Using Microsoft Bookings for Office Hours

Microsoft Bookings provides a straightforward way for students to schedule office hours with you online. It syncs directly with your Outlook calendar to ensure your availability is always up-to-date, preventing double-bookings. You can set up your office hours, share a simple link, and let students book appointments without any back-and-forth emails.

This guide will walk you through the essential steps: setting up your booking page, defining your office hours as a "service," and sharing your link with students.

Step 1: Access Bookings & Create Your Calendar

First, you'll create your main bookings page. This is the public-facing page students will see.

1. Navigate to Microsoft Bookings. You can find it in the app launcher (the "waffle" icon) in any Microsoft 365 application, signing in with your Chico State email and password or visit book.ms.
2. Click "Get started" and then choose "Create from scratch."
3. Enter a Business name for your calendar (e.g., "Professor Smith's Office Hours"). This is the only required field for now.
4. Click Next. You can skip inviting staff for now.
5. On the "Add a service" screen, you can start defining your office hours. For now, just review the default 30-minute meeting. If you want to change meetings to be in a different increment, you can edit and select 15-minutes here, or you can do it after you build the calendar. Click Next.
6. For "Choose who can book appointments," select "People in my organization" if you want to restrict bookings to users with a Chico State email account, or select  “Anyone” if you want anyone with the link can book an appointment with you.
7. Click Create. Your booking page is now being set up. When it's ready, click "Get Started."

Step 2: Define Your Office Hours (Add a Service)

Now, let's customize the appointment details. In Bookings, an appointment type is called a "service."

1. In the left-hand menu of your new booking page, select Services and then click "Add new service."
2. Fill out the Basic details:
   1. Service name: "Office Hours Appointment"
   2. Description: Briefly explain the purpose (e.g., "For discussing course material, assignments, or grades.").
   3. Location: Add your physical office location or check the "Add online meeting" box to automatically create a Microsoft Teams meeting link for each appointment.
   4. Duration: Set the length of a typical appointment (e.g., 20 minutes). You can also add "buffer time" if you need a few minutes between appointments.
3. Review all settings: ‘Basic, Availability, Assign Staff, etc. Under Availability, you will set the specific days and times you are available for these office hour appointments. Uncheck "Use business hours" to set custom hours.
4. Click "Save changes" at the top of the page.

Step 3: Publish and Share Your Booking Page

Once your service is saved, you are ready to share your booking link with students.

1. In the left-hand menu, select Booking page.
2. This is where you can customize the color scheme for your page.
3. Here, you can find your direct link. Under the "Share your page" section, click the copy icon to copy the URL.

You can now paste this link into your course syllabus, Canvas, or an email signature. Students can click the link, see your real-time availability, and book a time slot that works for them.

Microsoft Tutorials

For a step-by-step tutorial, or to explore more advanced settings, visit Microsoft’s website.

• Getting Started with Microsoft Bookings

• Microsoft Bookings Learning Modules (11 mini-tutorials)

Requirements

Microsoft Bookings is available for Chico State employees with the Microsoft 365 A3 or A5 license. By default, most campus employees have an A5 license. If you are a Chico State retiree, work with Associated Students (AS), or Chico State Enterprises (CSE), you have an Office A1 license. To upgrade to A3, request access here: Additional Account Access.