Forum Discussion
Shared resources in Scheduling Assistant
Hi,
I'm trying to help two companies manage some resources.
Company A (cA) and Company B (cB) share a physical office location, and cA has a 365 setup with 3 physical meetings rooms (Room 1, 2 & 3), whose calendars are shared with cB. To accomplish this i followed this forum post; Sharing Office 365 Room's availability to external users - Microsoft Community Hub
Currently, users from cB have to open and check the calendars for each meeting room individually in order to see their availability, and THEN book the room from their own calendar in Outlook.
I would like to set it up, so that whenever a user from cB needs to book a meeting room, they can go to their Outlook, click "New Appointment" → "Scheduling Assistant", and then be able to see each individual rooms' availability - is there any way to do this?
I hope this makes somewhat sense, and if not, please feel free to ask and I'll try my best to explain further - any help is much appreciated!
TIA.
Hello emildupont,
unfortunately, the “Room Finder” feature in Outlook only shows room lists existing in your own organization.
However, there is a way to share the room’s calendar with external users:Grant delegate access to individuals managing the room within your company.
Go to the Admin Center > Resources > Rooms & Equipment, find the desired room, and edit Delegates to include the designated person from your company for sharing the room’s calendar.Adjust Exchange settings for the room, granting the designated person Full Access rights. Sharing the Room’s Calendar (performed by the room delegate)
Access the room’s mailbox / calender from the delegate’s account.
Log in using the delegate’s credentials, navigate to the Outlook calendar, and open the account by clicking the profile picture in the upper right corner. Then, select the "Open Another Mailbox" option.Search for and choose the delegated room's account.
Navigate to the calendar and click on the Share option.
Enter the email address of the individual with whom you wish to share the calendar (Note: Only Microsoft email accounts, including Office 365 and outlook.com, are supported), and select the appropriate sharing option.The external user will receive an email invitation to view the calendar. Upon acceptance, they can access and view the shared calendar.
Navigate to the calendar view to check the room’s availability.
Sharing Office 365 Room's availability to external users - Microsoft Community Hub
2 Replies
- Best you can do is configure an organizational relationship(s) between the two orgs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/sharing/organization-relationships/organization-relationships
Once configured, they will allow you to enter the address of a room(s) from the other company within scheduling assistant as either the location or attendee in order to see the availability info, after which you can select which exact room(s) to send the actual request with. Hello emildupont,
unfortunately, the “Room Finder” feature in Outlook only shows room lists existing in your own organization.
However, there is a way to share the room’s calendar with external users:Grant delegate access to individuals managing the room within your company.
Go to the Admin Center > Resources > Rooms & Equipment, find the desired room, and edit Delegates to include the designated person from your company for sharing the room’s calendar.Adjust Exchange settings for the room, granting the designated person Full Access rights. Sharing the Room’s Calendar (performed by the room delegate)
Access the room’s mailbox / calender from the delegate’s account.
Log in using the delegate’s credentials, navigate to the Outlook calendar, and open the account by clicking the profile picture in the upper right corner. Then, select the "Open Another Mailbox" option.Search for and choose the delegated room's account.
Navigate to the calendar and click on the Share option.
Enter the email address of the individual with whom you wish to share the calendar (Note: Only Microsoft email accounts, including Office 365 and outlook.com, are supported), and select the appropriate sharing option.The external user will receive an email invitation to view the calendar. Upon acceptance, they can access and view the shared calendar.
Navigate to the calendar view to check the room’s availability.
Sharing Office 365 Room's availability to external users - Microsoft Community Hub
