Can I have Bookings ignore tentative blocks in my calender?

Copper Contributor

When my staff take vacation, I ask them to book it in their calendars as full-day events and invite me, and I accept as "tentative" just to have that visible block telling me who is out of the office at a glance. Is there a way to have Bookings ignore tentative blocks? I know it means a slight risk of people double-booking in Bookings, but that's not an anticipated issue for me.

4 Replies
No, 'tentative' is seen as 'Busy'. You could edit your status in those fake 'appointments' to 'working elsewhere' or 'free' after accepting. These values are seen by Bookings as available. But you will have to edit these entries manually.

@MattShepherd I have the opposite problem.  My bookings page is completely ignoring entries that are in my primary Outlook calendar or from a different Bookings service.  I can't figure it out for the life of me.  
Bookings constantly shows times available that have other things already scheduled in them... I'm at a loss.

@MichaelF79 most likely the setting to let bookings take your personal outlook's availability into account isn't switched on. This is under staff -> your account name. For this to work, your presence busy information (from Outlook) must be shared within your tenant (see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/bookings-faq?view=o365-worldwide#the-staff-m...) .
Also, if your role is Guest, you can't sync your personal calendar with bookings iirc.
That was it. I couldn't find that setting mentioned anywhere and I only found it when I switched to classic view. Anyway, thanks for the heads up. It worked.