microsoft bookings presentation

Microsoft Bookings

A simpler way to organize schedules and manage appointments.

• For Business
• For Enterprise

Simplify scheduling to save time

Save time when scheduling with Microsoft Bookings. Customize appointment details, booking requirements, and specify service providers to streamline the booking experience for you and your customers. Bookings is integrated with your Microsoft 365 calendar to help your customers quickly find available times and avoid double-booking. With Bookings, you’ll spend less time scheduling and more time meeting with customers.

Visit these sample pages to learn how people can book appointments in Bookings:

Meet virtually with Microsoft Teams

Make your Microsoft Bookings meetings virtual with Microsoft Teams. Every appointment booked as an online meeting creates a meeting link that everyone can join virtually from anywhere. Bookings is also available as an app within Teams to help you create calendars, assign staff, schedule new appointments, and meet without ever leaving Teams.

Customize appointments to your business needs

Microsoft Bookings has flexibility and customization options to fit a variety of scheduling needs across departments, individuals, and types of appointments. Create and manage multiple Bookings calendars, each with their own unique setup. Different calendars can have different page structures, information, staff, and types of appointments and communication.

Provide your clients flexibility, convenience, and control

Microsoft Bookings offers more options for your customers when they visit your booking page, book an appointment, or get a confirmation email and calendar invitation. Customers who book an appointment online can easily reschedule or cancel it themselves to keep everyone in sync. If you prefer to book appointments for your customers, enter the appointment details in Bookings so they receive confirmations and reminders. With Bookings, it’s also easy to track all changes made to appointments.

How organizations use Microsoft Bookings

Organizations across multiple industries have implemented Bookings in a variety of ways to address their scheduling needs.

Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ)

SAAQ is a government agency that used Bookings to allow citizens to schedule appointments at 115 different service centers.

“The success story of this implementation is being able to build out and implement a new solution in only a few days without it costing a lot of money.”

—Mario Blouin, Technology Enterprise Architect, Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ)

Zurich Insurance

Zurich Insurance, a global insurance company, implemented Bookings as an efficient way for customers to schedule online appointments.

“If you want to have more transparency and availability of appointments for your organization, use Bookings... Bookings doesn’t require a lot of people or other resources to set up, and the benefits are big.”

—Raid El Badarin-Deriy, Digital Workplace Technical Lead, Zurich Insurance, Germany

Florida Virtual School

Bookings helped Florida Virtual School schedule and manage interactions between teachers, students, parents, and staff.

“The simplicity and ease-of-use were very attractive to our team. People select their preferred days and times, so students can only book when the teacher is available to meet with them. It’s a very smart, real-time system that works.”

—Regina Collins, Global School Principal, Florida Virtual School

Umpqua Bank

Umpqua Bank achieved business continuity while transitioning to appointment-only services using Bookings.

“Bookings solves a universal business problem… in a simple and easy-to-use way. If Bookings is in your portfolio suite and you need a scheduling tool, it’s a no-brainer.”

—Robert Walters, Senior Vice President – Director of Technology Operations, Umpqua Bank

Confluent Health

With the rise of virtual consultations, Confluent Health’s scheduling team uses Bookings to more easily manage and schedule appointments for those virtual visits.

“The centralized scheduling of appointments has generated great feedback. Everyone has commented on how easy it is to use for the virtual visits.”

—Brooke Mugavin, Vice President of Operations, Confluent Health

Get it all with Microsoft 365

Microsoft Bookings is part of select Microsoft 365 plans. Stay productive with always up-to-date apps, email, file storage, sharing, and other features.

Frequently asked questions

What is a booking/scheduling app.

A booking and scheduling app is an online application to allow for easy scheduling of customizable appointments that integrates with your calendar. A booking or scheduling app can help you and your clients avoid double booking.

Does Microsoft Bookings integrate with other applications?

Microsoft Bookings easily integrates with other Microsoft applications including Microsoft Outlook Calendar, Microsoft Teams and more. Microsoft Bookings integrations allows you to easily integrate your appointments with your personal and professional calendars.

What are the benefits of an online scheduling system?

Online booking systems can save you and your business a lot of time and headaches that can come with trying to align schedules for appointments. An online scheduling tool makes it easy for people to see your calendar availability even if they are not in your organization. An online booking system can also prevent double booking with real time availability.

What is the importance of scheduling meetings and planning ahead?

Planning ahead to schedule meetings and appointments is important to ensure you don’t have overlapping appointments, and aren’t double booking. Scheduling meetings ahead of time also makes sure you are prepared and not caught off guard.

What does it mean to be double booked?

Double booking is when someone has more than one meeting or appointment at the same time. To avoid double booking, a scheduling or booking tool should be used so that your availability is always up to date.

What is a cancellation policy?

A cancellation policy can protect you and your business from customers who cancel at the last minute, leaving you with an open appointment and potentially costing you money. A cancellation policy should be clear at the time of booking and not be a surprise to consumers. A cancellation policy can help prevent people cancelling a the last minute or not showing up at all.

Connect with Microsoft 365 :

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• Contact sales

Available M-F 6 AM to 6 PM PT.

How to Use Microsoft Bookings: The Complete Tutorial

Last Updated on June 29, 2023

Feeling overwhelmed with Microsoft Bookings?

In this tutorial, I will discuss everything on how to use Microsoft Bookings including how to configure the settings.

Let’s get started.

Table of Contents:

What is Microsoft Bookings?

What are the features of microsoft bookings, 1. real-time appointment availability, 2. smooth website integration, 3. automatic notifications and confirmations, step #1: navigate to the bookings app, step #2: create a new booking calendar, step #3: invite staff members to the calendar, step #4: finish the new bookings calendar, booking page, business information, how to share your bookings page.

Are you familiar with apps or tools where people can book a meeting with you? That’s what this app is all about.

Microsoft Bookings is a tool that clients and customers can use to  schedule meetings  with you quite easily.

Microsoft Bookings has two primary components:

• The  front-end booking page  where people can schedule appointments. it can be shared using a link, through social media, or even embedded on a site.
• The  back-end web-based app  where you (owners and admin) can configure meeting details including the time of availability, staff schedules, etc.

Note : If you’re looking for calendar options in Microsoft 365, check out this article:  Calendar Options in SharePoint and Microsoft 365 .

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Booking apps are more or less similar — Microsoft Bookings is no exception.

Here are some of the features you can expect from the app:

• The ability to  assign  staff members with the appropriate permissions to do their responsibilities.
• The booking page can also be  customized  according to your branding — complete with logo and brand colors.
• Mobile responsiveness  so the booking page will still look good even when viewed on a mobile device.
• Built-in client/customer  database  that will save the information of those who booked an appointment with you.

If you’re concerned about information security, information is stored in Microsoft Exchange as a booking calendar is a  mailbox  in Exchange Online.

