Microsoft Bookings - Occasional slots for booking, but want different staff members to show as available each week

Question

Microsoft Bookings - Occasional slots for booking, but want different staff members to show as available each week

Hazelwood, Holli 0

Context:
I am creating a Bookings Page where users can book a 30 minute appointment. The appointment slot changes week to week to vary the times we are offering, so I have manually created appointment slots by setting general availability as not bookable, and then using the 'customised hours' for each week, setting which day and 30 minute time slot is available that week. The correct 30 minute time slot is showing on the bookings page now - this has been a successful work around, though albeit fiddly.

The issue:

However, I have 3 members of staff for the service. They are taking it in turns to be available for each slot. So I do not want staff member B or C to show as available when it is staff member A's week to do the appointment.

I have tried using the 'time off' feature to mark the staff member not doing the session that week as having time off. This has successfully hidden them from the booking page, however it isn't actually a viable option as now it says 'time off' in their outlook calendar, when they are not having time off, they are still doing their usual job, just aren't attending that appointment. (Is there a way of marking them as having time off without this showing on their outlook calendar?)

We do not want to have separate services on the booking page for each staff member, as this is confusing for customers booking the appointment. Customers don't mind which staff member they see, they just want to book an appointment for a time that suits them.

I do not want to add lots of appointments in each staff members calendar, as this 30 minute appointment is only a small aspect of their role, and their calendar needs to reflect their availability for all aspects of their job.

Request:

Please advice what solutions there are. If I can get this working successfully, we will be using Microsoft Bookings for various different things!

A useful feature that I think would resolve this would be if when choosing the 'availability' for each time period you could select a staff member too.

Hazelwood, Holli 0 Reputation points

2026-08-11T15:09:45.1266667+00:00

Update - Idea / Feedback submitted - please upvote if the assigning staff to an appointment / availability period function would also be of benefit to you.
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback//idea/9cc89ca4-9595-f111-9b47-7c1e52444ef6

1 answer

Your answer

Hazelwood, Holli 0 Reputation points

2026-08-11T15:09:45.1266667+00:00

Update - Idea / Feedback submitted - please upvote if the assigning staff to an appointment / availability period function would also be of benefit to you.
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback//idea/9cc89ca4-9595-f111-9b47-7c1e52444ef6

Answer 1

Heimerdinger 290 Independent Advisor

Hi @Hazelwood, Holli,

Thank you for taking the time to explain your scenario in detail. I understand what you're trying to achieve: offering a single public 30-minute appointment slot each week while rotating different staff members behind the scenes, without displaying unavailable staff or marking them incorrectly as "time off."

Based on the current Microsoft Bookings design, service availability can be managed using options such as Bookable when staff are free, Not bookable, or Custom hours. You can also configure different date ranges for a service. However, these settings control when a service is available for booking and do not provide a way to automatically assign a different staff member for each custom date range.

For this scenario, I would recommend avoiding the Time off feature unless the staff member is genuinely unavailable. Time off is intended for situations such as vacations, sick leave, business closures, or other periods when an employee should not receive bookings.

Recommended approach: Use staff availability

If each staff member has a predictable schedule, you can manage availability by adjusting their working hours in Microsoft Bookings so that only the appropriate staff member is available for the appointment slot each week.

Go to Services and select Edit service.
Enable staff selection for the service.
Choose only the staff member who should handle that week's appointment slot.

With this configuration, customers visiting the booking page will see the same service, but only the selected staff member will be available for booking during that period.

This approach keeps the customer experience simple and consistent. While it does require some manual updates when the assigned staff member changes, it is currently the most practical way to achieve the behavior you're looking for within Microsoft Bookings.

Thank you again for your time and patience. I hope this helps clarify the available options. If you have any questions or if your staff rotation follows a specific pattern, feel free to share more details and I'll be happy to explore whether there may be a more efficient setup.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Yes". If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in the forum documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Hazelwood, Holli 0 Reputation points

2026-08-10T12:28:56.1933333+00:00

Hello, Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.

