Microsoft Bookings

Vital for distributed teams with multiple systems

Opmerkingen: We have people all over the country using many different systems to book time with our staff. Bookings takes the guess work out and allows users to control their calendars more effectively. If someone is attempting to schedule a meeting and isn't on the network, we immediately provide the link to our Bookings page and make it easier on everyone.

Pluspunten:

There are many tools that provide the same type of service as Bookings but the security of the Microsoft suite was important to us. We've previously used other tools but we were able to get everyone into Bookings which made training and troubleshooting easier for the entire staff. Our recruiters are asked to meet with students daily and rather than emailing the student their available times, recruiters can simply provide a link to the calendar which allows students to pick an available time simply. We work with several partners who don't have visibility to calendars when scheduling meeting. Access to the individuals' bookings page makes scheduling easier and reduces the chances of people getting double booked. Meetings booked through a Bookings page is moved over to the Outlook calendar with a notification. Cancellations are also updated in Outlook and the attendees are notified.

Minpunten:

The customization opportunities are limited. Users can set things like email reminders and calendar invites, and modify color schemes and logos. Would like to see more integrations with other MS products. For example, if a meeting is booked that is going to require a conference call or an online software. It would be nice to automatically have a Microsoft Teams meeting and invite created and emailed to the participants. Ability to create a one-time bookings page that incorporates the calendars of several people would be a nice addition to the product.

Convenience and functionality that work for us

Opmerkingen: Overall for us Microsoft Booking works quite well and is a very helpful tool to make sure we get appointments scheduled quickly and have additional tools for the functionality of the booking system that make it very simple to use.

Pluspunten:

The convenience of being able to sync calendars, create recurring appointments and send and get confirmation through the booking systems connection to our outlook, makes Microsoft Booking a highly effective and very necessary part of our tools and systems. Clients can confirm within the email and we get that confirmation as well as regular reminders on the appointed day. Fewer missed appointments by our clients because they also get SMS reminders making it really convenient for us. I also like that it integrates with zoom and teams to have additional functionality to what appears to be a "simple" scheduler.

Minpunten:

I don't like that getting paid for appointments is still not a simple as some of their competitors who have their standalone booking systems that also allow for payment within their software.

Cancellation impossible

Pluspunten:

Very feature complete. The software provides a lot of abilities to manage calendars across locations and employees.

Minpunten:

1. The API is in beta, gets changed without warning, lacks major convenience features like requesting availability and overall seems to be built in order to make the usage of scheduling without Microsoft UI as hard as possible 2. We tried to cancel the service but Microsoft locked us out of the account. The support will not take our termination and refers to the authenticator app. Since we do not have that app, we cannot log in. We are paying since over 6 month without receiving any value. Microsoft Support stopped responding to our request to cancel. We consider to ask our bank to block the deduction of subscription fees because of fraudulent behavior.

Time to Meet

Pluspunten:

The online booking feature is the most impactful. Bookings syncs with a calendar to allow prospective clients the opportunity to view open time slots to meet.

Minpunten:

The integration of Bookings into my daily routine required effort. The platform would do well for a barber or any professional who charges a fee for their service or time. Bookings needs some polish for those of us who meet and provide a service which may be offered free of charge. Those in a non-profit industry may find that extra time is needed to tailor Bookings to our specific needs before deploying.

Share your calendar with Bookings by Microsoft

Opmerkingen: I use Bookings for client consultations. I is some much easier to allow client to choose an available time book themselves instead of the back and forth trying to figure out a suitable time via email.

Pluspunten:

Bookings by Microsoft is one of those apps included with Microsoft Office 365 and it allows you to take online client bookings. It is easy to setup and use.

Minpunten:

I would like more flexibility in creating the booking calendar and clearer notification email when a client books an appointment.

It might be worth it if your needs are super simple and you don't need to charge for your bookings.

Opmerkingen: I had used Calendly and tried to move everything to Microsoft Bookings. It was difficult, the software is cumbersome, not very flexible, not easy to use, and even though they changed their layout to something better, it is still not really up to par with the competition.

Pluspunten:

It was free with my Microsoft 365. Honestly that is probably the one thing I liked.

