Office 365 includes Room & Equipment mailboxes which can be used to help organize booked times for those resources inside your organization. This article will go through how you can book those resources using Outlook as well as how they can be managed by a designated delegate account.
Using the Outlook desktop app
- Open the calendar view inside Outlook (hotkey Ctrl+2 on Windows)
- Click New Meeting to open the event creation window
- Click the Rooms button on the right hand side of the window
- Select the room you want to book the meeting for by double-clicking it then click OK
- Fill out the rest of the meeting detail and make sure to invite any other users who will be attending
- When you’ve filled all the necessary information out for the meeting, click Send
- Depending on how the room is configured, you will receive one of three types of notifications via email:
- Accepted – your meeting time for the room/equipment will be confirmed accepted and appear in the calendar now
- Tentative – your meeting time needs to be reviewed and approved by a delegate user for that specific resource
- Declined – your meeting time could not or was not approved for a reason which is usually indicated in the email
The Calendar view
The New Meeting button
The Rooms button
Using the Outlook web app
- Login to outlook.office.com with your Office 365 account if you haven’t already
- Access the calendar view by clicking the calendar button in the bottom left of the page
- Click the New button in the top left area of the page to create a new event
- Click into the field marked with “Add a location or a room” then either enter the room name and click it, or click the “Add room” button that appears just below after clicking into the field and choose the room
- Fill out all the other necessary information for the meeting, when done click the Save button at the top of the event details section
- You should receive a notification via email shortly after with the status of your proposed meeting using the room or equipment, depending on how the room / equipment is configured you will see one of the following statuses:
- Accepted – your meeting time for the room/equipment will be confirmed accepted and appear in the calendar now
- Tentative – your meeting time needs to be reviewed and approved by a delegate user for that specific resource
- Declined – your meeting time could not or was not approved for a reason which is usually indicated in the email
Access the Calendar on the web app
The New event button
Choosing a Room for the event
Approving / Declining Meetings as a delegate
If your account is set up as a delegate for a resource such as a room or equipment, then any time someone wishes to book a meeting you will receive an email to notify you of the request. From that email you can choose to Accept or Decline the booking. Once you choose one of the approval options make sure to send the response and the person who requested the meeting will receive a notification email indicating the status to them.
That’s the basics of using room and equipment mailboxes for your organization. If we missed anything or you’d like more information about something related to these, don’t hesitate to contact us!
