SharePoint list Calendar double booking

[matt-beyond]

Hi All,

I have a sharepoint list acting as a calendar for booking 3 different rooms.

Columns: Room name, in date, out date

I wish to provide an error or notice or prevention if the user attempts to book a room that is already booked

Thanks

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi!
It's better if you build a PowerApps to handling and booking the room. Reason for this is that you can't block double booking in a calender i SharePoint
There is a template you can use:
https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/office-template-book-a-room-now-available/

[#3]

Not everyone knows how to build PowerApps. Your average SharePoint user isn't going to know how to do that. The easy solution is to just go into the calendar settings and then click on your list item for your rooms and just make sure the "Enforce Unique Values" is chosen.

[#4]

@mymediahelper SharePoint cannot - and has never been able to - prevent double bookings in the calendar. That's why @NicolasKheirallah suggested Power Apps. The end user might not be able to build an app, and you might not want them to, but in your IT department you've probably got people who know how to do it. I built a desk booking app in Power Apps with a SharePoint list as the backend which worked across 16 offices for 3 years, with over 30,000 bookings and it was impossible for bookings to clash. It can be done; just don't expect the SharePoint calendar to prevent clashes!

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User.
Principal Consultant, SharePoint and Power Platform WSP Global (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)

[#5]

The Idea behind Power plattform is that your average user should be able to create an application pretty easily, I recommend you to check out what Citizen Developer is

[#6]

@Rob_Elliott Yet I'm able to do it.

[#7]

I don't think you've ever worked a Help Desk position. People who can barely work a keyboard can't do Automations or Power Apps. I'm not talking some multi-million dollar company with their own IT staff. I'm talking small offices and businesses. It may be an ideal solution in your brain, but not everyone is as computer savvy.

[#8]

@mymediahelper My company could never achieve it as far back as SP2010. So show how an out-of-the-box SharePoint calendar can prevent clashes - no add-ons, no 3rd party tools, just out-of-the-box.

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User.
Principal Consultant, SharePoint and Power Platform WSP Global (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)

[#9]

Yup! thats what I ended up doing, Thanks for the reply.

[#10]

Perhaps we're talking about two seperate things. I just go into the settings to the item choice and suppress using a choice twice. That's comes up with an error message when trying to book at the same time. When they go "ADD" in Calendar and pick a conference room in this case they can't book the same one for the same time. I do it all the time so it makes me think we may be on different pages. And once again. Not everyone has an IT Department. And not everyone is going to know how to make automations or workflows so telling people to do that is silly unless you're a big company and have those kinds of resources.

[#11]

@NicolasKheirallah Not everyone is going to be able to do that. You have to think the lowest common denominator when dealing with people who are not IT savvy. I think a lot of IT people lose the ability to comprehend how to deal with those types of people. That's all fine for people who are computer literate. Your Mom and Pop business or a small to midsize business who just want to use SharePoint as an Intranet (which it pretty much is) and don't have an IT department aren't going to have the time or knowledge to do PowerApps or Automations.