Minpunten:

If you don't want or need Microsoft 365, or if you want your clients to pay when they do the booking, this software doesn't even come close to the features and flexibility of Calendly or Squarespace (formerly Acuity Scheduling). Microsoft charges over $20 a month in order to have this simple feature...

Great for appointments

Opmerkingen: It's been great so far. Very easy to setup and enable users to setup and manage their own bookings. Other programs have required more admin work.

Pluspunten:

Easy to add multiple resources to one calendar. When you send the link to a user it gives them flexibility to select the time and resource that works best for them. If you have a meeting already scheduled it will remove that timeframe as a resource.

Minpunten:

If the person who made the appointment cancels, it will send you an email but it does not automatically remove that time slot from your calendar.

Very niche product - not for "general" business use.

Opmerkingen: Pretty frustrating. There seemed to be a lot of potential. We used Bookings to schedule an online client event with team members. We managed to make it work, but during the process realized this product is almost specifically designed for a "Hair Salon" type booking structure. Hopefully there will be iterations to make this work more for general business use.

Pluspunten:

Integration with Office 365, price, booking pages Some of the scheduling features

Minpunten:

Cannot get a "bookings" link for an individual Cannot have a bookings option that requires specific people (two or more) - you can only do "OR", not "AND" combinations.

Microsoft Bookings

Opmerkingen: Saved us so much time, and back and forth emails. We would not be able to do our seasonal hire without it.

Pluspunten:

Our very small team annually hires over 150 people over the course of a few months. Having the ability for our team to sync their calendars/availability and let interviewees book their own interviews has been a game changer for us. Saves so much time and effort. It auto syncs with Teams so everything is taken care of. And since its built into the Microsoft suite it wasn't a separate program we needed to pay for. Bookings really runs itself once you've set up your parameters, which is so important to us.

Minpunten:

As we are using it for interviews, we must have two of our own staff present on the interview. Teams can't book with two of our team without me making a built in team of every pairing. So I do have to manually enter the second interviewer, which is frustrating. This is the only downside we have found with bookings.

Microsoft Bookings

Pluspunten:

Microsoft bookings is very easy to use, Especially for first time users,it's easy to syn with outlook calendar.

Minpunten:

There is no cons that I have seen while working with Microsoft Bookings.

Bookings is a great way to setup appointments and get reminders

Opmerkingen: Overall I'm impressed that it's rolled into our Microsoft License and it's saved us thousands on a separate tool. I also like that the virtual appointments app is in Teams so my users aren't going to a completely separate place.

Pluspunten:

We use bookings to manage training with clients. So they aren't setting up the appointment themselves, but it allows us to create standard appointment windows and the manager who is assigning the training to staff can see everyone's calendar at one time to assign those trainings. The SMS and email reminders are critical to success and it's great to have them as clients will get pinged about the training an intervals we decide as well as things like an automatic thank you email after the appointment. The ability to extent Bookings functionality by using it with power automate cannot be overstated.

Minpunten:

Eh Microsoft had it more in mind for Doctor's offices and salons and things like that. I wish they'd expand the design for things like a group class with limited spots. We make it work, but it clearly wasn't designed with that in mind.

Make online bookings very easy

Opmerkingen: We used Bookings to allow clients to schedule meetings with us. Tying into our calendars made that easy!

Pluspunten:

I loved how it synced my availability directly from my calendar to avoid double bookings.

Minpunten:

The software was great and there was nothing I disliked.

microsoft booking

Pluspunten:

easy and fast to use in any way you want

Minpunten:

they are fast, easy and relaiable to use

Do and don't do

Opmerkingen: Doing good for my info to stay in

Pluspunten:

Easy to use, important info stays in, nothing never to hard or challenging to fix

Minpunten:

Correcting my logins, making sure I no one hacked my page

Book It!

Pluspunten:

I use Bookings to schedule meetings with our valued agents. Overall ease of use, and integration into my other software makes this software a no-brainer

Minpunten:

Nothing. Fully integrated into my work life.

Impossible to make a recurring appointment (in 2021)!!!

