Bookings

Important Note about Availability: Depending on your current Tufts Microsoft license, Bookings may not be available to you yet. If you try to access Bookings and get a message about licensing, please email it@tufts.edu for assistance.

Overview

Microsoft Bookings allows people to select available appointment times with members of a group/team. Through Bookings, the group/team…

  • creates a dedicated calendar for appointments (example pictured below),
  • defines the services it is able to provide,
  • and assigns group members to those services.

Once the calendar is set up, the group can manually create appointments on customers’ behalf or give their customers access to a self-service booking page where they can schedule appointments themselves based on availability.

Sample Bookings calendar

 

Note about Appointment Locations

When setting up services, you can indicate a physical location for in-person appointments or you can enable an online meeting option. When the online meeting option is turned on, Bookings will automatically create a unique Microsoft Teams virtual meeting for each appointment.

Prefer to use Zoom instead of Teams for virtual appointments? See the section on Using Zoom Meetings for Bookings.

  1. Visit the Bookings website and log in with your Tufts credentials. You may also need to complete two-factor authentication. NOTE: It is also possible to integrate Bookings calendars directly into Microsoft Teams!
  2. In the "Shared booking pages" section, click Create.

If you want to temporarily hide a Bookings calendar from customers but don't want to delete the calendar completely, simply unpublish the booking page.

If you need to completely delete a Bookings calendar, please email it@tufts.edu with your request.

At this time, there is no direct integration set up between Microsoft Bookings and Zoom for virtual meetings. However, if you wish to conduct virtual appoints via Zoom, it is possible via the workaround described below. For more information about Zoom, see the Tufts Zoom User Guide.

Note: When using this method, ALL of the virtual meetings for that particular service will use the SAME Zoom meeting link. Also, that Zoom meeting will be tied to the Zoom account of whoever scheduled it.

Setting Up Bookings Appointments with Zoom

First, you will need a link for a recurring Zoom meeting that can be used for appointments.

  1.  Log in to the Tufts Zoom website (tufts.zoom.us) with your Tufts credentials.
  2. Click Schedule a Meeting in the top menu.
  3. Fill out the scheduling form to create a recurring meeting that you can use for booking your service. Some recommendations are provided below for filling out the form.
    • Topic – Give your recurring meeting a short, descriptive name that is related to the service it is associated with.
    • Recurrence – Check the box next to “Recurring meeting.” A set of options will appear. Make sure you select “No Fixed Time” in the Recurrence dropdown menu so you can meet at any time using this link.
    • Waiting Room – For security reasons and to make sure your meetings with customers aren’t interrupted, it is recommended that you enable the Waiting Room feature.
    •  Alternative Hosts – If multiple co-workers will be responsible for staffing these appointments, make sure you include them as Alternative Hosts on the meeting.Scheduling a recurring Zoom meeting
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the form and click Save.
  5. A page will load with information about your recurring meeting. The Invitation Link you find on this page will be used for your Bookings.Meeting info, with invite link highlighted

 

Next, you will need to make this link available to customers when appointments are booked.

  1. Visit the Bookings website and log in with your Tufts credentials. You may also need to complete two-factor authentication. NOTE: It is also possible to integrate Bookings calendars directly into Microsoft Teams!
  2. In the "Shared booking pages" section, click into the shared booking page you want to manage.
  3. Make sure the shared page you want to manage is selected in the dropdown menu in the top left of the page, then select Services in the left-hand menu.Selecting Services from the lefthand menu on Bookings site
  4. Find the service you want to manage and click Edit.Edit button in service menu
  5. A window will appear with details about that service. In the Basic Details tab, find the Location field and paste the link for your recurring Zoom meeting. After you paste in the link, you may need to select “Use this location…”.Adding Zoom meeting to the location field for a service
  6. Click Save changes.

  7. Whenever this service is scheduled, the Zoom link will be included in the calendar invitation that staff and clients receive.