SOLVED

Allowing multiple bookings for the same time in Microsoft Bookings

Copper Contributor

Hi,

 

I am trying to setup a bookings calendar that allows multiple people to book the same service at the same time. In this instance it is First Aid Training for a specific day without time increments.

 

To simplify this question. Is it possible to setup a service to allow multiple people book in for a 09:00am service on the same day? It appears once the first person books this service, it blocks out the time slot which I understand why it would do this.

 

If not, any suggestion on how to do this?

 

Thank for your suggestions.

28 Replies
best response confirmed by Christopher Carter (Copper Contributor)
Solution
There is a workaround for this - create the number of dummy staff up to the maximum number of 'customers' that you want to book into the session, and assign them all to the service. So if you want 20 seats available at the training you create 20 dummy 'staff'. Once all 20 seats have been booked that date will no longer be available.

I saw in a previous response how to create dummy staff to allow for multiple bookings per time slot.   However, my staffing isn't the same for every hour of the day.  How do vary the number of bookings I can do, hour per hour, throughout the day?

If you set the individual working hours for each of the dummy staff instead of using "Business hours" then it will adjust the availability that customers see.

Hi Geoff

 

I've created "dummy staff" to allow multiple people to book the same slot for a group dog training class but it won't allow me to use a generic business email for multiple staff?

 

Is there a way around this? I don't want to be creating 8 different fake email addresses!

 

Thank you

Hi Sue

 

Unfortunately not that I am aware of.... I had to go the fake email address route!

looks like fake emails no longer work. Has anyone been able to create dummy users? 

Hello 

 

I am looking to do this and wondered if you had managed to work this out?

 

Thanks

Simone

@Simone08 

 

I have created dummy staff in order to have multiple people book the same time slot. (Group dog obedience classes)  

When the client booked online they could pick a spot (dummy staff member) or leave it for me to assign.

 

My husband managed to create dummy emails that just connected to our actual email address. Don't ask me how!

 

@Jeff Manas 

Thank you.  Our school is planning to transfer the students' emails to the staff domain name by Christmas, which was the problem that kept us from using Bookings.  If creating dummy employees to create multiple appointment slots for the same time doesn't get too expensive (since I'm paying for this out-of-pocket because Bookings isn't available in the Education package), I will begin using Bookings in January. Good to know they are finally addressing this seemingly obvious need in the app. Now, if Bookings would get added to the Education app bundle. . .?!? :)

 

@Kim Johnson I don't know how Microsoft breaks down the licensing, but as a non-profit we are eligible for ten donated Microsoft 365 licenses, which includes Bookings. I am looking forward to being able to use this feature.

@Sue Waugh did you ever manage to find a solution to this? I have run into the same problem.

@andybray10 

 

Hi Andy, I was having issues then I did the following.

 

Choose a service from your options.  On the number of attendees, right click 'inspect element' (image attached).  Where you see 'disabled' highlight that and then delete it from the code.  You should then see arrows up and down.  Use these to choose the number of attendees and make sure you click 'save' on your service button.  This should fix the problem I hope.  Take care, SarahScreen Shot 2020-07-22 at 17.38.51.pngScreen Shot 2020-07-22 at 17.45.50.png

@Christopher Carter 

 

I have the same issue. I want to book 2 staff members for one service. If one is already booked the system should book the second appointment in the same time slot with the second staff member. It is not doing this. Instead it blocks off that time. Doesnt allow it to be booked again even though I have dedicated staff that are available. Please help!

@Christopher Carter thank you for this discussion, I found it very useful.  After reading it, I think I have found a solution that is working for me. 

 

As suggested here, I have created dummy staff, to allow appointments to run alongside each other.  To solve the problem of giving each staff member a unique email address, I am using a single, non-Microsoft, email address for all of my dummy staff, but I have created email aliases for that email address.  This seems to be working fine. 

 

(The host of your email will probably let you create email aliases, for example this is like creating both robert@myemail.com and bob@myemail.com, and the server treats them all as being the same thing and belonging to the main email address.)

Tried this and it worked. Thanks!!

@SarahB19 It seems that this trick does not work anymore. The code is not the same and when I delete the highlighted element the whole funciton dissapears. Can you send updated instructions and screenshot? Thanks

@HeftigEule are you trying to convert an existing a single person service to a group service? I would recommend creating a new service with maximum attendees set to the number of people you want to be able to support booking in parallel. Note that as long as the initial value is greater than 1, the field will remain editable and you can change it to any value > 1 without hacks.
1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Christopher Carter (Copper Contributor)
Solution
There is a workaround for this - create the number of dummy staff up to the maximum number of 'customers' that you want to book into the session, and assign them all to the service. So if you want 20 seats available at the training you create 20 dummy 'staff'. Once all 20 seats have been booked that date will no longer be available.

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