Setting reservation limits per service

Copper Contributor

Hello! I'm very new to Microsoft Bookings and absolutely love it. I'm using it to handle reservations for English classes I'm providing to my company.

 

Due to classroom size constraints, I can only have a maximum of 12 students per class. Is there a way to set a limit of reservations per day per service? I looked and couldn't find anything. 

 

If this isn't already an option, I'd like to strongly recommend that you add it. 

7 Replies

Hello,

 

Thanks for your question.

Bookings currently doesn't have group reservations as an option but we are working on it. You can vote for it in our UserVoice channel.

 

While we are working on that, there is a workaround for this, although it requires multiple steps.

For each time slot for your classes you would create 12 staff members (you can use free Outlook.com accounts for those staff members) and assign them to the class (or service), so that once all 12 are booked, no one else can register for that class. Each staff member could be named: Seat 1, Seat 2, etc.

 

I hope this helps!

@GaboI have a similar requirement.  The business want to find a better way to manage car park spaces.  1 car park - 20 spaces.  Ability for people in the business to book a slot.  Once all 20 are taken then no more bookings allowed.  Is this possible in the same way?  Could we use resource mailboxes instead for each space.  So in your example time slot = car park staff member = car par space....

@GaboIt's great that you're thinking outside the box to come up with a workaround for a missing feature we're looking for, but the suggestion to create free office.com accounts is a horrible idea from a corporate O365 tenant perspective, especially in light of the fact that we can't block use of such accounts in Bookings at the tenant level. 

 

With a Microsoft employee making the above suggestion, does that mean we can expect to get:

a) the ability to block adding non-tenant accounts as staff, and

b) a reporting feature that allows a tenant admin to identify whether external accounts were added as staff on a Bookings site?

Hi @Chetan_M - Yes, you can use resource mailbox as "staff" so they can be booked. You have the option to let your users choose a specific resource or let Bookings assign them randomly.

Hi @Kreera House - there is no plan to add the ability to blocking an account from being added. That being said, adding a free account as a guest to a Bookings page does not grant any permission to that account towards the Bookings calendar, so they can't perform any change/update in the Bookings page nor access to any resource from your tenant.

 

Hope this helps with yoru Qs. 

@Gabo  What happens with the free office.com accounts when the employee who owns the Bookings page moves to another role or leaves the company? How would the successor gain access to those accounts?

 

Also, you mention that there are no plans to allow a tenant admin to require staff to be tenant accounts. What about reporting to identify what accounts are configured as staff on Bookings sites?

@Gabo  Thanks for sharing the workaround but I have a minor concern.  How can I set in the service configuration that once the staff has been selected by someone else, it will no longer be available for the others once the booking has been completed for that specific staff.

Scenario:
Limit 35 slots only per day with 35 staff members to choose

Once a staff is selected, it cannot be selected again by another person trying to book on that same day.

Thanks in advance!