Microsoft 365 Calendar

Microsoft 365 Calendar can be the calendar in your playbook: the assistant offers times when the right staff member is free, and books the meeting on an Outlook calendar, often a shared mailbox such as tours@, with that person invited. Your CRM stays the CRM. It still recognises callers, saves new contacts and logs the call.

A rep who connected their own calendar in Personal settings → Calendar is booked on that instead, and this calendar books the others.

Before you start#

• A work or school Microsoft 365 account. Personal Microsoft accounts (Outlook.com, Hotmail) cannot share free and busy times with apps, so they cannot be used here. A rep with a personal account can still connect it as their own calendar.
• Where the meetings go. Either the main calendar of the person who signs in, or a shared mailbox such as tours@. Shared mailboxes cannot sign in themselves, so a person who has access to the mailbox signs in for it (see below).
• Staff emails. Each staff member who takes meetings needs their Microsoft 365 email on their staff profile (Groups, the community, Staff). That is how AnswerStack finds their free and busy times and invites them.
• Your Microsoft 365 admin, possibly. Many organisations let only an admin approve new apps. If Microsoft says Need admin approval when you sign in, ask your Microsoft 365 admin to approve AnswerStack once, then sign in again.
• An owner or admin of your AnswerStack account, to add the connection.

Set up a shared mailbox (optional)#

To book on a shared mailbox such as tours@, the person who will sign in needs to be able to add events to it. In the Exchange admin centre, open the mailbox, choose Delegation, and give them Read and manage (Full Access). Editor rights on the mailbox's calendar, shared from Outlook, also work. Changes in Exchange can take up to an hour to apply.

Connect it#

1. Open the connect dialog

   On Connections, under Add a connection, press Connect Microsoft 365 Calendar.

2. Name it and choose where meetings go

   Give the connection a name your team will recognise. To use a shared mailbox, enter its address in Shared mailbox for the meetings. Otherwise leave it empty: meetings go on the main calendar of whoever signs in, or on another of their calendars if you paste its ID in Booking calendar ID.

3. Sign in with Microsoft

   Press Continue to Microsoft. Microsoft opens in a new window. Sign in with your work or school account and accept the permissions AnswerStack asks for. Finish in the same browser where you are signed in to AnswerStack: only the person who started a sign-in can finish it, so a sign-in link passed to someone else saves nothing.

4. Check and save

   AnswerStack checks that the account is a work or school account, that it can add events to the booking calendar or shared mailbox, and that it can read free and busy times, then saves the connection. The card shows Signed in as and the Microsoft account.

5. Use it in a playbook

   In the playbook editor, on Integrations, choose the connection as the calendar. Keep your CRM as the CRM.

What happens on a booking#

sequenceDiagram
  participant H as AnswerStack
  participant M as Microsoft 365
  H->>M: When are these staff members busy? (free/busy only)
  H->>M: Which meetings did we book for them?
  M-->>H: Busy times
  Note over H: Offers two open times inside the community's meeting hours
  H->>M: Are they still free at the chosen time?
  H->>M: Create the event on the booking calendar, staff member invited
  M-->>H: Event ID, kept as the confirmation

What it reads and writes#

AnswerStack asks Microsoft for these permissions and no others: sign you in and read your profile, keep access when you are not signed in, "read and write user calendars", "read and write user and shared calendars" (for a shared mailbox), and "read user basic calendars" (free and busy). It never changes events it did not create.

Who is invited, and what they see#

The staff member is invited, so the meeting appears on their own calendar. The event body holds the booking notes: what the caller told the assistant and a short summary, so they walk in prepared. With a shared mailbox, the invitation comes from the mailbox.

The caller is not invited unless you turn on Send the caller an Outlook invitation. Everyone invited to an Outlook event can read its body, so when the caller is invited the booking notes are left off the event. Your own confirmation email or text goes to the caller either way.

Meetings are booked without a Teams link, even if your organisation adds one to new meetings by default, so the caller is never sent a link nobody told them about.

Keeping it connected#

AnswerStack renews its access to Microsoft on its own. If it stops working, the connection shows Not working with the reason:

• Access was revoked or has expired: the person who signed in left, or removed AnswerStack from their Microsoft account.
• The booking calendar could not be read, or a message naming the shared mailbox: the person who signed in lost their access to the mailbox in Exchange, or the mailbox or calendar was removed. Give them access again (or choose someone who has it), then press Reconnect.

Any owner or admin can press Reconnect and sign in again. With a shared mailbox, anyone with access to the mailbox can sign in: the meetings stay on the mailbox. Without one, the meetings are on the signed-in person's own calendar, so a reconnect must use the same Microsoft account: another account could not see or cancel the meetings already booked. To move to another account's calendar, add a new connection and point the playbook at it.

Microsoft does not let apps give their access back on their own. Deleting the connection deletes AnswerStack's copy of the access; to remove AnswerStack from the account as well, the person who signed in can remove it under My Apps in their Microsoft account.

Limits#

• A CRM is still needed. Every booking belongs to a contact in your CRM.
• Work or school accounts only, as above.
• No attended rate from Microsoft. Outlook does not record whether someone attended, so attended rates come from your CRM, or are left empty rather than guessed.
• No Teams links. Meetings are booked without an online meeting.