Matrix Booking Microsoft 365 integrations – caveats and limitations
Matching rules
There are some areas where you’ll need to ensure any rules you have match (are set up) in both Microsoft 365 and Matrix Booking as the rules will need to exist at both ends to function:
applying forward booking limits
restricting bookings to certain security groups
restricting bookings to office hours or availability limits
For example, if:
you have a forward booking limit of 2 months set in Matrix Booking, but nothing set in Microsoft 365;
and a staff member makes a booking in Microsoft 365 for a room in 3 months’ time;
the booking will be accepted by Microsoft 365. However, when this reaches Matrix Booking via the synchronisation, the booking will be rejected as it breaks the forward booking business rule.
Note:
Your Matrix Booking Administrator and your IT team need to make sure that your organisation’s business rules match.
If bookings were successfully being made, check with your Matrix Booking Administrator and your IT team if the rules were changed.
Functionality that we support with caveats
There are elements of Microsoft 365 that we support, but they require further input:
Linking Microsoft 365 resources with Matrix Booking resources
Future bookings for resources linked between Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365
Update a room’s email address after the Calendar integration has been set up
Each piece of functionality we support with caveats is given in full below:
Linking Microsoft 365 resources with Matrix Booking resources.
If your resource hierarchies are the same in both systems, you can add the Microsoft 365 resource’s email address to its corresponding Matrix booking resource. You’ll need to make sure that the resource isn’t hidden on the global address list.
Users must be within your organisation’s Microsoft 365 directory to book or be invited to use Microsoft 365 resources that are linked with Matrix Booking resources.
Room bookings that need to be approved.
The Microsoft 365 room needs to be set to auto accept invitations. Matrix Booking will show whether the room booking needs to be approved whilst Microsoft 365 will show the room invitation as accepted.
Combined or combination room availability.
We support the functionality to display the correct availability for a room including combined or combination rooms. For more information, see our troubleshooting article on using our Microsoft 365 add-in instead of the Outlook Room Finder for accurate resource availability.
Additional booking options.
You must save your booking or send it if the booking has attendees first before you can add options to it, so the meeting made in Microsoft 365 can sync with Matrix Booking. After the calendar event has been sent, use the add-in to add the options you want (for example, room layouts, catering, equipment, and services).
Adding buffer times to bookings.
These appear within Matrix Booking apps as times when the room is unavailable. These periods of unavailability won’t be shown within the Microsoft 365 room’s calendar as Microsoft 365 doesn’t support buffer times.
If you make a booking that has buffer times, it will only be accepted if the buffer times don’t overlap with bookings either side the booking you’re trying to make. If they do, your booking will be rejected. For example, a booking for a room was made for 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM and you’re trying to book the same room for 2:00 PM that has a 15 minute setup buffer time. The booking will be rejected after the sync has happened because your booking’s setup buffer time overlaps with the previous booking.
Make bookings on behalf of someone else.
A booking made in Microsoft 365 on behalf of someone else won’t show who made the booking within Matrix Booking – only who the booking is for. Similarly, a person making a booking on behalf of another via the Matrix Booking apps will only show who the booking is for within Microsoft 365 and not who made the booking.
Outlook allows for delegate bookings which is similar to Matrix Booking’s book on behalf of someone. The booking will appear in both the user’s and booking maker’s calendars by following these steps.
If you book a resource on behalf of someone else and they don’t have access to that resource, the booking will be successful as it’s the booking organiser’s access to the resource that’s considered by Matrix Booking.
If your organisation uses cost codes for booking, cost codes are used in the Microsoft 365 integration. They aren’t displayed in the integration, but Matrix Booking assigns your default cost code for all your bookings made via the integration. Default cost codes can be changed via the web and mobile apps.
Forward booking availability in Microsoft 365.
This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t fully supported by Microsoft. If a booking is made in Microsoft 365 beyond Matrix Booking’s forward booking time period (for example, you set this to 3 months in advance and no further), the booking won’t be automatically rejected. It will only cancel automatically when Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365 have synchronised and the booking owner will be notified.
Future bookings for resources linked between Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365.
If you have any future bookings against any linked resources, raise a Microsoft 365 integration support ticket and let us know which is your “master” resource booking system. You’re either using:
Matrix Booking
Microsoft 365
We’ll sync your future bookings.
Repeat bookings or booking series.
