Native Exchange Booking for the Condeco Microsoft 365 Integration
About Native Exchange booking
Native Exchange booking for the Eptura Engage Microsoft 365 integration allows users to book Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage meeting space is booked. Any updates or changes to the booking can be made either from the Microsoft event or from Eptura Engage, 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 Eptura Engage, allowing users to easily include meeting spaces in Exchange calendar events and further enhance bookings with visitor details, catering services, etc. from Eptura Engage.
- Adds support for third-party devices that connect to Microsoft Exchange room calendars, such as Microsoft Teams panels.
Eptura Engage 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.
Contents
Booking from Eptura Engage
Depending on the access granted to the user's calendar, a booking created in Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage, are not added to the event in the Exchange room calendar.
This ensures that the Exchange room calendar and the Eptura Engage meeting space are always synchronized, allowing users to check availability of the space from either Exchange or Eptura Engage.
Learn more: Making bookings with Native Exchange booking
Map Exchange rooms to Eptura Engage meeting spaces
To synchronize an Exchange room calendar with Eptura Engage meeting spaces, the Exchange room mailbox is mapped to the corresponding Eptura Engage meeting space.
Existing room associations: The new Exchange space mapping module automatically maps and displays all existing associations between Exchange room mailboxes and Eptura Engage meeting spaces.
Existing Eptura Engage bookings: A calendar event is automatically created directly in the Exchange room calendar for any existing Eptura Engage booking not already linked to a calendar event.
Exchange room events not linked to Eptura Engage bookings: Any events in Exchange rooms which are not linked to a Eptura Engage booking are not automatically migrated when the Exchange room is mapped to Eptura Engage. As a result, the Exchange and Eptura Engage calendars might become out of sync. Support for this is expected in Q2 2025. For more information, contact Eptura Support .
Learn more: Map Exchange rooms to Eptura Engage
Permissions
For Eptura Engage 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. |
Any Exchange rooms that are hidden from the Global Address List (GAL) are not included in the Place.Read.All endpoint. You must un-hide any rooms for them to appear in the table.
When a Global Admin logs in to Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage Microsoft 365 Integration will remain functional, but it will not be possible to map any new Exchange rooms to Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage 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 |
|
Eptura Engage |
Exchange (Organizer is a user or room) |
Eptura Engage checks the Exchange room and if it is not available: Single booking: The booking is removed from Eptura Engage. Recurring booking: The conflicting instance is removed from Eptura Engage and Exchange. Multi-room booking: Only the conflicting meeting space is removed from the Eptura Engage booking. |
Eptura Engage 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) |
Eptura Engage |
Eptura Engage uses 'smart alternatives' to find and book a different space. Learn more: |
Eptura Engage emails the organizer to advise if an alternative space was booked or no alternative can be found. |
|
Exchange (room is organizer) |
Eptura Engage |
Single booking: Exchange event is deleted. Recurring booking: The entire recurring event is deleted from Exchange. |
Eptura Engage emails the Exchange room mailbox to log the conflict. |
Conflict emails sent by Eptura Engage are designed to be very visible, so that the user understands their booking cannot not be created.
Behaviors and limitations
Access to users' Microsoft Exchange calendars
To maintain synchronization between a Eptura Engage meeting space and a Microsoft Exchange room, the Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage. Conflicting rules result in a poor experience for the user.
Meetings created directly in Exchange room calendar
Meetings created directly in Exchange room calendars, for example, by third-party screens, use the default Eptura Engage admin account to create the associated booking in Eptura Engage (username: admin). This account must be set to active for bookings to be created correctly.
Recurring bookings created directly in Exchange room calendars are not supported.
Third-party screens
Third-party screens that connect directly to Microsoft Exchange room calendars, such as Microsoft Teams panels, can create single-day bookings in Eptura Engage. Since users cannot authenticate from the screen, bookings made through these devices are created in Eptura Engage using the default Eptura Engage admin account (username: admin).
Recurring bookings created from third-party screens are not supported.
Forwarding calendar invites to an Exchange room
To synchronize successfully with Eptura Engage when forwarding a calendar event to the Exchange room, Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage meeting spaces mapped to an Exchange room might appear available to book in Exchange during the defined setup and clean-down periods, however, Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage 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
Eptura Engage 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.
Changes to instances of a recurring series
Microsoft Exchange does not separate an instance from a recurring series when only the time is changed, but it does separate them when the title is changed. However, when changes are made to either the title or the time, Eptura Engage separates the instance from the recurring series.
Specific recurrences
Microsoft Exchange does not support Eptura Engage's ‘specific’ recurrence option that allows dates to be selected in an irregular pattern. Therefore, to ensure a seamless synchronization between Eptura Engage and Exchange room calendars when Native Exchange resource booking is released, the ‘specific’ option is disabled for Eptura Engage Microsoft 365 integration customers.
Learn more: Recurrence patterns and Outlook
Closing meeting spaces
Closing a meeting space in Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage are considered ‘virtual’ and therefore do not appear on the Eptura Engage booking form attendee list. Attendees can be marked as 'onsite' from the Eptura Engage Outlook add-in.
Learn more: Attendees and visitors
Smart alternatives
The Eptura Engage Microsoft 365 Integration's 'smart alternatives' uses the original search criteria provided by the user in the Eptura Engage 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.
Managed meeting spaces
Requests for Eptura Engage meeting spaces that are mapped to Exchange rooms set to "AutomateProcessing: AutoUpdate", must be accepted or declined in both Eptura Engage and Exchange. Currently, there is no synchronization of request statuses between Eptura Engage and Microsoft Exchange.
Learn more: Book or request a meeting space
Linked rooms
The Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage
Before unmapping an Exchange room from a Eptura Engage meeting space and mapping to another, ensure there are no events in the Exchange room calendar or for the Eptura Engage meeting space. If events exist, we recommend contacting the Eptura support team for assistance.
FAQ
-
Do all Eptura Engage meeting spaces have to be linked to Exchange rooms?
No, you can continue to use 'Eptura Engage only' meeting spaces which can be booked using the Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage meeting space to an Exchange room using the Equipment mailbox field in Resource Admin, Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage 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 Eptura Engage Outlook add-in provides additional options and functionality, including:- Predict in-room attendees using Intelligent Attendees functionality, helping to ensure that the right size space is chosen.
- Search for meeting spaces based on available attributes such as whiteboards or VC equipment.
- Easily swap the meeting space for an alternative.
- Add visitors and onsite attendees.
-
How do the calendars stay synchronized?
The Eptura Engage Microsoft 365 Integration uses Microsoft Graph to create and get updates of calendar events from Exchange, and the Eptura Notification Service and Eptura Engage API to create and get updates of bookings from Eptura Engage.