Microsoft also confirmed that Bookings is in  compliance with standards  like ISO, FISMA, SOC, and SEC.

Related : How to Add a Shared Mailbox in Outlook 365 (Easy Guide)

What are the advantages of Microsoft Bookings?

If your organization is using apps from Microsoft, then it makes sense to take advantage of this booking app.

Besides that point, here are some advantages:

Since the app is cloud-based, all appointment bookings are  updated  in real-time.

This is vital since people who want to book a meeting with you can see an updated calendar and schedule of your availability.

Because the calendar updates in real-time, double-booking can’t happen (which happens on other apps when someone snags a schedule from another user).

If you don’t want to do extra work, you can make use of the app’s stand-alone bookings page and share it publicly.

But in case you want to integrate the tool into your website, you can simply  embed  the app so it looks like a natural part of your website.

Even if you embed the app into a website, you can still add custom fields and the embedded app will reflect the changes.

The app wouldn’t be as useful as it is if it doesn’t send automated notifications to you.

MS Bookings can save you a lot of time by  automatically  sending email reminders and confirmations so you don’t have to manually check your calendar all the time.

These notifications can help reduce repetitive scheduling tasks on your end.

Note : For a comparison of Bookings and Bookings with me, read this article: Explained: Microsoft Bookings vs Bookings With Me (Better?)

How to create a Microsoft Bookings calendar

The first step here is to navigate to the Microsoft Bookings app.

If you’re on Microsoft 365 or SharePoint Online, follow these steps:

• Click the  app launcher
• Hit the  bookings  icon

If you can’t find the icon right away, you need to click the  all apps  button first and then find the Bookings icon from there.

In the Bookings app, you will see a similar screen in the image below if this was your first time going into the app.

To get started, click the  create new calendar  button:

On the next screen, you will have to enter a  name  for the calendar.

This is important since the calendar name will also be the email address for the booking invites and will be a part of the booking page link.

The safest route here is to simply use your  business name :

Other settings you can include/change:

• Your own company logo
• Business type
• Business hours (days and hours)

The business type you enter here will be one of the services shown in your calendar. You can customize this later on.

Once you’re done setting all of them, kindly click the  next  button to proceed.

The next page is where you can add  staff members  to the calendar.

Simply use the field provided to  search  for a name and then  select  that user to add to your calendar.

Once you do, that user will appear as a  guest  on the list:

The people you add here will automatically become team members by default. Later on, I’ll show you how to easily change the access.

Once you’re done here, kindly click the  next  button once again.

The next part is where you can add a service.

However, as I explained earlier, the business type you entered in step #2 will also be one of the services shown.

If you want to change this, click the change button below the service:

On the next page, you can  update  the following:

• Service name
• Appointment duration
• Appointment schedule
• Make the meeting in Teams

Once you’re done, simply click the  update service  button:

The button will take you to the earlier page — but now with the update service. Click the  next  button to proceed to the last page.

The next part is where you can customize who can book appointments with you (the default is for organization members only).

Select which you prefer and click the  create calendar  button:

The system will inform you that it’s currently setting up your calendar and will be ready in less than a minute.

Once you’re done, the browser will redirect you to the Bookings app with your calendar in it (using the new Bookings interface).

How to configure the settings on Microsoft Bookings

The home screen in the app will now change, showing instead the Bookings calendars that you have.

If you want to configure its settings, you need to open the calendar first by clicking on it:

The first screen will show you the Booking calendar:

If you want to create a new booking manually (where you input the meeting details and customer information yourself), click the  new booking  button above the calendar.

You will see this window show up:

Here are the following  details  you need to provide on this page:

• The appointment time (service details)
• Customer information
• Staff who will attend the meeting

If you expand the options for the service details, you will be able to specify the service location, price, email reminder, follow-up email, and some notes.

Expanding the options for customer information will allow you to provide the customer’s address, send a meeting invite to the customer, and a few self-explanatory options.

In line with the new booking button, there is also a button to  add time off . This will open a similar-looking window:

The next option in the panel is the Booking page where you can configure various settings:

• Business page access control
• Customer data usage consent
• Default scheduling policy
• Customize your page
• Region and time zone settings

The  business page access control  basically allows you to:

• Disable direct search engine indexing of your booking page
• Require a one-time password for customers/clients to create bookings

Under the  customer data usage content , you can basically show personal data collection and usage terms to the person creating a booking with you.

If you want to configure the email notifications, go to the  default scheduling policy  settings. You will be able to change the following settings here:

• Time increments (30 minutes by default)
• Minimum (24 hours by default) and maximum (1 year by default) lead time
• Email notifications
• Staff control (customers can choose the staff to book with)
• Availability (determine the book-ability of the business)

In the email notifications, you can set up the system to  automatically send an email  to you when someone booked your service and whether or not to send an invite to the customer.

For general availability, you can also  create various availability  for a date range — perfect for holidays and vacations.

For branding your Bookings page, you can go to the  customize your page  settings:

• Page template
• Color theme
• Set custom color to the booking page
• Display the business logo on the booking page

The  region and time zone settings  will allow you to change the language of the booking page as well as the current time zone.

The people who booked a meeting with you will have their information saved on this page. If it’s your first time using it, you will see a page similar to the image below.

To manually enter a new customer, click the  add a new customer  button:

The next part is to manually enter the customer  information .

Click the  save changes  button once you’re done:

You should then see the new customer on the list. You will be able to edit his/her information as well as book an appointment.

This is a great feature in Microsoft Bookings since this means you can manually set and manage appointments with a client on your end.

On the staff settings page, you will be able to see all the  staff members  and their information (contact, availability, etc.).

This is what you will see on the screen:

You can also add a new staff member from this screen.

Simply click on the  add new staff  button above the page and supply the needed information:

Click the  save changes  button once you’re done.

On this page, you will be able to add new services as well as configure existing ones.

Since you have only started, the only button here is to  add a new service :

This will open a new window where you can provide the following:

• The basic details of the service
• Availability options
• Assign staff to the service
• Custom fields
• Notifications

Most of the information here is things we covered earlier — but only specific to the service that you will be adding.

The custom fields part will allow you to require specific customer information as well as add new custom fields.

The process is quite similar to creating  forms   where you can specify the question (text or dropdown):

For notifications, you can also enable  text message notifications  to the customer and customize the reminders and follow-up.

The business information is where you can configure the basic details of your business shown in Bookings.

Specifically, this is where you can configure the following:

• Basic details
• Privacy policy and Terms and conditions
• Business logo
• Business hours
• ACS App integration

If you have a separate terms and conditions page and one for the privacy policy, you can enter the  links  here.

You can also integrate your  Azure Communication Service App  with Bookings so customers will receive a URL to the app for online appointments.