You can make repeat bookings or a booking series. However, when you edit a repeat booking or booking series in Matrix Booking, you can only change the:
Title
Notes
End date
If 1 of the bookings in a booking series or for repeat bookings overlaps with another booking, Matrix Booking will reject the whole booking series.
Booking quotas in Microsoft 365.
This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t fully supported by Microsoft. If a booking is made in Microsoft 365 beyond that booking owner’s quota, the booking won’t be automatically rejected. It will only cancel automatically when Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365 have synchronised and the booking owner will be notified.
Room booking quotas in Microsoft 365.
This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t fully supported by Microsoft. If a booking is made in Microsoft 365 beyond that room’s booking quota (for example, once per week), the booking won’t be automatically rejected. It will only cancel automatically when Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365 have synchronised and the booking owner will be notified.
Groups in Microsoft 365.
This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t fully supported by Microsoft. If a room is booked using Microsoft 365 and the user doesn’t have access to that room, the booking won’t be automatically rejected. It will only cancel automatically when Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365 have synchronised and the booking owner will be notified.
Update a room’s email address after the integration has been set up.
You can only update a room’s details (for example, the room’s Microsoft 365 email address) after the Calendar integration has been set up if there haven’t been any bookings made against that room. If there has, you won’t be able to change the room’s details. Make sure that the room’s information has been entered correctly during the Calendar integration set u
Due to privacy concerns regarding potentially sensitive information to be held in the meeting notes, these aren’t stored or transferred between Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365.
Whilst we don’t recommend this approach, we do support bookings made directly in the room calendar in Microsoft 365. Where these room-only bookings are made, they will be allocated to a "Microsoft 365 Service User” as a booking owner within Matrix Booking because Microsoft 365 doesn’t provide the information about who actually placed the booking in the room calendar. It records the booking organiser as the room itself.
If someone cancels a booking from the room calendar, the booking organiser is the person who is recorded as cancelling the booking even if they didn’t cancel the booking.
Unsupported limitations
With the current version of the Microsoft 365 integration, there are a few areas of functionality that aren’t entirely compatible with Matrix Booking, and therefore, they aren’t currently available in the Microsoft 365 Integration:
A single meeting in Microsoft 365 with multiple rooms (Microsoft limitation)
Repeat bookings for combination rooms (Microsoft limitation)
Repeat bookings for the individual rooms that make a combination room (Microsoft limitation)
Sync work hours automatically between Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365 (Microsoft limitation)
Cross-organisational resource sharing (Microsoft limitation)
Each unsupported limitation is given in full below:
Microsoft 365 supports rooms only. Other resources, such as desks, aren’t supported by Microsoft 365, and therefore, the other resources you have in Matrix Booking won’t be recognised.
A single meeting in Microsoft 365 with multiple rooms. This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t supported by Microsoft.
Bookings, including tentative bookings, that overlap with another booking of the same time and date. Although you can allow booking conflicts in Microsoft 365, Matrix Booking doesn’t.
If you try to book a resource when there’s already a booking for the time and date you’ve selected for your booking, Matrix Booking will reject your booking.
If you try to extend the time of your booking and it overlaps with another booking, Matrix Booking will cancel your booking.
If 1 of the bookings in a booking series or for repeat bookings overlaps with another booking, Matrix Booking will reject the whole booking series.
Basket bookings with multiple rooms or desks. This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t supported by Microsoft. Basket bookings can only be made in Matrix Booking and without the integration set up.
Repeat bookings for combination rooms. This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t supported by Microsoft.
Repeat bookings for the individual rooms that make a combination room. This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t supported by Microsoft.
Approve bookings in Microsoft 365. This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t supported by Microsoft. Bookings can only be approved in Matrix Booking.
Work hours synchronised automatically between Matrix Booking and Microsoft 365.
If you want to set work hours (for example, bookings can only be made 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday), you need to have the Availability feature switched on in Matrix Booking and Allow scheduling only during working hours feature switched on Microsoft 365. There isn’t automatic synchronisation between the apps for bookings in set work hours as it isn’t part of the integration. It must be done separately in both apps.
Change the booking owner of a booking when the room is linked to a Microsoft 365 resource as Microsoft doesn’t support this.
Cross-organisational resource sharing (cross-org) as both the user and the resource have to be within the same tenant organisation to make a booking. This is a Matrix Booking feature and isn’t supported by Microsoft.
Notes:
If you’re not sure about these limitations and need more information, contact your Account Manager before requesting this integration.
If your issue continues, raise a support ticket.