Unfortunately this will not work either as all of the staff work Mon-Fri 9-5 but not predictable schedules in terms of what they are doing. They will often show as 'free' in their calendar although we do not want them to display as available for the appointment when it isn't their week.

Our booking form shows bookings up to a few months in advance, so if I amend the staff members availability to portray them as not available one week, they then also show as unavailable for later appointments which we want to be viewable as we do want customers to book with them.

For a bit more clarity, our bookable appointments are frequently on Mondays and Fridays, 9 / 9.30 and 4 / 4.30, but they rotate who is offering the appointments. If I mark staff member A as not working Monday mornings, then the weeks her appointment is on a Monday morning will not be viewable to book on the booking form. The appointments are only available as 1 a week, but do vary across all days and a variety of times, so that our customers can choose a time right for them - hence the booking in advance being necessary.

Currently there are 2 staff members who alternate weeks, but there will be a 3rd staff member added, possibly more in future.

Is there another solution you can think of? Or is Microsoft Bookings just not a viable option until there are more features?
Hazelwood, Holli 0 Reputation points

2026-08-10T12:37:54.7366667+00:00

Further to the above, when choosing 'use staff availability', it takes all of the times that she is free across her calendar and displays these as bookable appointments again, when we want it to show just the 1 30 minute appointment each week (timing of which varies, as I described). I think I really do need to keep it to customised hours.
Heimerdinger 290 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-11T14:30:53.93+00:00

Hi @Hazelwood, Holli,

Thank you for the additional explanation. That clarification helps a lot.

Based on the scenario you've described, I agree that the usual workarounds do not appear to fully meet your requirements:

Time off successfully removes staff from availability, but it also creates time-off entries in their calendars, which is not an accurate representation of their working status.

Use staff availability relies on each staff member's calendar availability and therefore exposes many more appointment times than the single custom slot you want to offer each week.

Adjusting staff working hours affects availability across the entire scheduling window and does not support rotating ownership of individual customized appointment slots several months in advance.

From what you've described, the missing capability is the ability to associate a specific staff member with a particular custom availability period or booking slot, while still presenting customers with a single service. At present, Microsoft Bookings does not provide a built-in way to assign staff members to individual custom date ranges or rotating slots in the manner you're looking for.

Because of this limitation, Microsoft Bookings may require ongoing manual administration for this scenario, and I am not aware of a native configuration that would fully automate the rotating-staff model you described while retaining customized hours.

I think this is valuable product feedback, particularly because your use case seems very reasonable: maintaining a single customer-facing service while rotating responsibility among staff members behind the scenes.

If this functionality would be important for your organization, I would encourage you to submit feedback through the Microsoft Feedback Portal so the Microsoft Bookings product team can review the request:

Bookings · Community

You could suggest something similar to:

"Please add the ability to assign specific staff members to individual custom availability periods or appointment slots within a service. This would allow organizations to rotate staff responsibility while maintaining a single booking page and customized appointment availability."

If you decide to submit the idea, feel free to share the feedback link here so other community members with similar requirements can review and support it.

Please note that I'm also a community member and do not have the ability to change product behavior or influence the Microsoft product roadmap directly. However, I appreciate you taking the time to describe your scenario, as it highlights a genuine scheduling need that may benefit other Bookings users as well.

Thank you again for the detailed feedback.
Hazelwood, Holli 0 Reputation points

2026-08-11T15:08:03.86+00:00

Hi Heimerdinger, that is very useful and a great suggestion. I have submitted the feedback now. Thank you for your considerate informative responses.
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback//idea/9cc89ca4-9595-f111-9b47-7c1e52444ef6
Heimerdinger 290 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-12T18:52:23.07+00:00

Hi @Hazelwood, Holli,

I'm really glad to hear that the information was helpful, and thank you for taking the time to submit the feedback.

I’ve also voted for your feedback idea and hope it receives additional attention from the product team and the community.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out anytime you need support. I’m always here to help.

Take care, and have a great day ahead.

Thank you again for your kind words and for sharing the feedback link. I truly appreciate it.