The integration part is new. Currently, it only allows you to connect with Power Automate using an SMTP address.

Note : For more information on Power Automate, check out my introduction article:  Introduction to Microsoft Power Automate .

If you have followed closely the section above, you may have already come across the Bookings page link.

To put it simply, follow these steps:

• Go to the  Booking page  tab
• Click the  action  button to share the page link

For reference:

• Copy  the link if you want to share the page on social media
• Use the  email  button to send an email directly to a client through Outlook
• Embedding  will allow you to embed the page to your website

You can also change the  privacy of the link  from this page — from disabling the self-service feature to making the page available to anyone.

How do you feel about Microsoft Bookings? Do you see yourself using it anytime soon? Why or why not?

Need business help? Let’s talk it over. Kindly send me a message  through this form here  and I’ll get back to you asap.

Awesome post. Thank you, Ryan!

This was an extremely useful tutorial to work through MS Bookings Calendar methodically, Thankyou Ryan!

Hello, I’m trying to figure out how I could use Bookings to schedule a meeting when everyone has availability. Is there a way this can be done?

Independently Curated Microsoft 365 Assets

Microsoft bookings.

What is Microsoft Bookings?

Microsoft Bookings brings online appointment scheduling to your customers, and brings booking software to any size business. Manage appointments right from the Bookings app. Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/scheduling-and-booking-app

Microsoft Bookings training & resources

• Microsoft Bookings home
• Microsoft Bookings documentation
• Microsoft Bookings Frequently Asked Questions
• Overview of Microsoft Bookings
• Overview of the Bookings app in Teams
• YouTube (Microsoft 365 channel search)

Noteworthy in Microsoft Bookings

• A new, more powerful, and customizable Microsoft Bookings is here
• Deploying and Administering Microsoft Bookings (YouTube video)
• Microsoft Bookings API overview (preview)
• Microsoft Bookings overview (YouTube video)
• Microsoft Bookings – Our Vision (YouTube video)
• Microsoft Bookings roadmap

Share Your Feedback Dear Site Visitor, Maintaining this site is a one-person endeavor aimed at providing quick access to valuable Microsoft 365 resources. To ensure its usefulness and relevance, your contribution matters. If you encounter broken links or discover new/updated Microsoft resources, please use the feedback form to notify me. Kindly note, this site is curated, maintained, and paid for independently and is not affiliated with Microsoft. You can learn more about the 365 Training Portal on the About page . Your input greatly aids in keeping this site valuable and current for everyone. Thank you for being a part of this initiative! Graham Owner/curator

Bookings with me: setup and sharing

Bookings with me in Outlook facilitates scheduling meetings between you and others per mutual calendar availability and your specified meeting preferences. Proceed through following steps to enable and use this feature. 

Access your Bookings with me page 

Go to https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/ 

Note:  You can also get started via the Create bookings page menu item in your Calendar on Outlook for web. That menu item text will change to Edit bookings page after setup is complete. 

Click the plus sign within the Public meeting pane to create a meeting type. Doing so will also initiate the Bookings page setup process. 

Create a new meeting type

To proceed with Bookings setup, simply click  Save  to return to your dashboard page. You can also explore and customize your meeting with the following settings either now or later.

Category  Same as Outlook categories. Visible only to you.

Description  Purpose of meeting, etc.

Location  Physical or online (e.g., Teams).

Duration  Default is 30 minutes.

Public  (anyone with page link can see) or Private (access only via meeting link).

Detailed Timing Specifications  

Meeting hours.  Use regular hours per your Outlook or specify custom availability.

Buffer before mtg.  Ensures a stated duration remains unbooked prior to meeting start.

Buffer time after.  Specified amount of post-meeting time remains unbooked for you.

Limit start time to.  Sets interval of suggested start times (independent of meeting duration).

Minimum lead time.  Booking must be done at least this far in advance of meeting time.

Maximum lead time.  Booking must be done within this number of days before meeting time.

Allow for setup processing time

Only on initial use, some processing time will be necessary to complete the creation of your Bookings page. 

Click to dismiss the progress bar. 

Prepare and share your page 

With setup complete, you can now personalize your page and let others know it’s available for them to schedule meetings with you. 

To change your banner image, click the [...] icon by Share then select Edit banner image to proceed.

Copy link puts a link to your public Booking page into the clipboard for easy sharing.

Share via email opens an automated send function in Bookings with me.

Add to email signature automates adding to your Outlook email signature.   

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There's Something About Dynamics 365

Blog about Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE|CRM & Power Platform

Use Microsoft Bookings as room and desk planner (back to the office)

As a member of the Power Platform community, I love the initiatives to make applications available to organizations to face the challenges of this pandemic era. The platform has proven itself and offers the possibility to create professional solutions within a few days. But as a solution architect I like to keep an open mind towards all the services within the Microsoft cloud ecosystem and there are some (former) Business Apps that offer out-of-the-box functionality that can be of help. One of them is Microsoft Bookings , that is available for Office 365 Education A3/A5, Office 365 Business Premium subscriptions, and as free add-on for Office 365 Enterprise E3/E5 subscriptions but will become part of these subscriptions beginning May 12, 2020. Microsoft Bookings will also be integrated in Microsoft Teams as app, see the recent announcement: Microsoft Bookings expands availability in enterprises .

Microsoft published an article about using Microsoft Bookings to enable healthcare organizations a simple way to schedule and conduct B2C appointments via Microsoft Teams.

But we can also use Microsoft Bookings as room and desk planner for organizations that are going to welcome back their employees in the offices but need to plan the occupation of the available desks.

Make sure that Bookings is enabled for your organization in the settings of the Microsoft 365 admin center.

First we create a room mailbox for every desk that should be available as “staff” (resource) in the Exchange admin center. Set Booking delegates: Automatically accept or decline booking requests.

Open Bookings via the app launcher and add a booking calendar, for your department or office building.

You could combine this with the floor plans in Microsoft Search to guide employees to their desk. See the best practices for Microsoft Search floor plans to make it work.

Add the bookable desks as Staff. Search for the right room mailbox and set the room/desk number as initials.

Add a new service for the use of a desk, for instance for the whole day.

You can assign “staff” (resources) to this service (in case of meeting special requirements), or do not assign if every resource should be available for this service. After saving there’s a URL available to share a page for this service.

You can add the employees as customers to the system, manually or through import.

Now we’re all set to create and publish the booking page to make it available for the employees of the department or office. To keep the booking page for internal use only, enable the access control settings.

Adjust the settings for the Scheduling policy, Email notifications, Staff and Availability to your needs.

Publish the booking page to make it available via the URL that is shown.

Now we can test/use the published booking page by opening it. Select a service (desk for whole or half day), day plus start time, and the staff (resource).

