Booking Conference and Therapy Rooms via Outlook Calendar.

Booking Conference and Therapy Rooms gets a whole lot easier in Outlook 2013, thanks to the “Room Finder” tool.  

When you create a meeting on your Outlook Calendar, on the right side of the meeting window you’ll see the Room Finder tool. In the room finder tool, you can use the “Show a room list:” dropdown to show a list of *available* conference rooms or therapy rooms for the date and time that your meeting is scheduled. You can also see suggestions of times if you want a specific room. 

 

 You can also use the “Rooms…” button to select from the global address list of rooms if you choose (the old fashioned way, but it will also allow for selecting resources. 

 

Also, no more worrying about inviting the Room as a Resource! You can invite the room just like any other attendee, and the room will email you with an acceptance or declination for your booking. 

 

You can book a room from your iPhone! However, your iPhone doesn’t have the Room Finder tool, so you’ll need to rely on the Accepted or Declined email from the Room to confirm that your booking was successful (not already booked). 

 

The “Scheduling” tab from Outlook 2003 is now the “Scheduling Assistant”, and should look very familiar. 

 

When you do book a room, Outlook automatically puts your name in the subject line of the Room’s booking, to make viewing who has a Room booked a whole lot easier. 

 

 Another annoyance that’s gone – Outlook no longer leaves “Cancelled” meetings on the Room calendar, instead it removes it completely, keeping the Room calendar nice and clean. 

 

1:  Just right-click on “My Calendars”, then choose “New Calendar Group”. 

2: Give it a descriptive name, such as “My Team” or “Therapy Rooms”, then drag and drop any shared calendars you have opened in and out of the Calendar Group. Create as many as you like!