Set up Calendar & Bookings¶

Calendar & Bookings is a paid Phonovo add-on that lets the AI Receptionist see whether a colleague is free and book a meeting in their Microsoft 365 calendar while the caller is still on the phone.

A caller asks for Sarah. The receptionist can say Sarah is unavailable until three and offer to take a message or arrange a call back. If the caller wants time with Sarah, the receptionist offers a few free slots inside Sarah's working hours, reads the chosen one back for confirmation, and the meeting appears in Sarah's Outlook calendar.

The receptionist never reads out what anyone is doing. It sees only whether time is free or busy — never meeting titles, contents, or who else is invited.

Who this is for: customer administrators

Before you start¶

Microsoft 365 Presence Sync must already be set up, with the people you care about linked. Calendar & Bookings builds on that same connection — see Set up Microsoft 365 Presence Sync.
Calendar & Bookings must be active on your account. If it is not, open Add-On Products and add it. It cannot be added without Presence Sync.
You need a Microsoft 365 Global Administrator to approve calendar access once. This is a separate approval from the one you gave for presence.
The AI Receptionist add-on, if you want the receptionist to offer bookings on calls. Free/busy on its own still improves how Phonovo decides whether to ring someone.

Grant calendar access¶

In Phonovo, open Settings.
Expand Integrations, then select Microsoft 365 Presence.
Find the Calendar & bookings section.
Select Grant calendar access.
Sign in as a Microsoft 365 Global Administrator and approve the requested access. Return to Phonovo when Microsoft redirects you back.
Confirm the section shows Calendar access: granted with the date.

Phonovo checks the access really works before recording it as granted, so if the section still asks you to grant access, the approval did not complete — start again at step 4.

If you later see Calendar access needs re-granting, Microsoft has stopped allowing calendar reads. Presence keeps working normally. Select Grant calendar access again and complete the Microsoft approval.

Choose who can be booked¶

Granting access does not make anyone bookable. That is deliberate: reading free/busy and writing a meeting into someone's diary are different things.

Under Linked users, each linked person gains a Bookable checkbox. Tick it for the people the receptionist may book meetings with. Bookable people in the Calendar & bookings section shows how many are ticked.

Only an administrator can do this. People cannot make themselves bookable, and the receptionist will not book anyone who is not ticked.

Set your booking rules¶

In the Calendar & bookings section:

Default meeting length (minutes) — how long a booked meeting runs. Default 30, between 5 and 480.
Minimum notice (minutes) — how soon from now a caller may book. Default 120, so nothing inside the next two hours. Set 0 to allow immediate bookings.
How far ahead (days) — how far into the future slots may be offered. Default 14, up to 90.
Event subject — the title written on the calendar entry. {caller_name} and {receptionist_name} are replaced with the caller's name and your receptionist's name. Default: Call with {caller_name} (booked by {receptionist_name}).

Select Save when you are done.

Bookable hours come from Outlook. The receptionist offers slots only inside each person's own Microsoft 365 working hours, so there is no second set of hours to keep up to date here. If someone's working hours are not set in Outlook, Phonovo assumes 9am to 5pm.

What the caller experiences¶

Someone is busy. What happens depends on the policy you chose for Presence Sync under What Teams presence should affect:

On Also treat meetings and calls as unavailable, a colleague whose calendar shows busy or out-of-office is not rung. The receptionist offers to take a message or arrange a call back.
On the other policies, the phone still rings as normal and the calendar is used only as context.

A tentative or free entry never stops a call. Neither does an entry Phonovo cannot read.

Booking a meeting. The receptionist offers up to three slots that fit your rules and the person's working hours, the caller picks one, and it is read back for confirmation — the day, time, length and who it is with — before anything is written. Only after the caller confirms does the meeting appear in the calendar, with the caller's number and reason in the body. If the caller gives an email address they are added as an attendee and receive the invitation; if not, the meeting is booked without them.

Nothing to read. If calendar access has not been granted, the person is not linked, or Microsoft is unreachable, the receptionist behaves exactly as it does without this add-on: the phone decides whether to ring, and booking is simply not offered. A calendar Phonovo cannot read never stops a call getting through.

Recent bookings¶

Recent bookings in the Calendar & bookings section lists meetings the receptionist has booked — the caller, their number, and the status. Use it to confirm a booking a customer has asked about.

Privacy¶

Phonovo reads free/busy status and times only, for linked people. It never requests, logs or stores meeting titles, contents, locations or attendee lists — not for anyone.

Phonovo writes to a calendar only when all of the following are true: the person is linked, an administrator has ticked Bookable, and a caller has confirmed the booking on the call. It writes the one meeting and nothing else. It never edits or deletes anything already in a calendar.

Turning off Bookable, removing the link, disconnecting Microsoft 365, or losing the add-on stops all of it immediately. Meetings already booked stay in the calendar — they belong to your organisation, not to Phonovo.

Troubleshooting¶

Calendar & Bookings is not on this account: add it from Add-On Products. It requires Microsoft 365 Presence Sync.
Connect Microsoft 365 first: set up Presence Sync before granting calendar access.
The Grant button did nothing: the Microsoft approval must be completed by a Global Administrator. An account without that role cannot approve it.
Calendar access needs re-granting: a Microsoft administrator has withdrawn or changed the approval. Select Grant calendar access and approve again. Presence is unaffected.
The receptionist will not book someone: check they are linked under Linked users and that Bookable is ticked.
No slots are offered: check the person's working hours in Outlook, and your Minimum notice and How far ahead values. A short horizon and a long notice period together can leave no room.
The receptionist rings someone who is in a meeting: check the Presence Sync policy. Only Also treat meetings and calls as unavailable uses the calendar to decide whether to ring.
A booking shows as failed: arrange the meeting with the person directly, then let the caller know.

Need Calendar & Bookings for your account? Open Add-On Products or contact Phonovo support.