Add your details and click the Book button.

This will add the booking to the booking calendar and the calendar of the room mailbox.

The employee will receive a confirmation of the booking with an .ics file to add to his/her calendar, and the option to manage the booking in case of rescheduling or cancelling it.

So Microsoft Bookings can be a great help in planning the occupation of the desks in your offices!

Sharing is caring.

Addendum: You could create a room mailbox for every room (instead of desk) that should be available as “staff” (resource) in the Exchange admin center. Set Capacity, Booking delegates: Automatically accept or decline booking requests.

When creating a service you can set the maximum number of attendees equal to the capacity of the room. If the rooms (staff) differ in capacity then assign the rooms that meet the maximum number of attendees with their capacity.

Now based on this so-called Group bookings the service can be booked multiple times for the same time slot. Note: This feature is still rolling out and might not be available in your organization yet, see official documentation .

30 comments

Thanks for sharing this! it looks great and super east to follow. One question, do you know if there is any functionality to allow users/staff to have visibility on the calendars? This is so that Staff can book the same days in for collaboration etc…

Thanks again, Moe Ali

Hi Moe, You can add the calendar of the room mailbox to Outlook. Search for it in the Address book, select and add it.

Hi, It was possible to add the room mailboxes to my Outlook calendar, however the booking only shows the company name and not the name of the booker. Within the MS booking page I can see the name of the booker, but it won’t show within the Outlook calendar. Do you know a solution for this? Many thanks!

This solution will not allow employees to book desks from MS Teams and booking mobile app so no integration between the apps.

Only staff and owner can book desks from ms teams and booking mobile app.

If we add users as staff, they will seeing themselves as resource in calendar so is there anyway to hide staffs in booking calendar either in teams bookings app or in bookings mobile app.

Note: deselecting staff option is not good solution as users.

And if users want to book via booking app in teams or in mobile they should be provided admin access.

Hi Pradeep,

You could add a website tab to a channel in Teams and set the URL of the published booking page.

Thank you very much for this great tutorial. Quick question, is there a way to limit the number of desks booked per day? Let’s say I have 30 available desks, but once 20 are booked for the day, I cannot book the remaining 10. Basically I cannot have more than 20 people at once in the building but I would like to give them the option to pick the desk they want. Is there a way to limit it in Bookings? Thank you.

Hi Benoît, I don’t believe there is a way to limit this in Bookings. You could monitor the bookings on a day and once the 20 desks are booked, you could block the calendars of the 10 remaining desks. Possible there’s a way to automate this with the Microsof Graph Bookings API that’s in preview. See: Use the Microsoft Bookings API in Microsoft Graph

Hi , it seem that even access control is set to internal user only, when doing the booking, any email address entered is accepted? is this normal?

Hi Ralph, The access control is for the booking page, and there’s no validation on the email addresses.

I have rooms with different capacity how do I set this up without having to create a new service for every room?

Hi Neil, You could create a room mailbox for every room (instead of desk) that should be available as “staff” (resource) in the Exchange admin center. Based on this so-called Group bookings the service can be booked multiple times for the same time slot, without the need of extra services. See the last part of my blog post under Addendum .

How do you locate the link to the building floorplan once you have that all setup in Microsoft Search? This is the only part I can’t seem to figure out.

Hi Aaron, Did you consult the Troubleshooting and FAQ related to floor plans?

Would this work for Room resources? Say a non-profit has multiple rooms with different capacity and dollar amount for rental and want to be able to use bookings for people who want to rent the rooms? I was told by Microsoft you couldn’t do this just this week, but they sent me this article and weren’t sure this would work for me so thought I would ask.

Hi Lisa, I think this is doable. If you create a service for each room/capacity and set the default price, and assign “the staff” (room resource) that meets that capacity. See step 10, 18 and 20 in the following page: Create the service details . You have to set the default duration (step 6) for the rental, so you might end up with more than 1 service per room. See my example .

Thank you for your response. I’m finally getting to testing this out. I am creating a service but under the section for maximum attendees, I can’t increase it to 12. I got a list of rooms from my client and for this particular room that I’m testing, there is a cost for the first hour and addtl hours are at a lower rate. Do I just put that in the notes?

Lisa – Put the size of the rooms in the room name or comments. If you set the number of attendees that would allow the room to be double booked that many times 🙂

How do you find the URL for the floorplan to put in the Website URL section of Business Information?

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Great system. Worked ok during our testing with 5 desks but I have an office of 100 desks and now just says loading for each staff (desk). Guess it can’t handle that many calendars. Anyone else had this issue?

Is there a way I can change the ” Anyone” to “Any” in the dropdown list of Rooms? If I am going to use it as a desk/room booking I need to change the Booking page like ” Select Staff” to “Select Room/Desk”

I need to create several hoteling/work stations and every time I create a station it asks for an email address. I want to use the same email address for every station but it doesn’t allow me to use same email address for every work station. Please help!

Are you able to help with the query raised here: “ Hi, It was possible to add the room mailboxes to my Outlook calendar, however the booking only shows the company name and not the name of the booker. Within the MS booking page I can see the name of the booker, but it won’t show within the Outlook calendar. Do you know a solution for this?” Thanks

I work from a Large Real Estate office with only 2 conference rooms, but we have multiple (non-RE) tenants which we are often booking conference rooms for and then result in difficult conversations with our Agents who want to drop in spontaneously with their clients. This seems like a win-win, because its online, and can go to our Calendars in Outlook automatically.

My question is, how do you create the different mailboxes for each conference room? I looked up Microsoft Exchange, but have no idea what that is, and nothing came up with options to add different mailboxes. PLEASE HELP!

We’ve found this really handy so thank you for the guide 🙂

One question is when staff book a particular desk they get an e-mail invite which adds it to their calendar, the only thing that would be ideal is if that default wasn’t set to Busy as it means on Teams or Outlook they’re not free for anything else. Obviously that’s the intended behavior but it would nice if it could be changed.

You’re spot on Steven, I’m also looking for a solution for this. I’d like the default to be “Free”. Kindly let me know if you have found a solution to this. Thanks. Br, Tony

Based on my knowledge, the bookings calendar will sync to the staff’s Microsoft 365 business mailbox calendar. For google calendar to see it, it might have to book a service as a customer. If multiple users are not seen in your Bookings mobile app, chances are it is related to the display of the mobile app.

Micorosft doesn’t allows now add resource as as a Viewer Stuff. It automatically changes it to the Guest and than booking is possible all the time no matter room is booked or no. Any solutions?

Is there a way to add people to the teams meeting which is created by the booking?