Opmerkingen: I think it's an unnecessary product and that they should have simply improved Outlook (which is already pretty great).

Pluspunten:

I think the ability to send unlimited reminder emails is a nice feature, but it's already possible to customize email reminders in Outlook (albeit unfortunately in a more limited capacity--it seems like you can only choose a one-week reminder or a one-day reminder, which I don't understand) so why doesn't Microsoft simply make the email reminders in Outlook more robust?

Minpunten:

I have been forced to use this software to book recurring weekly trainings for up to 6 months, which means I am obliged to MANUALLY ENTER each and every appointment for my students. I think that the reminder emails are a nice feature, but it's already possible to do in Outlook. Frankly I find it absolutely insane that you can't book a recurring appointment. It might work great for something like a hair salon, but for regular appointments, it's torture.

Easy planning, by your customers

Opmerkingen: It really solves the booking problem. There is no middel person needed to take phonecalls and schedule customers in. All is done for you and scheduled for you.

Pluspunten:

When offering a service, where customers have to see and book available days this is the best office. Integrated in the office 365 package it has great compatibility with the other applications. Made bookings are placed directly in the agenda and new customers are placed in the contact list. The customers sees a clean and clear webpage provide by microsoft.

Minpunten:

No cons, this really is a great application with no better.

Best booking tool out there!

Opmerkingen: Made a huge difference on our workflow with customers.

Pluspunten:

Easy integration into existing platforms. Allows for customers to book open slots in our calendars directly rather than utilizing email back and forth.

Minpunten:

None. Integration directly into our outlook was seamless. And customers find it easy to use in any browser.

Essential for effectiveness

Opmerkingen: It always ensure a organize a meeting with stakeholders in an efficient way.

Pluspunten:

It is very easy to add stakeholders' calendars and ensure an effective way to set up a meeting and organize schedule.

Minpunten:

Initial set-up is a bit confusing. Any other cons about the product. Text message reminders are required.

Great way to book appointments

Opmerkingen: In our office, we have to work with the other remote offices of ours so booking appointments is very important and having work on ms technologies if you have an application from Microsoft which is such a nice ,is great.

Pluspunten:

It keeps all your meetings organized and allow booking appointments. Great comparability with the other applications. Easy and clean GUI

Minpunten:

Great application. Does its job. I don't have any issue with this. It really saves a lot of time. Go for it.

Online booking platform time saver

Opmerkingen: Accesable for clients 24/7 and time saver for us.

Pluspunten:

You have full controll over the entire planning. Also for costumers it is all very clear and user friendly. I'ts easy to use and at this point there are no functions that I miss in this application. The support for this app is very helpfull and with fast response.

Minpunten:

At the moment there are no downsides. It realy saves a lot of time.

Perfect for my clients' diary.

Pluspunten:

like to use this system because I can better organize my week, dedicate only 2 days a week to attend the visit of my clients through online dating, I love it.

Minpunten:

I must be careful not to postpone an appointment for personal matters, it is common that being my own boss may feel the need to postpone an appointment for personal matters.

Still learning how to use this - seems ok but not in love with it yet

Opmerkingen: Honestly, I think we just need to use it more but my initial impressions are that it is just ok. Hopefully with more time we will be able to take better advantage of it's features.

Pluspunten:

We just started using it and I like the idea of what it can do but getting it setup and the office to use it will take a bit of time. The parts I have played with seem good but again it is kind of tricky to setup and sync things.

Minpunten:

We have office 365 but we have to upgrade licenses to use it and share calendars - now maybe there is a better way to use it but so far it does what we want but not the way we want it to work. It also took a bit to figure out how to get it to work/be visible for multiple users.

Not happy

Pluspunten:

I like the concept of bookings online. While this software was easy to set up, the backend work did not function how I had hoped.

Minpunten:

This was not easy to maintain. I had issues syncing calendars. We missed appointments and had lots of miscommunication.

Great way to organize meetings

Opmerkingen: Excellent tool to allow clients to schedule themselves a meeting based on your set schedule.

Pluspunten:

Easy to set up office hours and modify based on the day. Syncs with calendar.

Minpunten:

Better directions for setting it up for the first time.