Native Exchange Booking for the Condeco Microsoft 365 Integration

About Native Exchange booking

Native Exchange booking for the Condeco Microsoft 365 integration allows users to book Condeco meeting spaces directly from Exchange calendar events using Outlook on the desktop or web, the Outlook mobile app, or the Microsoft Teams calendar, without launching additional tools or add-ins.

When an Exchange room is added to an event, the associated Condeco meeting space is booked. Any updates or changes to the booking can be made either from the Microsoft event or from Condeco, and changes are synchronized.

Native Exchange booking is only available with our Microsoft 365 integration.

Key benefits

Simplifies the booking process and improves user experience, by allowing users to invite an Exchange room directly from their calendar using Microsoft Outlook or Teams.
Adds convenience to existing and familiar booking journeys when creating Microsoft calendar events.
Combines the simplicity of Microsoft Exchange with the power of Condeco, allowing users to easily include meeting spaces in Exchange calendar events and further enhance bookings with visitor details, catering services, etc. from Condeco.
Adds support for third-party devices that connect to Microsoft Exchange room calendars, such as Microsoft Teams panels.

Condeco must have access to the organizer’s Exchange calendar to synchronize with the invited Exchange room. Invites received from people outside your organization is not currently supported.

Booking from Condeco

Depending on the access granted to the user's calendar, a booking created in Condeco for a meeting space mapped to an Exchange room, either creates an event in the user’s calendar or an event in the Exchange room calendar:

If Condeco has access to the user’s calendar and they select the option to ‘Add to Outlook calendar’, an event is created in their calendar and any Exchange room is invited.
If Condeco does not have access to the user’s calendar or if they choose not to ‘Add to Outlook calendar’, an event is created directly in the Exchange room calendar(s) for each room booked. Note: In this scenario, the organizer, hosts, and any attendees added to the booking in Condeco, are not added to the event in the Exchange room calendar.

This ensures that the Exchange room calendar and the Condeco meeting space are always synchronized, allowing users to check availability of the space from either Exchange or Condeco.

Learn more: Making bookings with Native Exchange booking

Map Exchange rooms to Condeco meeting spaces

To synchronize an Exchange room calendar with Condeco meeting spaces, the Exchange room mailbox is mapped to the corresponding Condeco meeting space.

Existing room associations: The new Exchange space mapping module automatically maps and displays all existing associations between Exchange room mailboxes and Condeco meeting spaces.

Existing Condeco bookings: A calendar event is automatically created directly in the Exchange room calendar for any existing Condeco booking not already linked to a calendar event.

Learn more: Map Exchange rooms to Condeco

Permissions

For Condeco to be able to read all Exchange rooms within a tenant, Microsoft Graph must be granted a new permission:

Name	Type	Description
Place.Read.All	Application	Allows the app to read company places (conference rooms and room lists) for calendar events and other applications, without a signed-in user.

When a Global Admin logs in to Condeco and opens the new Exchange mapping module, they are provided with a link to grant access. The link must be activated by an Exchange admin with the necessary privileges to grant access.

Without granting this permission to Microsoft Graph, the Condeco Microsoft 365 Integration will remain functional, but it will not be possible to map any new Exchange rooms to Condeco meeting spaces.

Learn more:

Data access and security
Microsoft Graph - List Places: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/place-list?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http

Conflicts

The Condeco meeting space and the mapped Exchange room calendar stay synchronized using Microsoft Graph and the Eptura Notification Service. In the event of a conflict when creating or updating a booking, the following process is followed:

Booking created or updated from:	Conflicts with an existing booking in:	Action taken	Response notification
Condeco	Exchange (Organizer is a user or room)	Condeco checks the Exchange room and if it is not available: Single booking: The booking is removed from Condeco. Recurring booking: The conflicting instance is removed from Condeco and Exchange. Multi-room booking: Only the conflicting meeting space is removed from the Condeco booking.	Condeco emails the organizer to advise the booking cannot be completed due to a conflict in Exchange. An email is sent for each space that has a conflict.
Exchange (user is organizer)	Condeco	Condeco uses 'smart alternatives' to find and book a different space. Learn more: Self-healing when moving appointments Smart recurrences	Condeco emails the organizer to advise if an alternative space was booked or no alternative can be found.
Exchange (room is organizer)	Condeco	Single booking: Exchange event is deleted. Recurring booking: The entire recurring event is deleted from Exchange.	Condeco emails the Exchange room mailbox to log the conflict.

Conflict emails sent by Condeco are designed to be very visible, so that the user understands their booking cannot not be created.

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Behaviors and limitations

Access to users' Microsoft Exchange calendars

To maintain synchronization between a Condeco meeting space and a Microsoft Exchange room, the Condeco Microsoft 365 Integration needs access to the calendar of the user who is inviting the Exchange room to their event. The invitation is automatically declined if access has not been granted. This includes forwarding invites to an Exchange room where the organizer is external.

