appointment is assigned, you can go in and Edit it to add other Team Members to the Appointment and this does work.
For example, for a set of interviews, we determined a set of interview times/dates and blocked these on people's Outlook calendars with a placeholder invite (no Teams Meeting).
Then, the Service was set up with Custom Availability for just those slots on those dates for the week (adding additional week time frames for additional weeks).
When the appointment gets filled for a slot, an Admin (Booker too maybe?) can go in and add the other appropriate Team Members to the Appointment by checking their boxes in the appointment and saving. It adds the appointment to their calendars. Make sure, when you add the Staff member to uncheck the box that takes their Outlook events into consideration - this should allow it to book even if there is a conflict (like the placeholder event).
I was hoping that if no staff are assigned to the Service that it would perhaps go to the No Staff column in Bookings and then let a Booker assign it to the whole team that way, but it seems like it may not. Need to test more.
Hope this is helpful for some folks!
I am also seeing a 1:1 Service note on each Service now...perhaps it is in the roadmap to add multiple staff for a booking for a feature enhancement??Hi I wonder if there's been any more movement on this?
I want to myself and a colleague to be bookable for a single slot. This means Bookings needs to see/understand our availability and block off times accordingly for busy slots.
Any progress?
- None that I am aware of from MS. It still will not allow multiple staff to be automatically part of a booking appointment. (1 appointment assigned to a team of staff)
We are using the manual process I described above here in the meantime.
Everyone,
For what it is worth, here is what I have discovered as of 10/7/2021. When you create a “Service(s)” in Bookings, the application views it much like a haircut. So if a haircut takes 30 minutes and you have five people added as assigned staff for that service, it presents to the “Customer(s)” availability of any of those five staff members to perform the 30 minute haircut. The application does not take into consideration that all five staff members may be required simultaneously for the haircut. This would be a nice, and I assume fairly obvious feature that should be added to the services page.
In my particular use case, I am trying to display my availability in conjunction with my team members so that external Customers can book consultation meetings with me and my team. Unfortunately if I have a prior obligation but one of my team members is free, it shows the Customer that the time block is free. You can test these assumptions out by adding and removing people from Services and monitoring how the availability changes.
Want to see this product enhanced? While inside the bookings application, go to the help section (?) and click on “Give feedback.” Type something to the effect of…
“Dear Microsoft,
On the “Services” section of Microsoft Bookings, please add a toggle button that requires all “Assigned staff” for that service have calendar availability before Customers time slots are presented as available to a customer. Currently Customers can select a timeslot if any given member of the Service’s assigned staff are available.”
CRITICAL LIMITATION IN AN OTHERWISE EXCELLENT APP
I have observed the same problem. It looks like it uses assigned users as an inventory of options. This is great in some cases. But in others, a COMBINATION of resources is required. Another good example of this would be a conference room that's required. They should specify resources as "Required" or "Selectable" meaning pick at least one selection. Anything required would be require availability on the calendar. Anything Selectable would make a slot available it at least one of the selectable options was available. As a bonus they could have "Optional" resources which are not needed at all but which could be added if available.
ascquestions Same issue here... It doesn't look at a 'teams' collective availability when including two or more people. Frustrating that a somewhat obvious feature and an easy logic code hasn't been included.
ascquestions I also have this question and wondering if this solution works for you: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-bookings/solution-multiple-staff-members-all-assigned-to-a-booking/m-p/227468#
- We have the same issue / same need. Did you ever find a solution?
ascquestions Have you checked that the view permissions of the two staff members' Outlook calendars allow 'Default' to view free/busy information? If the staff members have set permissions that don't show free/busy information, Bookings can't pull it and will therefore ignore that calendar.
Kreera_House thank you for responding. both of the user calendars are available for organization to view free/busy.
Kreera_House I appreciate the response! I did check that out and they've granted full visibility. I can see their calendars in Bookings. For some reason, availability across the calendars isn't represented in available bookings for multiple staff under one booking.
jttran74 You're welcome. You may want to unassign the two staff members from the specific service(s) and then reassign them. Maybe even remove them completely from the site's staff list and re-add them.
Bookings should take the availability of all of the assigned staff members into consideration, not just one of them, so that meetings can be assigned to all assigned staff based on their availability.
ascquestions I'm having the same issue. Seems to only look at one staff member's availability when multiple staff are selected.
