Maintain your appointment calendar with ease using Microsoft Bookings

Scheduling and tracking day-to-day appointments can be a complicated process to begin with. Now in our current remote situation, that process has become even more challenging. 

Microsoft Bookings could help with some of these issues, especially for Rutgers departments or units providing services on an appointment basis. With Bookings, you can list available times, and then others can sign up for those time slots. 

As part of your Rutgers Connect Office 365 license, the application assists with booking appointments and maintaining your calendar. 

The IT team at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, under the leadership of Erin Bauzyk, executive director of IT, started using Bookings when the remote work period began. The application has helped her team, which previously worked on call whenever needed, organize virtual help at a time when faculty and staff have been asked to quickly transition. 

“It’s allowing us to continue to provide that personalized service to our end users without physically being present,” Erin said. “I’ve gotten so many emails from faculty expressing gratitude. They reach out for help, and we’ve been able to set them up with a one-on-one with somebody quickly.” 

Erin’s team has broken down its support services into individual categories, such as help with VPN or online proctoring, to make the scheduling process easier. Bookings can be managed by a staff member who receives and manages appointment requests, or by users scheduling their own appointments. Rutgers School of Dental Medicine has chosen to have a staff member manage the requests as a way of easing into the process. 

Beyond its own personal use, the IT team at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine has set up Bookings to assist academic departments and faculty in scheduling competency exams. Students self-select time slots, providing an effective way to set up the one-on-one exams. 

Bookings integrates with your Rutgers Connect account to automatically sync appointments to your calendar as soon as they are booked. It also allows you to make changes directly from the confirmation email or calendar in Outlook. 

While that feature comes in handy, Erin noted the added importance of keeping your calendar up to date to be able to manage available times for appointments and make the integration effective. 

Sabir Ahmedi, the acting senior director of Information Technology at the New Brunswick Office of the Chancellor IT Services (NB-ITS), felt that being able to offer specific times for users to select was a major plus of using Bookings when his team has used the platform. 

“A lot of time is spent asking our end users when they are available. You don’t want to end up playing phone tag when they need help,” Sabir said.  

To get started with Bookings at Rutgers, contact your department or unit IT support to create your Bookings calendar. You can learn more about using Microsoft Bookings at the Rutgers IT website or on Microsoft’s support site.