Where to start

Overview

In one minute

Hosts keep booking meeting rooms in Outlook, as they always have. BmyGuest reads your rooms’ calendars, so when a host books a room for a meeting with external guests, the guests are registered for reception by themselves. Reception gets a calendar of every room’s day: who is in which room, and where guests are expected.

Who	What they do
IT	Once: give BmyGuest read access to the room calendars in Microsoft 365, through an app registration.
Administrator	Once: connect the add-on in BmyGuest, and place each room at a location.
Hosts	Book rooms in Outlook, with their guests on the invitation. Nothing else changes.
Reception	Sees the guests on the reception desk as usual, and every room on the room calendar.

The add-on is for the whole company. BmyGuest makes it available on request; after that, an administrator switches it on.

From a room booking to a visit

Every few minutes, BmyGuest reads the calendar of each room that has a location in BmyGuest, for the coming three weeks (up to 90 days, as you choose). Every booking shows on the room calendar. A booking also becomes a meeting in BmyGuest, with its guests registered, when:

the organiser is a host in BmyGuest, with the same e-mail address as in Outlook, and
at least one attendee is a guest: not the organiser, not a room, not a colleague who is a host in BmyGuest (colleagues are added as internal attendees, who do not check in, unless someone registers them as a guest in BmyGuest), and not someone who declined.

What follows from that:

The meeting is registered at the room’s location. Its guests are expected at reception, get the usual reminders, and can check themselves in.
If the room has a visitor type under Guests are, its guests get that type. A type someone has chosen by hand is kept.
People from domains the location ignores (its settings, Reception, Ignore visitors with following domains) and addresses on the add-on’s ignored list are left out. Put your own company’s domains on the location’s list.
Changes in Outlook, a new time or other attendees, follow in BmyGuest. A meeting cancelled in Outlook is removed from BmyGuest.
The meeting’s time, subject and room follow Outlook: in BmyGuest you can add guests and door keys, but not change those. Reception can change its host, and later syncs keep the host they chose.
A private booking comes in without its subject.
The host is e-mailed about the new meeting, unless the company has turned that off (Company profile, Hosts, Disable host emails for imported meetings).

A room needs a location

Rooms arrive in BmyGuest without a location. Until an administrator gives a room one, its calendar is not read and its bookings do not become visits.

Setup

Setting it up

In Microsoft 365 (IT)

BmyGuest reads the rooms through an app registration in your own tenant. It is separate from the one that synchronises your hosts, if you use that.

Make sure the meeting rooms are room mailboxes in Exchange Online, as they are when people book them in Outlook.
In the Microsoft Entra admin center, under App registrations, create a registration, for example “BmyGuest meeting rooms”.
Under API permissions, add these Microsoft Graph application permissions and grant admin consent:

Permission	What for
`Place.Read.All`	Listing your meeting rooms.
`Calendars.Read`	Reading the rooms’ calendars: the bookings and their attendees.
`Calendars.ReadWrite`	Only if reception may move meetings or book rooms on the room calendar: a move is saved in the organiser’s own calendar, and a booking in the host’s.
`GroupMember.Read.All`	Only to limit BmyGuest to the rooms in one group.

Under Certificates & secrets, create a client secret and copy its value. Note when it expires.
Copy the Directory (tenant) ID and the Application (client) ID from the registration’s overview page.
If your tenant limits which mailboxes apps may read (an application access policy, or RBAC for Applications in Exchange), allow the app on the room mailboxes. If reception may move meetings, the organisers’ mailboxes need to be allowed as well. A change there can take up to 30 minutes.

When the client secret expires

When the secret runs out, BmyGuest stops reading the rooms: bookings no longer come in and the calendar stops changing. In the new design, administrators and receptionists then see a warning at the top of every page: an administrator's gives the reason and has Open settings, and receptionists are asked to contact an administrator. Create a new secret before the old one expires and enter it in BmyGuest. When you save it, the warning goes and the rooms are read again within a few minutes.

In BmyGuest (administrator)

Company settings, Company profile, Add-ons, Meeting Rooms. Under Ready to set up until it is switched on, then under In use.

