Microsoft Bookings Vs Calendly

How can you take control of your time?

Do you ever feel as though you could do with some extra help organising how you spend your time? If so, there are a lot of great tools that you could use! Calendly and Microsoft Bookings are two of the most popular calendar apps, so, naturally it can be difficult deciding which is best. And, most people are not aware that with some Microsoft Licenses, Bookings can be added at no extra cost.

As a Microsoft company, we use Bookings (this is a link to our initial consultation page, made using the system) so clients can schedule time with us. This means that we have no need for Calendly, so the information that we have found has be taken from Calendly’s website and numerous online sources where people have highlighted features that they like about the application. However, this information might be out of date, and we are unable to verify. Please excuse any out of date facts.

What are they?

Microsoft Bookings is a great tool when it comes to saving yourself time. In essence, it is a scheduling tool and part of the family of Microsoft Office products and allows customers of small businesses to book in time with the company. Bookings is web-based and automatically links to your Outlook (you only ever have to manage your time in one place). With the appointment going straight into the customer’s calendar and with email notifications, the chance of people not showing up for pre-scheduled meetings is greatly reduced. Your time is important, removing the admin associated with finding a mutually available time with your client is eliminated as they can simply click on your booking link and see when you are free.

Calendly is predominately a scheduling software that allows you to eliminate back-and-forth emails. By inputting rules, you’re able to indicate what times you are available for meetings. When guests receive a link from you, they are then able to search for a time that is convenient for them. Your meeting workflow is put on autopilot, sending reminders and thank you notes without you touching a button.

Main features

Microsoft Bookings

In Bookings, you can schedule services and assign your internal team to deliver a service. Because Bookings reads everyone’s Outlook calendar’s free/busy times, when a customer selects a service, Bookings will be able to identify which staff member can run each individual session and their availability. As long as your Outlook calendar is maintained and kept up to date, then there is nothing left for you to do! This helps you to save yourself precious time when it comes to administration. When a customer looks into booking time with you or a member of staff, the system will look and identify the gaps in your schedule that is available. Internally, information of the meeting will go through to the diary as well as being in the global Bookings diary. Externally, the customer will receive an invitation to join the meeting.

Calendly

The free version of Calendly allows you to schedule unlimited events that can integrate with Zoom, GoToMeeting, and even Microsoft Teams. However, you do need to have access to the paid version to access their customer service support or gain access to more than one calendar per account.

Pricing Features

Which is better?

Ultimately, Calendly and Microsoft Bookings are very similar applications. However, why would you pay extra for something when you already have an alternative that works just as well?

Remember: You can enhance anything in Bookings with Power Automate. For example, if we have an initial booking come through Microsoft Bookings, it synchronises with our database 365 Dynamics Sales and makes the two work together!

At first glance, you may look at sites that show Calendly with more functionality than Microsoft Bookings. However, if you have Bookings, and you have a Microsoft Office Business License, there are other tools that can provide you the same functionality as is built in Calendly, i.e., Outlook for the email side. Bookings doesn’t try to be anything it isn’t. It is not that it is not there, it is that it is under its own specialist umbrella.

Microsoft 365 has lots of different additions such as Microsoft Bookings that can help you organise your time. Why not book in for a free license review and see how you could save?

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