WOW! A LOT of information here. So, I’m going to add to it with my “scenario”. Hopefully someone can clarify for me. ? I have 10 room resources in o365. We want to use “bookings” to manage those rooms. We have 500 end users who will be booking time in these rooms randomly as needed. Questions: 1. how do you configure this so rooms aren’t double booked? 2. How do I create the bookings page,? 3. is it best to create a dedicated 0365 user account for this like “[email protected]” so its not tied to any specific user in 0365? (People come and go) 4. I’m also assuming there would be a separate bookings URL for each of the 0365 Room resources? We just want people to be able to book room times via a bookings URL. All helpful responses greatly appreciated. thanks

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Virtual Hub / Modern work / Outlook & Bookings

Outlook & Bookings

Helping customers achieve more through innovation in personal organization, secure communication, and time management.

Looking forward, a view to employee and organizational empowerment and personalization with time management, mobile productivity, and key capabilities that build upon Microsoft Trust with Outlook and Bookings.

The transformation of communication and time management supported by a common architecture and connected Microsoft 365 experiences with Outlook.

Outlook and Exchange built upon Microsoft Trust and security services that deliver mailbox protection end-to-end.

Mobile productivity and security in the workplace with Outlook

Helpful ways to keep you organized and prepared throughout your day.

Continued learning

• Presentation: voice and more AI assistance in Outlook
• Presentation: What’s new in Outlook on a mobile browser
• Presentation: Protecting Outlook data with authentication and authorization controls
• Article:  Play My Emails expands beyond the US and gets more customizable
• Article:  Easier said and done – just use your voice
• Article: Get organized people! Sorting out your Outlook mobile contacts
• Article:  Get started with Outlook on the Surface Duo
• Videos: Outlook for iOS and Android key features
• Link to download Outlook for iOS and Android

Introducing the new Outlook for Mac

Building a new experience based on Microsoft sync technology for performance and agility.

• Article: Enhanced performance, designed for simplicity — the new Outlook for Mac
• Presentation: The new Outlook for Mac — under the hood

What’s new in Outlook on the web

Get an early view of what’s coming to Outlook as seen first in Outlook on the web.

• Article: What's new in Outlook on a mobile browser
• Presentation: What's new in Outlook on a mobile browser
• Article: What's new in Outlook on the web
• Presentation: Latest updates for Outlook calendar

Delivering a better, more innovative Outlook faster than ever

Understand how the common architecture and embedded web experiences will change the face of Outlook .

• Article: Reading and writing emails gets easier on your desktop
• Presentation:  The evolution of Outlook

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Microsoft Bookings API overview

• 12 contributors

Microsoft Bookings provides online and mobile apps that make appointment scheduling simple and efficient for businesses and their customers. Any organization that provides service on an appointment basis, such as large scale enterprise companies, auto repair shops, hair salons, and law firms, can benefit from having their bookings managed so as to free up time for the more important task to grow their business. Microsoft Bookings is available to enterprise organizations and businesses that have a Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscription.

Why integrate with Microsoft Bookings using Microsoft Graph?

Streamline appointment booking.

A business operator may never miss a customer booking when away from the phone or the business is closed. Customers can see the available services and book appointments any time directly on the scheduling page, on the business web site or Facebook.

Business operators can take bookings anywhere, on the web or a mobile app, in-person or on the phone. They can reschedule , cancel , or re-assign an existing booking to another available staff member.

Reduce no-shows and increase productivity of the staff

Business operators can specify scheduling policies that include minimum notice for bookings and cancellations, and customers can schedule or reschedule appointments themselves. Automated appointment confirmations and reminders decrease no-shows, and let the staff make better use of their production hours.

Manage customer information and relationships from anywhere

Completing an appointment automatically verifies if the customer is already on the customer list , and adds the customer's name and email address to the list if necessary. This makes it convenient for business operators to stay in touch with their customers, and send periodic newsletters or other promotional material.

Integrate with productivity and team collaboration services in Microsoft Graph

Using the same unified Microsoft Graph REST endpoint, you can access the Bookings API and integrate with the best of Microsoft 365 to support richer scenarios. For example, you can use Excel to track and analyze business financial data, and generate professional reports, or use SharePoint or Microsoft Teams to enhance team collaboration.

API reference

Looking for the API reference for this service? See Microsoft Bookings API in Microsoft Graph .

Related content

• Microsoft Bookings for Microsoft 365
• Other Microsoft 365 business apps

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Microsoft Power BI Blog

Supporting continuous slide shows in power bi storytelling add-in.

Reports that track performance data in Power BI are common for many organizations. These reports can cover different aspects of organizational performance, such as production, sales, engineering, and so on. Many organizations want to share these reports with everyone in the organization, and even make them publicly visible , so everyone can see what the leadership cares about and how the organization is doing.

PowerPoint lets you play a presentation continuously. This is handy when you want to show information on public screens without anyone having to control it. You can do it by setting your presentation to run in an infinite loop and set the slides transition.

But up until today, if the Power BI add-in was part of a presentation running in a continuous slide show, the data in the add-in might become outdated, since the add-in only gets the data from Power BI when the slide is loaded, or when the user manually refreshes the data in the add-in.

Therefore, we added a new configuration to the add-in that ensures that you get the latest data from Power BI when running in continuous slide show. When the slide-show configuration is turned on, the add-in automatically pulls data from Power BI, without anyone having to do anything, ensuring that the presentation always has the most recent data.

To enable automatic refresh in slide show, go to the add-in footer, select Add-in options , choose Slide show settings , check Automatic refresh in slide show and set the desired frequency. This will cause the add-in to pulls data from Power BI every given period, when the presentation is in slide show.

The auto refresh only happens in slide show mode and not while you’re editing the presentation, so don’t worry if data does not change we you are still editing the presentation. (If you want the latest data when you are editing, go to Data options and choose Refresh .)

For best performance, the device running the presentation in infinite loop must have Office build 17126.20208 and above .

Let us know your feedback about the new slide show support inPower BI Storytelling add-in at  ideas.fabric.microsoft.com . Please add “Storytelling” to the title and give us enough information to make improvements to meet your requirements.

• power bi data storytelling

How To Get Free Access To Microsoft PowerPoint

E very time you need to present an overview of a plan or a report to a whole room of people, chances are you turn to Microsoft PowerPoint. And who doesn't? It's popular for its wide array of features that make creating effective presentations a walk in the park. PowerPoint comes with a host of keyboard shortcuts for easy navigation, subtitles and video recordings for your audience's benefit, and a variety of transitions, animations, and designs for better engagement.

But with these nifty features comes a hefty price tag. At the moment, the personal plan — which includes other Office apps — is at $69.99 a year. This might be the most budget-friendly option, especially if you plan to use the other Microsoft Office apps, too. Unfortunately, you can't buy PowerPoint alone, but there are a few workarounds you can use to get access to PowerPoint at no cost to you at all.

