Service overview
As part of the Office 365 offering, Microsoft Bookings is an online and mobile app for groups who provide services to customers on an appointment basis. For example, Bookings can be leveraged to schedule individual or group training sessions, either in person or online.
Features include:
- A booking page where your customers can schedule appointments with the staff members who are available to provide the service. You can show this page on your own web site or through a link, where your customers can schedule appointments. You can restrict access to your bookings page by applying access controls.
- A set of web pages where the group owners can manage staff lists and schedules, define services and pricing, set business hours, and customize how services and staff are scheduled.
Who can use it
McGill faculty, staff and actively registered students can obtain a license to create a bookings page.
How to request & access the service
Register for an information session (optional):
Attend an LTL 13 MS Bookings session (45 minutes) to learn more about this tool and decide if MS Bookings is a good fit for you or your unit.
More information: Lunchtime Learning, IT & Tea
Register for training (mandatory):
You must first register for training before you are able to set up a bookings page to offer appointments.
- To register, go to the Collaboration Solutions ITS page.
- Click on "Microsoft Bookings - Intro and License request".
- Choose an available date and time that works for you and click Submit.
When you have completed training, in order to request a booking license and have access to set up a bookings page, you will be required to fill out the MS Bookings license form.
Access Bookings (once the license is activated):
- Log in to the Microsoft Office 365 portal using your McGill username and password.
- Click the Bookings icon. (If you don't see it immediately, check under All apps.)
Cost
There is no cost to use this service.
Availability
The service is available 24 X 7, except during planned maintenance or outages. Check the System Status page of the IT Support site, or the Microsoft Office 365 website for announcements of any maintenance or unexpected downtime.
Frequently asked questions
What is a group booking?
Group bookings lets you set up service appointments where multiple people can join a session with a single staff member. You can use group bookings to schedule conferences, lectures or training sessions with several people at the same time.
When you create the service, on the Services page, under Maximum number of attendees, enter the number of people who can attend this event. Once you set the maximum number, the attendee list can't exceed the number you set.
Best practices & policies
- Although Bookings is a McGill-approved cloud service, where you can store protected and personal data, it must not be used to store certain types of regulated data. For definitions of the various types of institutional data, and guidance on which type of data cannot be stored in Bookings, see cloud services that have been approved / rejected for McGill use.
- When you personalize the form for booking an appointment, make sure not to ask for any personal data if you don’t have a need for that information. A good practice is to ask yourself, "Do I really need to ask for this information?" If you can look it up on a system such as Banner, then the answer should be "No".
- If you have to ask for personal data to book the appointment, you can add a “Customer data usage consent” checkbox, so that the person can acknowledge that you are collecting and storing this information.
Training & documentation
NOTE:
For instructions on how to create and manage your bookings page, select the guide that applies to you:
Find more information about MS Bookings on the Microsoft website.
Support
For MS Bookings users, sign up for a MS Bookings Q&A chat session.
For access/authentication issues and basic assistance contact the IT Service Desk