At SquarePlanIT, we’re fanatical about making technology easy so you can enjoy increased productivity, efficiency, and security in your business. In the coming weeks, we’ll highlight several tools that will help you become more productive and efficient in your day to day operations. The best part? If you’re one of our clients, you already have access to these tools at no extra cost!

Microsoft Bookings

Today we’re focused on Microsoft Bookings, an online tool that provides a simple (and automated!) way to organize schedules and manage appointments. Do you ever go back and forth via email when trying to coordinate a time to meet with your clients? Maybe you’re spending a lot of time booking appointments over the phone. There’s an easier way!

Here’s how Microsoft describes this awesome tool:

Bookings is integrated with your Microsoft 365 or Office 365 calendar to help your customers quickly find available times and avoid double-booking. With Bookings, you’ll spend less time scheduling and more time meeting with customers. Customize appointment details, booking requirements, and specify service providers to streamline the booking experience for you and your customers. 

Enabling “work from anywhere”.

With the increase of hybrid work environments, not every meeting happens in-person. The good news? Bookings is deeply integrated with Microsoft Teams, enabling you to be productive wherever you are in the world. Appointments booked with online meetings include a meeting link that everyone can join virtually from anywhere, on any device.

Useful for groups and individuals.

Bookings is useful for individuals and groups. Are you looking to add a link in your email signature to that allows anyone to book a one-to-one meeting with you? Bookings can do that!

Here’s an example team scenario:

If you own a salon (or a CPA firm, landscaping business, or really any service-based business with multiple team members) and you need to enable customers to schedule appointments with a specific person, or whoever is available, and you want everyone to see availability in real-time. Bookings has you covered! You can even allow your customer to manage their own appointment, which means they can cancel or reschedule, all from their smartphone. When your customer schedules a new appointment, they’ll receive a confirmation email and a calendar invitation, and an email (or text) reminder about their upcoming appointment.

Do you offer multiple services with different appointment lengths? Maybe not all team members offer the same services. That’s all configurable using a single Bookings page!

Source: Microsoft

Deep integrations with the tools you already use.

Bookings is deeply integrated with Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and Exchange. Did you know you can manage your Bookings data directly from the Teams app? Bookings can also reference your personal calendar when showing available time slots to your customers, which means you’ll never be double-booked. You can even embed your Bookings page on your existing website! This means your customers don’t have to remember a different URL to book a meeting with you.

Ready to try it out for yourself?

Schedule a free 15-minute discovery call with someone from our team (hint: we use Microsoft Bookings!) . If you’re an existing client, we’d love to just say “hi” and have a virtual coffee, and if you’re not, we’d love to see if we’re a good mutual fit!

P.S. if you’re looking for a new IT service provider, check out our guide that covers how to choose your next IT service provider for some quick tips to get you started!