The company add-ons, with Meeting Rooms in use.

Under Microsoft 365, fill in the Tenant ID, Application ID and Client secret. To let BmyGuest see only some rooms, put them in a group and enter its id under Custom user Group ID.
Under Sync, check the options (see below) and switch on Enable the meeting rooms overview? for the meeting rooms overview.
Press Save and switch on, then Sync now. The rooms are imported; their calendars follow within a few minutes.
Under Imported meeting rooms, give every room a Location. A Description (floor, seats, equipment) and a Background colour help reception tell them apart. If all the guests of a room are one kind of visitor, choose their visitor type under Guests are (see below). Changes here are saved as you go.

The sync options

Don’t import visitors: the rooms and their calendars are read, but no booking becomes a meeting with guests. For a company that uses the rooms only for the calendar or the incident module.
Days ahead to sync: how far ahead the calendars are read, up to 90 days (21 when empty). The overview books rooms only this far ahead.
Skip meeting series?: recurring meetings do not become visits. They still show on the calendar.
Enable the meeting rooms overview?: the meeting rooms overview for reception, with booking rooms in hosts’ Outlook calendars. Until it is on, Meeting rooms in the Reception menu is marked Add-on.
Disable move meeting time: on the room calendar, reception can still drag a meeting to another room, but never to another time. Off by default.
Use webhooks (instant sync)?: Microsoft 365 tells BmyGuest about changes straight away, instead of BmyGuest looking every five minutes.
Ignored guest email addresses: addresses that never become guests, for example a shared mailbox that is invited to many meetings.

The imported rooms: each with a description, a colour and its location.

Rooms are added, renamed and removed by the nightly room sync (or Sync now), as they change in Microsoft 365. Rooms that can be combined, such as A, B and A+B, are separate rooms to BmyGuest.

Guests are

Visitor type, per room

Gives the guests of every meeting booked in this room a visitor type, so that a room can stand for one kind of visitor. For example, create a room mailbox called Suppliers in Microsoft 365, give it a location here and set Guests are to the visitor type you use for suppliers. Hosts then invite that room to their meetings with suppliers.

Choose the room’s Location first; the list shows that location’s visitor types. When you choose a type, the room’s upcoming guests who have none yet get it straight away. A type someone has chosen by hand is kept. A booking with two rooms of different types gets no type, and a room moved to a location without the type loses it.

Day to day

The meeting rooms overview

Reception opens the overview with Meeting rooms in the Reception menu. Every administrator and receptionist has the link. Until Enable the meeting rooms overview? is switched on for your company, it is marked Add-on and opens a page about the add-on, where an administrator finds the way to the add-on’s page if your company already has it. The mark is worked out when you sign in, so sign out and in again once the overview is switched on. You can also open the overview from the reception desk: press the round button at the bottom right for the day’s overview, and in its Meeting rooms card press Open meeting rooms. The card already shows each room’s next booking and which rooms are in use.

The Meeting rooms card in the reception desk's overview.

The page shows one location and one day, in two views you switch between at the top and that the device remembers: Timeline, with a row per room and the hours across, and, for today, Right now, with a card per room. Each room shows its number of seats, and where Microsoft 365 knows the rooms’ floors, the rooms are grouped by floor and the list beside the search shows one floor at a time (All floors shows them all). Seats and floors are read from Microsoft 365 with the rooms each night (or with Sync now). Receptionists see their own locations; administrators every location of the company.

The rooms at Northgate Copenhagen this morning, floor by floor with their seats. The red line is now.

