Meeting room allocation on bookings

[Lachel1]

My organization currently uses calendar to book meetings with a choice to pick a meeting room already registered on the calendar system,but we are looking at using Microsoft bookings instead and everything seems to work fine except that when a meeting room is booked on Microsoft bookings, it is available for booking on the Calendar.How can I stop this from happening?

[#2]

Please I need a reply, please anybody that can help?

[#3]

@Lachel1 Did you set the calendars mail adres as staff member in bookings ?

[#4]

Thank you @_MichaelVD_ 

No I did not do that, how do I go about that?

[#5]

I have done that and it works but not for Microsoft bookings as you can still double click a room in Microsoft bookings.Please how can I rectify this.

[#6]

@Lachel1 I am setting up a similar system and for the moment I think I will use a microsoft flow in powerapps (https://make.powerapps.com/home )  that will be activated every time a meeting request is created in the calendar and automatically creates the same meeting request in the bookings calendar.

But I still have to set it up so not sure if it will work

[#7]

I have setup a similar scenario and used bookings for public to book a meeting room in the building.  The internal staff still book the meeting room but they need to use bookings to do so. The meeting room access was removed from Exchange server. We have a  Active Directory user setup as staff in bookings. That user receives all booking notices and it auto populate the exchange calendar for that user. If a meeting is cancelled or rescheduled in bookings it will be applied to the shared users calendar.  Staff who need to see the calendar are placed in a group that has access to it. They are instructed not to modify the calendar in way as the changes will not be reflected in the bookings calendar. All changes to the bookings must be done by the user who booked.  Not having to give internal support staff direct access to the bookings configuration mitigates risk of to many mechanics making changes to the car while driving ;-).

@Lachel1. 

[#8]

Thank you, but the problem am facing is that 2 people can book the same room for same time in Bookings, how can i rectify this please?@DrNoo 

[#9]

I have not experienced this issue in bookings. When you access the booking calendar I am assuming the time that was previously booked is still there and available? Was the first booking time in the booking calendar? @Lachel1 

[#10]

Yes the first booking time still appears in the booking calendar@DrNoo 

[#11]

Can you be more specific about which calendar your referring to in you post "except that when a meeting room is booked on Microsoft bookings, it is available for booking on the Calendar." Are you referring to an Internal MS Exchange calendar? @Lachel1 

[#12]

Am referring to the  Bookings Calendar, so if I book a meeting room on Microsoft Bookings, that same meeting room and time is still available for someone else to book,so there is case of double booking on same meeting room and time @DrNoo 

[#13]

Unfortunately I don't have an answer for your issue. I can't see your exact configuration so there are alot of assumptions in play. I might try creating a new booking site and do some more testing.  @Lachel1 

[#14]

Can't believe this is still a thing. Same issue.... anyone else have some suggestions for clever work arounds?

[#15]

This might be because the room/resource calendar is added to the Staff with the Guest role. Or that it has a higher role than Guest and the option 'Office calendar events influence availability' is not checked for that 'staff' member.
In that case, it is very much possible to create double bookings in the room's calendar.
This situation can also be caused by having the room/resource calendar's account set up on an on-premise server (then it can only be added in Bookings staff as guest) while the (human) staff's accounts are on Exchange online (which is a prerequisit to access the Bookings UI).

[#16]

No changes so far? This would be a nice feature. Have the possibility to book a staff in a specific room

[#17]

I'm not a MS employee ^^ But you can check the roadmap to see what they have planned: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=Bookings . Doesn't look like adding rooms or other resources is on there just yet.

[#18]

You will need to assign one member for each space you create.

[#19]

When you are in outlook and scheduling a meeting, there are a list of meeting rooms available at that time which are listed. What I believe @Lachel1 is looking for (as am I) is a way for that to be checked against so that when a booking is made, there is a room available for the meeting. You might have 20 staff and 5 meeting rooms, you want to make sure that the meeting room is available at the same time as the staff member.

[#20]

Switching to Microsoft Bookings sounds great, but I totally get the struggle with the meeting room availability sync glitch. To tackle this, you might want to check the settings within Microsoft Bookings. There should be an option to control the synchronization of booked rooms with your calendar. If it's not evident, their support or FAQs could be a lifesaver. Also, have you heard of https://unspot.com/workplaces/? They offer a slick desk booking system that could potentially streamline your room allocation process. Might be worth exploring!