Shared Booking System Buffer times appearing as a part of calendar event

Question

Hi there,

I recently made a shared booking system. I've included a buffer time of 15 minutes before and after appointments so staff members have time to prepare. The first few weeks of using this, the buffer was invisible, and the calendar event would appear in staff members calendars as 1 hour, the time the client booked. However, for some reason this week its suddenly changed and now including the buffer time in the calendar event for staff members, so making it look like the appointment is 1.5hrs long, starting 15 minutes before the selected time and 15 minutes after. I think in clients calendars it still appears as just the 1 hour. I don't understand why this changed and how to fix it. I need buffer times because we can't have back to back appointments. Also I have looked through other people asking similar questions and it is so confusing because some people have answered that buffers are meant to extend the event, while others have said they aren't (see below). This is really confusing.

---

Moved from Microsoft 365 and Office | Other

Answer 1

Dear @Annabelle Sherlock,

Good day. Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum!

First of all, I would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you would like to allow people to schedule meetings while ensuring that no one can book another meeting within 15 minutes after the previous one ends, you can configure the available times in Microsoft Bookings accordingly.

In my test environment, I configured the available times as shown below. With this setup, there is a 15‑minute break between two meetings, and users are only able to book meetings with a 45-minute gap between appointments.

Note: Please note that our initial response does not always resolve the issue immediately. However, with your help and more detailed information, we can work together to find a solution. 

I hope this helps. Your understanding and co-operation are highly appreciated. Thank you for your precious time. I am looking forward to your response!

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".   

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.