The tiles: today Free now (of all the rooms), In use now, Starting within 30 min, and Visitors arrived (of the day’s guests expected on site). Press a tile to see only those rooms (for Visitors arrived: the rooms with a meeting whose guests have not all arrived), and press it again to see them all. The page always opens on all the rooms. On another day they are All rooms, Booked, Free all day and Expecting visitors.
Each room shows its colour, its name, its seats, and whether it is in use or free, and until when. On the timeline, its description shows when you point at it.
Each booking shows its subject, time and organiser. Green: guests are expected on site, with how many have arrived (2/3). Amber: the meeting has started and some of its guests have not arrived. A laptop: remote attendees. Private meeting with a padlock: a private booking. A dark outline: on now. Faded: over. A circular arrow: part of a series.
Right now shows, for each room, the meeting on now, how far along it is and how long is left, and whether its guests have arrived. A free room shows how long it stays free, and Book now. At the bottom of the card is the room’s next booking.
Search finds rooms by name and bookings by meeting, organiser, visitor, company or room, and lists the bookings it finds under the box: click one to open it. On the timeline, the bookings found are marked and the others fade. Now scrolls to the current time, the magnifying glasses show fewer or more hours, and the arrows at the top change the day. Showing today, the page refreshes itself every two minutes, and a screen left open overnight moves on to the new day.

Right now: a card for each room, floor by floor. A room in use shows how far the meeting has got and the time left, a free room shows Book now, and the next meeting is under each card.

The live list

Today, a list beside the rooms (under them on a narrow screen), Live, next 60 min, shows what reception has to act on: meetings starting within the next hour, and meetings that have started while some of their guests have not arrived, for up to 45 minutes. Each meeting lists its guests on site, and whether each has arrived, is expected, or is late, and by how much. Under it, Later today lists the rest of the day’s bookings. Click a meeting to open it.

Guests are checked in on the reception desk, as always: Check visitors in on the reception desk takes you there.

The live list: meetings starting within the hour and meetings whose visitors are late, with each visitor's arrival, then Check visitors in on the reception desk and Later today.

A booking’s details

Click a booking to see its room, time and organiser, its guests and whether they have arrived, and its meeting in BmyGuest:

Registered in BmyGuest, with the number of guests on site and remote: Open meeting shows it on the Meetings page, and Edit / add attendees opens it to add a guest who was not on the invitation.
Not registered in BmyGuest, when nobody external is invited yet: if the organiser is a host, Create meeting & add attendees registers the meeting so you can add guests.
A booking whose organiser is not a host in BmyGuest cannot be registered from here.

When you edit the meeting, its date and time are locked: they come from Outlook and are changed there, or by moving the booking on this calendar. Reception at the meeting’s location, and administrators, can choose another Host. BmyGuest asks Are you sure? first, and later syncs keep the host you chose. Choose the Outlook organiser again and the meeting follows Outlook once more.

A booking with three guests on site, and one without guests.

Moving a meeting

When a room is double-booked, or a meeting needs a bigger room, drag the booking to another room (up or down) or another time (sideways, in steps of 15 minutes). BmyGuest shows what will change, and warns if the new room is already booked then. Press Move meeting to confirm. You can also move a booking from its details: under Move to another room, the rooms that are free at its time are listed with their seats, those with fewer seats than it has guests on site are marked, and Move here moves it, after the same confirmation. If your administrator has switched on Disable move meeting time, you can only drag a booking up or down to another room, and it keeps its time. Above the calendar it then says “Drag a meeting to another room”.

Moving Sales weekly to Meeting room Fjord, with a clash to check first.

The move is saved in Outlook, in the organiser’s calendar, so everyone on the invitation sees it. It needs the Calendars.ReadWrite permission.
Only meetings organised by one of your hosts can be moved. Dragging needs a mouse; on a touch screen, use Move to another room in the booking’s details.
For a meeting in a series, a change of room moves the whole series and keeps its times; a change of time moves only that meeting.
The BmyGuest meeting and any catering order follow the move.

The page does not cancel or shorten meetings: that is done in Outlook. A meeting that has ended, and the meetings of a day gone by, cannot be moved. Rooms can be booked only as many days ahead as their calendars are read (Days ahead to sync). Guests are checked in on the reception desk, as always.

Booking a room

Reception can book a room for a host, for example for a meeting arranged at the desk. The meeting goes into the host’s own Outlook calendar with the room invited, as if they had booked it themselves, and the room accepts it by its own booking rules. Today and later days only.

