There are actually 2 different types of Resource Mailbox, one called Meeting Room, and one called Equipment. They both do essentially the same thing – the first is to manage booking out a room, the second to manage booking out a piece of shared equipment.
The benefit is that you can manage access to the resource, whatever it is, automatically, without having to assign someone as being responsible for managing the bookings (though you can delegate this if you want to).
The exact settings on how far in advance you can make a booking, the duration allowed, etc. are all available to be edited by your IT Team, but here we’ll just look at the basic setup.
Check Availability
Once the meeting room mailbox has been created, it will be available to everyone in the organisation. To see it, in Outlook go to Add Calendar > From Room List
The calendar appears next to your own and you can see if it’s been booked, as it will be marked off as ‘Busy’.
Note – no further details are visible, and the participants and other notes are hidden for privacy. The calendar in only concerned with whether the room is free or not.
Book your meeting
To book the room, create your appointment in Outlook as normal. But now, if you click on the Location button, you’ll see the meeting room or resource in the list. Double click to add it in.
Accepted or Rejected
It is possible to delegate booking acceptance to a person in your organisation, but here I’ve set ours up to be automatic. When booking a meeting in a free slot, the meeting room mailbox automatically confirms the appointment and it’s listed as the location for all attendees.
If the room or resource is not free (again, some settings, depending on what you are booking, may allow multiple concurrent bookings) the automation will reject the meeting. The one piece of information that is now shared is the name of the organiser of the conflicting booking.
As always, there’s a bit more that can be done and customised, but that’s the basics! Ask your IT department to set one up for you.
Like this blog? another useful guide on how to share your calendar with other team members here: How to share your calendar in Outlook – Macnamara ICT