Exchange booking rules

It is important to ensure that the booking rules set in Exchange match the booking rules configured for the resource group in Condeco. Conflicting rules result in a poor experience for the user.

Forwarding calendar invites to an Exchange room

To synchronize successfully with Condeco when forwarding a calendar event to the Exchange room, Condeco must have permission to access the calendar of the event organizer.

Invites from people outside your organization are not supported. This is because most organizations have Exchange rules in place which restrict anyone outside the organization from booking an Exchange room. Forwarded invites are only supported when the original event organizer is an internal user (and Condeco has permissions to access their calendar).

To reject all invites to Exchange room calendars from external email addresses, set the following command:

Set-CalendarProcessing -ProcessExternalMeetingMessages false

Support for forwarding invites from external organizers is not yet supported.

Setup and clean-down times

Microsoft Exchange rooms do not support setup and clean-down periods. This means that Condeco meeting spaces mapped to an Exchange room might appear available to book in Exchange during the defined setup and clean-down periods, however, Condeco will decline bookings created for those periods and remove the Exchange room from the user's calendar.

Multi-room bookings

Up to eight meeting spaces can be booked using the Condeco Microsoft 365 Integration. If more than eight spaces are invited, all spaces decline the invite. If an additional space is added to an existing event that already has eight spaces, the additional space declines the event.

Maximum supported instances in a recurring booking

Condeco Microsoft 365 Integration supports up to 450 individual booking instances. This is calculated by multiplying the number of instances in a recurring booking by the number of meeting spaces included in the booking. If this limit is exceeded, the booking is declined.

Specific recurrences

Microsoft Exchange does not support Condeco's ‘specific’ recurrence option that allows dates to be selected in an irregular pattern. Therefore, to ensure a seamless synchronization between Condeco and Exchange room calendars when Native Exchange resource booking is released, the ‘specific’ option is disabled for Condeco Microsoft 365 integration customers.

Learn more: Recurrence patterns and Outlook

Closing meeting spaces

Closing a meeting space in Condeco does not currently block the room in Exchange and prevent it from being invited to Exchange calendar events. Therefore, instead of closing a meeting space, we recommend creating a placeholder booking for the duration of the closure, to ensure the calendars are synchronized and the space is not shown as available in Exchange.

Attendees

Attendees added to an Exchange calendar event synchronized with Condeco are considered ‘virtual’ and therefore do not appear on the Condeco booking form attendee list. Attendees can be marked as 'onsite' from the Condeco Outlook add-in.

Learn more: Attendees and visitors

Smart alternatives

The Condeco Microsoft 365 Integration's 'smart alternatives' uses the original search criteria provided by the user in the Condeco Outlook add-in, to find a suitable alternative when a booked space is unavailable. However, when an Exchange room is invited directly from the Exchange calendar event rather than via the add-in, only limited search details can be determined, such as the location and floor of the original meeting space.

Learn more:

'Smart alternatives' automatically finds alternative spaces when a booked space is unavailable for all instances of a recurring meeting, or when moving a booking to a new time.

Linked rooms

The Condeco Microsoft 365 integration does not yet support linked rooms. Bookings with a linked room combination are not synchronized to the Exchange room calendar.

Unmapping and remapping Exchange rooms to Condeco

Before unmapping an Exchange room from a Condeco meeting space and mapping to another, ensure there are no events in the Exchange room calendar or for the Condeco meeting space. If events exist, we recommend contacting the Condeco support team for assistance.

FAQ

Do all Condeco meeting spaces have to be linked to Exchange rooms?
No, you can continue to use 'Condeco only' meeting spaces which can be booked using the Condeco Outlook add-in.
Do we need to re-map meeting spaces that are already linked to Exchange equipment mailboxes?
No. If you have linked a Condeco meeting space to an Exchange room using the Equipment mailbox field in Resource Admin, Condeco uses this email address to automatically create a space mapping.
Do users have to book spaces by inviting the Exchange room?
No. Users can continue to use the Condeco Outlook add-in if they prefer. Inviting the Exchange room to an event is considered a supplemental journey rather than a replacement for the add-in. The Condeco Outlook add-in provides additional options and functionality, including:
1. Predict in-room attendees using Intelligent Attendees functionality, helping to ensure that the right size space is chosen.
2. Search for meeting spaces based on available attributes such as whiteboards or VC equipment.
3. Easily swap the meeting space for an alternative.
4. Add visitors and onsite attendees.
How do the calendars stay synchronized?
The Condeco Microsoft 365 Integration uses Microsoft Graph to create and get updates of calendar events from Exchange, and the Eptura Notification Service and Condeco API to create and get updates of bookings from Condeco.