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Having your appointments with clients/customers is one of the best ways to ‘sell’ your product/service and show them how much you value your time.
Maybe you have considered using Microsoft Bookings but are unaware of the process to successfully set it up. Especially if you are a new user of the Microsoft 365 platform, this process may be totally foreign to you.
This quick guide we compiled will help you get started with Microsoft Bookings.
Booking appointments with MS Bookings allows people to schedule time with you within or outside your organization. You can customize your availability, services, or products to ensure that people can only schedule times around your free time.
Bookings is an alternative to the app Calendly. MS Bookings comes with your M365 subscription for free. When you have scheduled meetings on your Outlook Calendar, it stops people from booking. To avoid being overbooked, add all your meetings/ appointments to your calendar, for example, doctor's appointments, gym time, etc. This will ensure people cannot book when you are not available.
You can add different calendars to Bookings that can be used for other things. For example, you can have a Bookings calendar for interviews and a different one for customers to reserve services.
Also, staff members outside your organization can be added, like independent contractors or part-time workers.
To get started with Bookings, access it through the web by going to https://www.office.com/ and signing in with your Microsoft account.
Once you are signed in, you will see the applications included in your subscription on the left side of your screen, through the App Launcher, and select Bookings.
Bookings is a web-based application, but it is also accessible via the Microsoft Bookings mobile app. To download the mobile version of Bookings, you can go to the iTunes App Store or the Google Play Store for US and Canada and then click on Install or Download.
One of the crucial things you need to set up is your Business Information. This is where you will put your business’s booking page information.
To start your Business Information page, provide information about your company, such as your company name and address, phone numbers, website link, privacy policy, company logo, and business hours.
This information will be shown on the Bookings page that your clients will use to book appointments with you, which is also included in the email messages and reminders.
To set up your Business Information, here are the steps:
1. On your M365 account, click on the App launcher (left-hand side of your screen) and select Bookings.
2. Select Your calendar or Create Calendar.
3. Choose Business Information.
4. On the Basic details page, enter your business name, address, and the phone number that you would like to use for your Bookings calendar.
5. Send customer replies to the preferred email address where your customers or clients can send responses. This is also the same email address where the details about the booking and reminders are sent.
6. You may also enter your business Website URL in the Website URL field.
7. Indicate your Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions URLs.
8. Upload your Business Logo by clicking on Add Logo.
9. Set your business hours the same as your operational hours or based on your preferences.
10. Once you are done, click on Save.
Apart from setting up your business information, adding your Offered Services is needed to set up your booking page.
Identifying services offered include the service name, description, location (this could be meeting with the client at a specific location or creating a virtual meeting), duration, reminders to the client and the staff, and the pricing..
Clients who book an appointment will be able to see the availability of appointments, names of the staff, and the service cost.
To set up your Offered Services:
1. On the top right corner of your screen, click on Settings.
2. Go to Services.
3. Click on Add service.
On the Basic details page, you will need to enter the following information:
You can enable or disable the Add online meeting depending on your preferences as to how you would like to have a meeting with your clients. This option is for coaching if you sell those types of services.
As a company, you would want your booking page to look professional and, at the same time, user-friendly. MS Bookings allows you to customize the page your clients will see once they book an appointment with you.
Customizing and publishing your bookings page is easy; just follow through with these steps:
1. Login with your Microsoft Account at https://www.office.com/.
2. Go to Bookings through the App Launcher on the left side of your screen.
3. On the top right corner of your screen, click on Settings.
4. On the left side of your screen, select the Booking page.
There are a couple of things on this page that you can customize depending on how you would like your booking page to appear to your customers or clients.
1. To ensure only those who received the invitation link via email can book an appointment, disable search engines such as Google, so your booking page does not appear on the search results.
2. You can also set your customer data usage consent. You can indicate your terms in collecting personal data and usage in this part of setting up your booking page.
3. Click on the default scheduling policy to set up how you would like email notifications to be sent and manage your availability and staff settings. Your availability by default is your business hours, but you can customize this based on your preferences.
4. Make your page appealing to the eyes of your customers and clients by choosing colors and logos to establish brand consistency under the ‘Customize your page’ tab.
Finally, it is time to share your booking page with your customers and clients. After
You will have to sign in to https://www.office.com with your M365 account, go to the App Launcher and then select Bookings.
1. Click on Booking page.
2. Click on Scheduling policy and ensure that the details are correct depending on your preferences.
3. Click on Save and publish.
4. Click on Open published page to see what your booking page looks like on the web.
There will be times when you want to make changes or updates on your booking page. Unpublishing is easy. You must go to your settings, click on the Booking page, and select Unpublish.
There are different ways you can share your booking link. You can send it via email, add it to your email signature in Outlook or embed the link on your company website.
You must log in to your M365 account and go to Bookings from your app launcher to get your booking page link. Your booking page link will only be available once you are done publishing which requires the steps above.
1. On the left side of your screen, click on Booking Page.
2. Copy the link if you want to add it to your email signature.
3. To send it via email, click on the Email button.
4. Click on the Embed button to add it to your website. The example below is a booking page link.
Watch this video for a summary of MS Bookings: Microsoft Bookings - How to get started
If you have any questions about setting up a Bookings page, our support team at Vineforce can assist.