Read more: The 20 Best Mac Apps That Will Improve Your Apple Experience

Method #1: Sign Up For A Free Microsoft Account On The Office Website

Microsoft offers a web-based version of PowerPoint completely free of charge to all users. Here's how you can access it:

• Visit the Microsoft 365 page .
• If you already have a free account with Microsoft, click Sign in. Otherwise, press "Sign up for the free version of Microsoft 365" to create a new account at no cost.
• On the Office home page, select PowerPoint from the side panel on the left.
• Click on "Blank presentation" to create your presentation from scratch, or pick your preferred free PowerPoint template from the options at the top (there's also a host of editable templates you can find on the Microsoft 365 Create site ).
• Create your presentation as normal. Your edits will be saved automatically to your Microsoft OneDrive as long as you're connected to the internet.

It's important to keep in mind, though, that while you're free to use this web version of PowerPoint to create your slides and edit templates, there are certain features it doesn't have that you can find on the paid version. For instance, you can access only a handful of font styles and stock elements like images, videos, icons, and stickers. Designer is also available for use on up to three presentations per month only (it's unlimited for premium subscribers). When presenting, you won't find the Present Live and Always Use Subtitles options present in the paid plans. The biggest caveat of the free version is that it won't get any newly released features, unlike its premium counterparts.

Method #2: Install Microsoft 365 (Office) To Your Windows

Don't fancy working on your presentation in a browser? If you have a Windows computer with the Office 365 apps pre-installed or downloaded from a previous Office 365 trial, you can use the Microsoft 365 (Office) app instead. Unlike the individual Microsoft apps that you need to buy from the Microsoft Store, this one is free to download and use. Here's how to get free PowerPoint on the Microsoft 365 (Office) app:

• Search for Microsoft 365 (Office) on the Microsoft Store app.
• Install and open it.
• Sign in with your Microsoft account. Alternatively, press "Create free account" if you don't have one yet.
• Click on Create on the left side panel.
• Select Presentation.
• In the PowerPoint window that opens, log in using your account.
• Press Accept on the "Free 5-day pass" section. This lets you use PowerPoint (and Word and Excel) for five days — free of charge and without having to input any payment information.
• Create your presentation as usual. As you're using the desktop version, you can access the full features of PowerPoint, including the ability to present in Teams, export the presentation as a video file, translate the slides' content to a different language, and even work offline.

The only downside of this method is the time limit. Once the five days are up, you can no longer open the PowerPoint desktop app. However, all your files will still be accessible to you. If you saved them to OneDrive, you can continue editing them on the web app. If you saved them to your computer, you can upload them to OneDrive and edit them from there.

Method #3: Download The Microsoft PowerPoint App On Your Android Or iOS Device

If you're always on the move and need the flexibility of creating and editing presentations on your Android or iOS device, you'll be glad to know that PowerPoint is free and available for offline use on your mobile phones. But — of course, there's a but — you can only access the free version if your device is under 10.1 inches. Anything bigger than that requires a premium subscription. If your phone fits the bill, then follow these steps to get free PowerPoint on your device:

• Install Microsoft PowerPoint from the App Store or Google Play Store .
• Log in using your existing Microsoft email or enter a new email address to create one if you don't already have an account.
• On the "Get Microsoft 365 Personal Plan" screen, press Skip For Now.
• If you're offered a free trial, select Try later (or enjoy the free 30-day trial if you're interested).
• To make a new presentation, tap the plus sign in the upper right corner.
• Change the "Create in" option from OneDrive - Personal to a folder on your device. This allows you to save the presentation to your local storage and make offline edits.
• Press "Set as default" to set your local folder as the default file storage location.
• Choose your template from the selection or use a blank presentation.
• Edit your presentation as needed.

Do note that PowerPoint mobile comes with some restrictions. There's no option to insert stock elements, change the slide size to a custom size, use the Designer feature, or display the presentation in Immersive Reader mode. However, you can use font styles considered premium on the web app.

Method #4: Use Your School Email Address

Office 365 Education is free for students and teachers, provided they have an email address from an eligible school. To check for your eligibility, here's what you need to do:

• Go to the Office 365 Education page .
• Type in your school email address in the empty text field.
• Press "Get Started."
• On the next screen, verify your eligibility. If you're eligible, you'll be asked to select whether you're a student or a teacher. If your school isn't recognized, however, you'll get a message telling you so.
• For those who are eligible, proceed with creating your Office 365 Education account. Make sure your school email can receive external mail, as Microsoft will send you a verification code for your account.
• Once you're done filling out the form, press "Start." This will open your Office 365 account page.

You can then start making your PowerPoint presentation using the web app. If your school's plan supports it, you can also install the Office 365 apps to your computer by clicking the "Install Office" button on your Office 365 account page and running the downloaded installation file. What sets the Office 365 Education account apart from the regular free account is that you have unlimited personal cloud storage and access to other Office apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook.

Read the original article on SlashGear .

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Microsoft Says Windows Laptops With Snapdragon X Elite Will Be Faster Than M3 MacBook Air

Microsoft will advertise that its upcoming Windows laptops with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processor are faster than the MacBook Air with Apple's latest M3 chip, according to internal documents obtained by The Verge .

Introduced in October, the Snapdragon X Elite has Arm-based architecture like Apple silicon. Qualcomm last year claimed that the processor achieved 21% faster multi-core CPU performance than the M3 chip , based on the Geekbench 6 benchmark tool.

There are a few caveats here, including that Microsoft and Qualcomm are comparing to Apple's lower-end M3 chip instead of its higher-end M3 Pro and M3 Max chips. MacBooks with Apple silicon also offer industry-leading performance-per-watt, while the Snapdragon X Elite will likely run hotter and require laptops with fans. Since being updated with the M1 chip in 2020, the MacBook Air has featured a fanless design. Apple can also optimize the performance of MacBooks since it controls both the hardware and macOS software.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Apple's competitors are making progress with Arm-based laptops. Microsoft plans to announce laptops powered by the Snapdragon X Elite later this year, including the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 on May 20.

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Microsoft is banking on this next-gen AI chip to beat the Apple MacBook, and I saw it firsthand

Microsoft's upcoming line of Surface Pro and Surface laptops are expected to come with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite processors, making waves with impressive performance metrics that could not only rival but surpass Apple's flagship MacBooks, which have long sat at the top of the food chain .

Launching in late Spring 2024, Microsoft is apparently so confident in the performance of Qualcomm's new Arm-powered chips for Windows, The Verge reports , that its soon-to-be-released line of Surface tablets and laptops will be at the forefront of a big push for AI-powered computing.

