As you know from my previous post (Microsoft Loop: Why Nobody in the Room Loved It),during the past BeConnected Day I had (also) an opportunity for a speech and, as part of it, I discussed various apps and solutions, including Microsoft Bookings.
The title of this post reflects my view that Bookings is like that person who is almost perfect for you but is still missing something to be a perfect match.
While talking about Bookings, I was honestly disappointed, experiencing a “facepalm” moment. I believe the solution itself has a lot to offer without significantly increasing costs.
From a licensing point of view, Bookings is included in almost any license, including Office 365 E1 and Microsoft 365 Business Basic.
The user experience is really positive, both for the administrator (configuring and customizing requires a few clicks) and for the people involved in the bookings (given the integration with the Outlook calendar).
Bookings has received also a new start page that makes it even more easy to create and manage booking pages.
To my surprise, many people reacted negatively to this update, pointing out that what is truly needed are changes that have been requested for a long time.
The Bookings feedback portal is filled with sensible suggestions, and I understand the frustration of users who are just waiting for those small changes to make Bookings the perfect solution for them.
Having an approval process before confirming an appointment, for example, seems perfectly logical to me. Additionally, the fact that internal users have to manually add their information, despite the existing integration with Outlook, is another area that needs improvement.
In conclusion, while Microsoft Bookings shows great potential, it needs to address these long-standing user requests to become a truly indispensable tool. I look forward to seeing how Microsoft evolves this promising solution.