Press Book a room at the top, click a free stretch of a room’s row on the timeline, or press Book now on a free room’s card.
Choose the Host and give the meeting a subject. The Private switch hides the title on screens and on this page, and Add a Teams meeting link for remote attendees adds a Teams link to the meeting.
Choose the start and end, or a length from 30 min to 2 h. The room list shows each room’s seats and floor, and a room that is busy then cannot be chosen.
Press Book room. If guests are coming, press Book and add visitors instead: BmyGuest also registers the meeting and opens it, so you can add them.

Book a room for Grace Adeyemi: subject, time with the 30 min to 2 h buttons, and a room that is free, then Book room or Book and add visitors.

What booking needs

The Calendars.ReadWrite permission, as moving meetings does, and a host whose e-mail address has a calendar in your Microsoft 365. BmyGuest shows the booking at once. If the room declines it, it disappears from the page the next time the room’s calendar is read, and the host still has the meeting in Outlook.

For hosts

Book the room in Outlook and invite your guests, as usual. Within a few minutes the meeting is in BmyGuest, under My Meetings, with your guests registered for the room’s location.
You can add guests and door keys to the meeting in BmyGuest. Its time, subject and room follow Outlook, so change those there.
Colleagues you invite who are hosts in BmyGuest are listed apart, under Colleagues when you edit the meeting, and do not check in. If one of them needs a badge or a door key, press Register as guest; later syncs keep them a guest.
On My Meetings, each guest who has not arrived has a choice of On site or Online. For a large meeting where nobody comes to reception, switch on Online meeting on the meeting in BmyGuest instead.
Without a meeting room, adding [email protected] to the invitation registers the guests in the same way; see the Host guide.

With the incident module

Where your company uses BmyGuest’s incident module, each room can be linked to its area in the module. When a repair in a linked room is planned, the planner can then e-mail the people who have booked the room in that period. BmyGuest switches these notices on for a company on request.

Help

Troubleshooting

A booking is not on the calendar.

Check that the room has a location under Imported meeting rooms, and that the booking is within Days ahead to sync. New bookings appear within a few minutes. If nothing changes at all, the client secret may have expired or a permission may be missing. When Microsoft 365 refuses BmyGuest's sign-in (an expired or wrong client secret, for example), administrators and receptionists see a warning at the top of every page in the new design, and an administrator's gives the reason. With Use webhooks (instant sync)? on, a room that Microsoft 365 has refused is tried again less and less often, in the end only once a day. Once you have fixed the cause, press Save changes on the add-on page, and BmyGuest tries every room again straight away.

A meeting with guests did not come into BmyGuest.

The organiser must be a host in BmyGuest with the same e-mail address as in Outlook, and at least one attendee must be a guest who has not declined. Check the location’s ignored domains and the add-on’s ignored addresses, and Skip meeting series? for a recurring meeting.

Colleagues are registered as guests.

They are not hosts in BmyGuest. Add your company’s e-mail domains to the location’s Ignore visitors with following domains.

A room is missing.

It must be a room mailbox in Microsoft 365, and in the group, if you named one. New rooms come in with the nightly room sync, or with Sync now.

Moving a meeting says the change could not be saved to Outlook.

The app registration needs Calendars.ReadWrite, and an application access policy must allow it on the organiser’s mailbox. Meetings organised outside your company cannot be moved.

I can only drag a meeting to another room, not to another time.

Disable move meeting time is switched on for your company, under Sync on the add-on page. Change the time in Outlook instead. If moving a meeting says that meetings can only be moved to another room, the setting was switched on while the calendar was open: refresh the calendar and drag the meeting again.

A room I booked disappeared from the page.

The room’s mailbox declined the booking by its own booking rules, for example because of a clash in Outlook, or because only some people may book that room. BmyGuest shows a booking at once and removes it the next time the room’s calendar is read, if the room has not accepted it. The meeting stays in the host’s Outlook calendar: book another room for it there, or here.

Button and screen names are given in English, as they appear in the screenshots. If you use BmyGuest in another language, the wording differs, but every screen and button is in the same place. The screenshots show a fictional company, Northgate Group.

Meeting rooms