Also: Microsoft unveils Surface Pro 10 and Laptop 6 with AI features. Here's what's new

If 2024 is the year for AI's full integration into PCs, Arm-powered Windows is part of that overarching design. This so-called Arm architecture refers to the physical design of the processor that largely powers devices like smartphones, tablets, and notably, Apple's processors. These chips bring a lot of advantages over the traditional x86 processors produced by Intel and AMD, particularly with less power consumption alongside cutting-edge performance.

I recently had a chance to see the Snapdragon X Elite series at a demo event hosted by Qualcomm, and there are definitely some big claims being made in terms of their performance, particularly as positioned against Apple's M3 silicon. These improvements aren't just theoretical projections up against emerging AI technology but easy-to-understand metrics that laptop consumers are concerned about now, such as boot-up speed and app launch speed, not to mention the significant reduction in power consumption, which means smaller designs that run cooler and with batteries that last longer.

Also: For the age of the AI PC, here comes a new test of speed

Up until now, Windows laptops and PCs have run almost exclusively on Intel and AMD chips, but Microsoft's replacement of Intel Core Ultra processors in the new line of consumer Surface Pro and Surface laptop with the Snapdragon X Elite chips signals an industry change, not just in manufacturers' confidence in Qualcomm's product, but a potential new norm for new devices. 

When the The Snapdragon X Elite was announced in October of last year, Qualcomm claimed it was 21% faster than Apple's M3 chip in a multi-core CPU performance benchmark. However, questions still remain about the Snapdragon X Elite's thermal capabilities, as they will likely run hotter than Apple's M3 chips and require cooling fans. Apple, on the other hand, has the ability to optimize every element of its chipset's design as the manufacturer of both the hardware and operating system in which it lives.

This new series of devices running the Qualcomm processors will likely be the first ones to gain access to Windows' cutting-edge AI functionalities. The Snapdragon X series features a large amount of space dedicated to neural processing, resulting in what may be among the fastest AI-powered devices on the market.

Also:  Surface vs. MacBook: Can Microsoft's new Arm-based AI PCs compete with Apple?

The implications for running Windows on Arm architecture are not entirely smooth sailing, as there will likely be some ironing out of compatibility issues with certain apps (particularly with gaming), but emulation of applications designed for the x86 platform is estimated to, for the most part, be seamless.

Microsoft's banking on the Snapdragon X series' performance seems, to us, to be just one part of a larger picture here, with Windows 11 being infused with a host of AI-powered tasks that will likely be elaborated on by CEO Satya Nadella on a special Windows and Surface AI event on May 20th, just ahead of Build 2024.

M3 MacBook Air review: Apple's AI computer for the masses has arrived

Intel shows off latest 'gaudi' ai chip, pitched towards enterprises, samsung's chip division wants the top spot back: what's happening.

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Regulators Force Another Microsoft Split

The tech giant is unbundling Teams from its Office software suite, as it faces mounting scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic.

By Andrew Ross Sorkin ,  Ravi Mattu ,  Bernhard Warner ,  Sarah Kessler ,  Michael J. de la Merced ,  Lauren Hirsch and Ephrat Livni

Microsoft unbundles, again

Microsoft is separating Teams , its popular video and chat app, from its Office software suite in markets around the world, broadening a split that began in the European Union last fall.

It appears to be the latest effort by the software giant to head off investigations by global antitrust enforcers as regulators examine the power of Big Tech.

Rivals have complained about the Teams-Office bundle for years. Microsoft first added the video and document collaboration program to its business software suite in 2017, and saw Teams’s popularity soar after the coronavirus pandemic unleashed a boom in hybrid and remote working.

At the height of the lockdown in 2020, Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior by bundling Teams with Office. (Three months later, Slack agreed to sell itself to Salesforce for $27.7 billion.) And last summer, Eric Yuan, the C.E.O. of Zoom, called on the F.T.C. to follow the E.U. in investigating the Teams-Office tie-up.

It’s unclear if Microsoft’s decision will help it avoid an E.U. fine, which could cost the company up to 10 percent of global revenue. The company told Reuters that the move “addresses feedback from the European Commission by providing multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardize their purchasing across geographies.”

It comes as tech behemoths are facing investigations by regulators worldwide. Last month, the Justice Department sued Apple over its tight control of the iOS operating system, while Google is awaiting a judge’s verdict in a U.S. lawsuit over its search monopoly.

And Microsoft has drawn scrutiny over its investments in A.I. start-ups like OpenAI and the French company Mistral.

The move is reminiscent of Microsoft’s unbundling of Windows in the 2000s, after a bruising antitrust battle with the Justice Department over the tech company’s efforts to shut rivals out of its platform.

But it’s unclear how consequential this breakup will be. Shares in Microsoft rose on Monday despite the news, as analysts questioned whether the move would mean much for the tech giant’s bottom line. Data from the research firm Sensor Tower showed that use of Teams stayed relatively stable even after the program was cleaved out of Office in the E.U.

That suggests rivals may not experience a surge in new customers. (Shares in Zoom fell nearly 1 percent on Monday.) “Teams is so embedded into workflows that I don’t think this has that same impact,” Rishi Jaluria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, told Reuters.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Donald Trump posts a $175 million bond to avert seizure of his assets. In securing the bond for his civil fraud case, the former president avoided paying a $454 million penalty while he appeals the judgment. Separately, shares in Trump Media & Technology Group plunged 21 percent on Monday, after the parent company of the Truth Social online platform disclosed just $4 million in revenue for last year.

Disney is said to be winning its proxy fight against the financier Nelson Peltz. The entertainment giant’s slate of board nominees has secured the backing of big shareholders , including BlackRock and T. Rowe Price, ahead of the company’s annual meeting on Wednesday. More than half of Disney’s voting shares have been accounted for, but a big question is how the company’s unusually high percentage of individual shareholders will vote.

A regulator is reportedly scrutinizing investments by Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street in U.S. banks. The F.D.I.C. is examining whether the big money managers are maintaining a sufficiently passive role in managing their stakes, according to The Wall Street Journal. Such firms are exempt from current rules that require regulatory approval to own more than 10 percent of a bank — if they don’t exert influence on management or boards.

A $4.1 billion bet on sports

One of the biggest players in the booming business of sports just got bigger: The private equity firm Arctos Partners has raised another $4.1 billion to do more deals.

The fund-raising shows investor appetite for sports deals is growing as competition ramps up between private equity firms and Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Arctos is one of the busiest sports deal makers. Since its founding in 2019, the firm has invested in Formula One, basketball, baseball and soccer clubs. They include the Utah Jazz and Fenway Sports Group.

Sports deals are booming on the back of the skyrocketing value for media rights . John Malone’s Liberty Media, which owns F1, said on Monday that it had bought MotoGP , the motorcycle racing championship, for €4.2 billion ($4.5 billion).

