conference room scheduling sharepoint tutorial

Conference Room Scheduling Sharepoint Tutorial How To Invite Attendees

The meeting room reservation feature additionally allows you to check the availability of Exchange rooms and equipment and then book them straight from your SharePoint calendar.

This feature has now been updated allowing you to book Exchange rooms and equipment directly when scheduling meetings in a SharePoint calendar.

Conference Room Scheduling Sharepoint Tutorial How To Invite Attendees

The following content is deprecated please read the new version In a previous post I talked about how to invite attendees to a meeting from a SharePoint calendar using the Calendar E-Mail Extension.

In this post I will show you how you can also book meeting rooms or other resources directly from a SharePoint calendar using the same solution.

Configuring the SharePoint calendar Guests can be invited by simply entering their e-mail addresses separated by semicolons or by entering one address per row.

As all Exchange resources also have e-mail addresses, you can use the guests column to book meeting rooms and other Exchange resources.

Of course you cant expect your users to enter the e-mail address of an exchange room or equipment mailbox, thats why I would recommend to change the type of the guests column to choice or multi choice and configure all Exchange resources that can be reserved as possible options.

Go to the list settings of the calendar, click on the guests field and change the name and field type.

In my case I changed the name to Rooms and equipment and the type to choice displayed as multi select checkboxes.

I assume that you also dont want to enter just the e-mail addresses but also the name of the conference room and the equipment.

Here you can use the following format: Conference Room A If you like, you can also allow Fill-in choices to be more flexible and allow organizers to enter additional e-mail addresses separated by semicolon.

Thats it for the changes in the SharePoint calendar, now lets talk about what happens if you invite an Exchange resource.

Book an Exchange resource from the SharePoint calendar If you now schedule a meeting in the SharePoint calendar and select one of the meeting rooms or any equipment, a meeting request will be send to the associated Exchange mailbox.

Depending on how the mailbox is configured, the resource will be booked and replies to the SharePoint calendar.

If you want to automatically book the resource and send a reply back to the SharePoint Calendar, you have to make sure that: AutoAccept is set for AutomateProcessing ProcessExternalMeetingMessages must be configured there is a contact with the sender alias in the global address list (GAL) that the receive connector that receives emails from SharePoint is externally secured (Exchange Server 20102013) Otherwise the Exchange resource will be booked as tentative and a delegate has to accept manually.

Set AutomateProcessing to AutoAccept The resource must be configured to automatically accept the request.

You can use the Exchange Management Shell to set the AutomateProcessing to AutoAccept.

Exchange 2007 Set - MailboxCalendarSettings - Identity Conference Room A - AutomateProcessing AutoAccept Set-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity Conference Room A -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept Exchange 20102013 Set - CalendarProcessing Conference Room A - AutomateProcessing AutoAccept Set-CalendarProcessing Conference Room A -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept Configure ProcessExternalMeetingMessages The resource must be configured to process requests from external senders.

You can use the Exchange Management Shell to set the ProcessExternalMeetingMessages to true.

Exchange 2007 Set - MailboxCalendarSettings - Identity Room 1 - ProcessExternalMeetingMessages True Set-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity Room 1 -ProcessExternalMeetingMessages True Exchange 2010 Set - CalendarProcessing - Identity Room 1 - ProcessExternalMeetingMessages true Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity Room 1 -ProcessExternalMeetingMessages true Create a new e-mail contact in Exchange Create a new e-mail contact in exchange with the e-mail address of the SharePoint calendar as an external e-mail address.

For example, create a new e-mail contact with the alias meetings.spyourcompany.com with the external address meetingssp.yourcompany.com (the address of the SharePoint calendar).

In the Calendar E-Mail Extension settings of the SharePoint calendar you now have to configure the alias as the alternative sender.

Now you have to configure a transport rule to redirect e-mails sent to the e-mail contact, to be sent to the same e-mail contact.