Teams Premium enhances scheduling in Microsoft Bookings

In today’s fast-paced world, efficient scheduling is key to keeping businesses running smoothly. Whether you're a consultant, healthcare provider, or small business owner, the challenge of coordinating appointments can feel overwhelming. This is where Microsoft Bookings steps in—a powerful tool designed to simplify and streamline the process of scheduling and managing appointments.

Now, we are ready to take scheduling to the next level! Introducing advanced features in Bookings accessed through Teams Premium license. The advanced features are designed to further simplify scheduling, improve client communication, manage workflows, and enhance overall efficiency.

What is Microsoft Bookings?

Microsoft Bookings is an online scheduling tool that enables businesses to manage their appointments seamlessly. It allows you to create customizable booking pages where customers, clients, or colleagues can easily schedule time with you or your team without the usual back-and-forth communication. As part of Microsoft 365, Bookings offers a convenient and professional way to handle all your scheduling needs, ensuring both you and your attendees are always in sync.

Bookings can be used across various industries, for different internal & external scenarios.

Premium features in Bookings, included with Teams Premium

With a Teams Premium license, users can enjoy advanced scheduling features in Bookings like SMS notifications and Scheduled queue.

SMS notifications for appointments
Microsoft Bookings users with a Teams Premium license can now send SMS notifications for appointments scheduled by either customers or staff. These notifications provide automated confirmations, service details, updates, and reminders, helping customers stay informed and reducing missed appointments. This functionality is generally available for US, UK and Canada. The assigned staff member needs a valid Teams premium license. Attendees, customers or partners need a valid United States, Canada or United Kingdom phone number before they can receive SMS notifications. This functionality will also be available for Netherlands in Dec 2024.

Admins can turn off SMS in their organization by following the steps in this article: Manage granular controls for Shared Bookings | Microsoft Learn

Scheduled Queue
The queue functionality in Bookings is a powerful feature tailored for staff, providing real-time visibility and control over incoming appointments. This feature enables schedulers and admins to have a consolidated view of all appointments for the day in chronological order across the booking page they manage. With this view, they can better manage the load of incoming appointments and reassign delayed appointments to available staff. Staff can also self-serve on busy days by assigning the unassigned appointments to themselves, helping to balance workloads across teams or specific services. Additionally, SMS and email reminders can be sent to keep customers informed, enhancing overall transparency and ensuring a smooth appointment experience for everyone involved. This capability will be available in Bookings for users with a Teams Premium license in early 2025. 

Ready to revolutionize scheduling? Upgrade to Teams Premium and enjoy the advanced scheduling experience in Bookings.

For more details about Bookings, refer to the documentation here: Microsoft Bookings | Microsoft Learn