Creating a New Service on Microsoft Bookings

The following information is based on the documentation for defining your service offerings in Microsoft Bookings on the Microsoft technical documentation website at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/define-service-offerings.

You can create a new service for each type of offering. The service may have a different audience, location, set of times, duration, etc. To do so, follow these steps.

Terms

When the term “staff” is used in this documentation, it is referring to a designation within Microsoft Bookings. This will be any member of Creative Services added as a potential resource within the particular service (e.g., a photographer).

When the term “customer” is used in this documentation, it is referring to anyone who has signed up for one of the services (e.g., a clinical provider signing up for a portrait session).

When the term “business” is used in this documentation, it is referring to the Microsoft Bookings calendar/page where the particular group of services is collected (e.g., Creative Service Photography).

When the term “self-service page” is used in this documentation, this is the customer-facing page where a customer can select a date and time, entering their details and booking the appointment.

Overview

When you define your service offerings in Microsoft Bookings, you set a service name, description, location, duration, default reminders to customers and staff, internal notes about the service, and pricing. You can also tag the employees who are qualified to provide the service. Then, when customers come to your business website to book an appointment, they can see exactly what types of appointments are available, choose the person they want to provide the service, and how much their service will cost.

You can also add customized information and URLs to the email confirmation and reminders that you send when someone books a service through your booking page.

Create the Service Details

Accessing the Bookings Calendar

1. Visit https://outlook.office.com/bookings/.
2. Log in with your UAMS account, if prompted to do so.
3. Near the top-right corner of your window, click “Try the new Bookings.”
   • Note that eventually, this option will no longer be available as the “new Bookings” will become the default option.
4. The calendars that you have access to will be displayed on this page. Go to the appropriate calendar (e.g., Creative Services Portraits).

Creating a New Service

1. On the left side of the window, go to Services.
2. View the list of existing Services. If none of the existing Services are adequate to cover a particular need, select Add new service above the list of services.
   • Note that the names of each service may be truncated if they are longer than the space allows. You can go to each Service to see the full name of each.
   • You can also duplicate an existing service by clicking the Copy Service icon (shown as two overlapping rectangles) that becomes available when hovering over an existing service in the list.

Basic Details Tab

On the Basic details tab (the tabs are displayed along the left side of the window), add your selections.

• Service name: enter the name of your service.
  • This name will appear on a tile for this Service under Select a Service on the self-service page.
• Description: enter a sentence or two that tells the customer what this service covers.
  • This description will appear on a tile for this Service under Select a Service on the self-service page.
• Location: This location is what will be displayed on confirmation and reminder emails for both staff and customers, and it will be displayed on the calendar event created for the booking.
• Add online meeting: This setting enables or disables online meetings for each appointment, either via Teams or Skype, depending on which one you configure as the default client for the staff member.
  • Enabled:
    • A link to a Microsoft Teams or Skype meeting, unique to the booking, will be added to the calendar event on both the staff’s and the customers’ calendars, along with dial-in information.
    • The link to join the meeting will be added to all confirmation and reminder emails.
    • Note that Microsoft Teams meetings can be joined via the Microsoft Teams mobile app, the Microsoft Teams desktop app, in a Web browser, or via the phone dial-in. We strongly recommend enabling Microsoft Teams as the default online meeting service for your customer, for the best experience booking virtual appointments.
  • Disabled:
    • Appointments will not contain an online meeting option, and all of the meeting-related fields that appear when Add online meeting is enabled will not be shown.
• Duration: This is how long all meetings will be booked for. The time is blocked beginning from the start time, which is selected during booking. The full appointment time will be blocked on the staff’s calendars.
• Buffer time: Enabling this setting allows for the addition of extra time to the staff’s calendar every time an appointment is booked.
  • The time will be blocked on the staff’s calendar and impact free/busy information. This means if an appointment ends at 3 p.m. and 10 minutes of buffer time has been added to the end of the appointment, the staff’s calendar will show as busy and non-bookable until 3:10 p.m. This can be useful if your staff needs time before an appointment to prepare, such as a photographer resetting the position of lighting. It can also be useful after an appointment, such as when someone needs time to travel to another location.
• Price not set: Select the price options that will display on the self-service page. If Price not set is selected, then no price or reference to cost or pricing will appear.
• Maximum attendees per event: This setting allows you to create services that require the ability for multiple people to book the same appointment time and the same staff (such as an open portrait session). The appointment time slot for the selected service, staff, and time will be available to book until the maximum number of attendees, specified by you, has been reached. Current appointment capacity and attendees can be viewed in the staff-facing Calendar tab in the Bookings Web app.
  • Note that if you create and save the Service with the maximum number of attendees set as 1, you will need to start a service from scratch in order to increase this number beyond 1 later.
• Notes: This field appears in the booking event for booked staff, as well as on the event that appears on the staff-facing Calendar tab in the Bookings web app.
• Let the customer manage their booking: This setting determines whether or not the customer can modify or cancel their booking, provided it was booked through the staff-facing Calendar tab on the Bookings Web app.
  • Enabled:
    • The Manage Booking button appears on the customer confirmation email. When this button is selected by the customer, three options appear:
      • Reschedule Selecting this option brings the user to a service-specific Self-Service page, where they can select a new time and/or date for the same service and same staff member from the original booking. Note that even though the original staff member is attached to the rescheduled booking by default, the user does have the option of changing the staff member as well.
      • Cancel booking This cancels the booking and removes it from the staff’s calendar.
      • New booking This option brings the user to the Self-Service page with all services and staff listed, for scheduling a new booking.
    • We only recommend leaving this setting enabled if you are comfortable with customers accessing the Self-Service page.
  • Disabled:
    • The user will have no ability to reschedule or cancel their booking when they book through the staff-facing Calendar tab on the Bookings Web app. When booking through the Self-Service page, however, customers will still have the Manage Booking button and all of its options, even when this setting is disabled.
    • We recommend disabling this setting if you want to limit access to the Self-Service page. Additionally, we suggest adding text to your confirmation and reminder emails that tells your customers how to make changes to their booking through other means, such as by calling the office or emailing the help desk.

