3 Tools To Help Book and Schedule Meetings Efficiently

Microsoft Bookings has had a journey… It was first only available to small business licenses, then released to enterprise licenses. Now, Microsoft is releasing another change in June for ‘Bookings in Outlook’.  

What does this mean for you and your organization? Well, if you want a great step-by-step on the ‘how-to’s of Bookings check out our webinar recording. If you’re not sure if Bookings is right for you, then keep on reading!

What app should I use and when? (Bookings vs Scheduling Assistant vs FindTime) 

If you are the meeting creator, and confident in the attendee’s free/busy time then Scheduling Assistant is the best option for you 

If you are the meeting creator and can’t see your attendee’s free/busy status, then FindTime is the best option. This will allow you to list out several times available on your schedule. Using FindTime will allow attendees to vote on the best time related to their schedule. No more proposed times and emails back and forth to coordinate a meeting.  

If you are not actively booking meetings or a portion of your job requires scheduled appointments, then this is when Bookings will come in handy. This is helpful for attendees outside your organization or for internal team members that require a formal consultation. 

What if I’m looking for something for personal use? 

If you want a solution similar to Bookings but just for you and not for a whole team? By the end of June 2022, “personal” Bookings inside Outlook should be released to all. We believe based on information from Microsoft documentation and previews that most if not all current Bookings features will be available in personal. Check out future webinars, and we may cover personal Bookings. 

During our webinar we briefly mentioned FindTime which is still in the bucket of scheduling but specifically used to poll multiple recipients for their meeting time preferences.

Check out our quick guide we created on how to use FindTime.

How does Centriq use bookings? 

At Centriq we have found that Bookings is great for scenarios where someone needs to schedule some time with a team, but maybe it doesn’t matter which team member is selected or the service the team provides take a specific amount of time and specific questions need to be answered first by the scheduler, so the team has that information ahead of time. Most of these examples are when external people need to schedule time with Centriq folks, but as everything is, this is not the case 100% of the time. For example, my team needs some help migrating our files from the local network drive into a SharePoint site and the IT team has a Bookings page which shows a one-hour migration training session. So as the manager I can go and see availability for IT and schedule a session, IT will select which team member will conduct the training, and they know what to prepare for before the session. 

How are other departments using bookings? 

“Microsoft has a long list of examples for how or when to use Bookings for a group of people.”