The deal follows a record year for sports M.& A. , with transaction values up 27 percent to roughly $25 billion in 2023, according to Bloomberg calculations. That included big investments by Arctos in the Qatar-owned French soccer club Paris Saint-Germain and the Aston Martin F1 team.

Sovereign investors are the big new players. Saudi Arabia is pouring billions into soccer and golf, and may be looking at tennis next. And Qatar last year bought a stake in the owner of Washington’s professional basketball and hockey teams.

Arctos sees itself as part of a new wave of long-term deal makers that treat teams like an asset class. As sports leagues have loosened their rules to allow for institutional investors, firms like Blue Owl and Dynasty Equity say they are committed to long-term investments that aren’t tied to economic volatility.

“We’re not a control buyer. And we’re not a leveraged buyout fund,” Ian Charles, an Arctos co-founder, told DealBook.

Arctos played down the rising competition. Charles told DealBook that sports leagues put heavy restrictions on allowing state-backed investment, if they allow them at all. He declined to say whether Arctos had raised money from sovereign wealth funds, though the company said in a statement that its latest fund-raising round included pension funds and “global wealth platforms.”

The latest report card for Bridgewater’s post-Dalio era

Ray Dalio gave up day-to-day management of Bridgewater Associates 18 months ago. Since then, Nir Bar Dea, his successor atop the giant hedge fund, has been under pressure to show that one of the world’s most successful investment firms can maintain its dominance.

Results from the first three months of 2024 suggest that Bridgewater is performing well. But can changes to how the firm is run keep it in the top tier of industry performers?

Its flagship Pure Alpha fund is up 15.9 percent year to date, according to a notice sent to investors on Monday that DealBook has reviewed. That’s up more than sevenfold over the Bloomberg Macro Hedge Fund Index , which tracks funds with a similar strategy.

Pure Alpha is now up 38.4 percent, net of fees, since the creation of Bridgewater’s investment committee in August 2020.

The hard part is maintaining that performance. For much of 2022 and 2023, Pure Alpha has performed well — only to tumble precipitously at the end of each of those years. Bridgewater as a whole lost $2.6 billion last year, one of just two top-tier firms to lose money, according to the research firm LCH Investments.

That continued a string of poor performance in the 2010s that tarnished Bridgewater’s reputation as a profit machine. (It also raised questions about Dalio’s famously idiosyncratic and brutally blunt management style, including baseball cards that featured ratings of each worker based on colleagues’ assessments of them.)

Bar Dea has sought to make Bridgewater more flexible in how it arrives at investment decisions, Bloomberg reports . That includes increasing the number of people who review those moves and pledges to embrace artificial intelligence.

Will that be enough to keep clients happy? Some unidentified investors told Bloomberg that they were considering cutting ties if the firm didn’t pick up its performance.

That said, Bar Dea is reportedly planning to shrink Pure Alpha and return more money to clients — a move that could make the fund more nimble.

“The Western world urgently needs a significant increase in productivity growth as the burden of rising government debt and entitlement spending strains almost every major economy.”

— Ken Griffin . The Citadel founder used his annual letter to investors to warn about his growing worries on debt and share his view that the economy will grow only modestly this year as the Fed tries to bring down inflation to its 2 percent target.

Is A.I. actually boosting productivity?

Investor enthusiasm around artificial intelligence has added trillions in market value to a select few tech companies. But its broader economic impact has been harder to measure.

Economists are divided on the A.I. productivity conundrum. On earnings calls , business leaders have been more eager to share with Wall Street how they plan to use the technology in their operations. But whether these tools will achieve widespread productivity gains for the economy is less clear.

“The enthusiasm about large language models and ChatGPT has gone a bit overboard,” the Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon told The Times . Others are more hopeful, including Erik Brynjolfsson at Stanford University, who has bet Gordon $400 that productivity will take off this decade.

While that wager catches the attention of some in academia, a parade of companies is putting the technology to use:

Walmart has built a generative A.I. chat bot for internal use that answers common H.R. questions including “Do I have dental insurance?”

Abercrombie & Fitch has turned to generative A.I. to brainstorm ideas for clothing designs and to write blurbs for its website and app.

Ben & Jerry’s put cameras that use A.I. into the freezers at grocery stores to alert the company and its distributors when a location was running low on a particular ice cream flavor.

Will such use cases impact workers? David Autor, a labor economist at M.I.T. whose work has focused on how technology can erode earning potential, argues it might not be all bad news. The technology could help people with less expertise to do more valuable work, lifting the middle class . Critics are unconvinced.

In other A.I. news: OpenAI introduced a new tool that mimics human voices with high accuracy, showing how the technology is quickly expanding beyond text, but it could also pose a new misinformation threat.

THE SPEED READ

Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, is no longer listed as the leader of the venture arm of the artificial intelligence start-up . (The Information)

Tiger Global Management, the embattled start-up investor, has reportedly collected $2.2 billion for its latest fund , nearly two-thirds below its goal. (Bloomberg)

Two board members of Warner Bros. Discovery stepped down amid a Justice Department inquiry into whether their presence violated antitrust law. (NYT)

The company that owns the ship that hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last week is invoking a 173-year-old “Titanic Law” to cap its legal liability to $43 million. (The Lever)

“Poor Nations Are Writing a New Handbook for Getting Rich ” (NYT)

Best of the rest

United Airlines is asking its pilots to take unpaid time off next month, citing late plane deliveries from Boeing. (CNBC)

The owner of Sports Illustrated sued an energy drinks mogul whose media company missed nearly $49 million in publishing-rights payments. (NYT)

“ How a Houthi-Bombed Ghost Ship Likely Cut Off Internet for Millions” (Wired)

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Andrew Ross Sorkin is a columnist and the founder and editor at large of DealBook. He is a co-anchor of CNBC’s "Squawk Box" and the author of “Too Big to Fail.” He is also a co-creator of the Showtime drama series "Billions." More about Andrew Ross Sorkin

Ravi Mattu is the managing editor of DealBook, based in London. He joined The New York Times in 2022 from the Financial Times, where he held a number of senior roles in Hong Kong and London. More about Ravi Mattu

Bernhard Warner is a senior editor for DealBook, a newsletter from The Times, covering business trends, the economy and the markets. More about Bernhard Warner

Sarah Kessler is an editor for the DealBook newsletter and writes features on business and how workplaces are changing. More about Sarah Kessler

Michael de la Merced joined The Times as a reporter in 2006, covering Wall Street and finance. Among his main coverage areas are mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies and the private equity industry. More about Michael J. de la Merced

Lauren Hirsch joined The Times from CNBC in 2020, covering deals and the biggest stories on Wall Street. More about Lauren Hirsch

Ephrat Livni reports from Washington on the intersection of business and policy for DealBook. Previously, she was a senior reporter at Quartz, covering law and politics, and has practiced law in the public and private sectors.   More about Ephrat Livni