Availability Options Tab

On the Availability options page, you can see the options you’ve selected from your Booking page for your scheduling policy and availability for your staff. For more information, see Set your scheduling policies.

The Default scheduling options is on by default. Turn the toggle off if you want to customize how customers book a particular staff member. This setting is displayed below the list of tabs on the left. Changing any of the settings in the Availability options tab will automatically turn the toggle off.

• Time increments: Determines the intervals between appointments. You can set your time increments from 5 minutes to 4 hours. You can also set your own customized time increments.
  • An interval of 15 minutes, for example, means a customer could schedule a 60-minute appointment at 8:00, 8:15, 8:30, and so on. Conversely, a 60-minute interval means that appointments are only available on the hour.
  • To set the service duration, see the Basic details tab.
• Minimum lead time: You build your staffing plan based on the appointments that are scheduled so it’s important to know in advance how many customers are coming in for service on any particular day. The minimum lead time enables you to specify the number of hours in advance that customers must book or cancel an appointment.
• Maximum lead time: You can limit how many days in advance customers can book appointments.
• Availability: Set the days and times that are available for a customer to select on the self-service page.
  • The available times will still be dependent on the availability on the calendar of the assigned staff members.
  • General Availability: Choose an option from this drop-down menu to define regular availability.
    • Bookable when staff are free: Choosing this option will display available times on the self-service page based on the availability of the calendars of all staff assigned to this service.
      • The available days and time ranges are still limited by the Business hours defined in the Business information settings.
      • If no staff are available at a particular time, that time will not be displayed as available.
      • If multiple staff are assigned to the service, and only one staff member has availability at a particular time, that time will still be displayed as available.
    • Not bookable: Remove all regular availability for this service.
      • This setting is primarily useful when combined with the information defined in Set different availability for a date range below, as you can display only specific days and times.
    • Custom hours (recurring weekly): You can use this setting to define specific days and times each week when this service is available to customers.
      • Click the trashcan icon on the right side of each day’s row to remove availabilities for that day. When all availability has been removed from a day, you will see it say “Not bookable.”
      • To add a time range of availability to a particular day when it displays as “Not bookable,” click the plus sign icon on the right side of the day’s row.
      • Set the start and end times for each time range of availability.
  • Set different availability for a date range: Add one or more options here to define availability between two dates in addition to the regular availability defined under General Availability.
    • After defining the start and end date, you will then select an option from the drop-down menu that contains the same options as described under General Availability above.
    • If you want to define irregular times that do not reoccur each week…
      • Set the start and end date within the specific week (e.g., start on a certain Sunday and end on the following Saturday).
      • Choose Custom hours (recurring weekly) from the dropdown.
      • Set the relevant hours on the relevant days where there should be availability, then set other days in that week as Not bookable by clicking the trashcan icon on the right side of each day’s row.
        • See the instructions for Custom hours (recurring weekly) above, under General Availability.

Assign Staff Tab

The people in the list displayed on this page are those that have been added through the Staff settings for this calendar.

• Allow customers to choose a particular staff for booking: If you select multiple staff for this service, Turn the toggle off if you want display a drop-down menu on the self-service page where customers can select which staff member they would prefer to book an appointment with.
• Assign staff to the service: Select all staff members that are available for this service.
  • When selecting multiple staff members, if the toggle for Allow customers to choose a particular staff for booking is off, then the availability for the service should be based on the combined availability of all assigned staff members, and all assigned staff members should receive appointment notifications.

Custom Fields Tab

Custom fields can be useful when collecting information that is needed every time the specific appointment is booked. Examples include insurance provider prior to a clinic visit, loan type for loan consultations, major of study for academic advising, or applicant ID for candidate interviews. These fields will appear on the Booking page when your customers book appointments with you and your staff.

Customer email, phone number, address, and notes are non-removable fields, but you can make them optional by deselecting Required beside each field.

Notifications Tab

On the Notifications tab, you can set up reminders and notifications you send. Reminders and notifications are sent out to customers, staff members, or both, at a specified time before the appointment. Multiple messages can be created for each appointment, according to your preference.

• Enable text message notifications for your customer: If selected, SMS messages are sent to the customer, but only if they opt in.
• Notify the business via email when a booking is created or changed: Select this option when you want to receive an email anytime a customer books an appointment or changes an existing one.
  • Note that the email will go to the mailbox specified on the Business information page.
• Email confirmation: You can include any additional text you would like here, such as information about rescheduling or what customers should bring for the appointment.
• Email reminders: You can add any number of email reminders here, scheduling each reminder to send to the customer, the assigned staff or both at predefined amounts of time before the appointment (e.g., 15 minutes, 1 hour, 2 weeks).
  • Note that these reminders only include text. They cannot include links.

Other Settings

• Publishing options: Choose whether to have this service appear as bookable on the self-service page, or to make the service bookable only on the staff-facing Calendar tab within the Bookings Web app.