Microsoft Bookings is an appointment bookings & scheduling app for business customers to book appointments online. Its available as part of the business Microsoft 365 cloud platform.
Issue: Microsoft Bookings ignorging outlook free / busy availability
A commmon issue that individual users report is that Microsoft Bookings is showing availability even when an existing appointment is scheduled and marked as busy in the users outlook calendar.
If this is affecting only individual users, the following changes in outlook will fix this issue, it’s caused by individual calendar permissions set incorrectly on the user’s outlook calendar.
Step by step instructions
Time needed: 1 minute
The following steps resolve the permission issue blocking Microsoft Bookings from accessing an indiviual users free / busy availability status to avoid double booking appointments.
- Open Microsoft Outlook
Launch the desktop version of Microsoft Outlook.
- Open Calendar Options
You can access calendar options bu clicking File > Options > Calendar > Calendar Options then select Free / Busy Options
- Set Authorisation Level
You now need to change the authorisation level of My Organisation from None to Can Show When I’m Busy. When that is done click OK and OK again to close the options box.
Allow up to 15 mins for the first synchronisation of the data and the free / busy availability should now be reflected in Microsoft Bookings.
