Executive User Cannot Approve/Decline Meetings for Himself in His Conference Room

Question

Our CEO has two administrative assistants who can currently delegate approval/declining his conference room. When he attempts to block out a meeting in the Executive Conference Room for himself, he's told that the meeting is tentative and awaiting approval, despite him being one of the three delegates for that room.

Is there any way to either auto-approve for him where he doesn't need to seek approval or been seen as tentative?

Answer 1

Hi @Keaston Smith

Good day, and thank you for sharing your question. 

You may refer to the AI’s suggestion, please ask your current administrator to add the CEO to the BookInPolicy list of the Executive Conference Room. Users added to BookInPolicy will no longer appear as tentative and will not require approval. All other users will continue to require delegate approval as before. 

 You could follow these steps:

Connect-ExchangeOnline 

Run: 

Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity "your Executive Conference Room" -BookInPolicy "CEO email account" -AllBookInPolicy $false -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept 

After the configuration is complete, you could ask the CEO to book the Executive Conference Room again to confirm that this addresses the concern. 

Please feel free to correct me if I misunderstood your request. If you have any additional concerns, feel free to comment below. I would be more than happy to assist. 

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Answer 2

Configure the room mailbox so that the CEO’s own bookings are automatically accepted instead of going to the delegates for approval.

In Exchange Online this is controlled by the room’s calendar processing settings and booking/delegate configuration:

1. Ensure the room is set to auto-accept in‑policy requests
   • In the Exchange admin center, go to Recipients > Resources.
   • Select the Executive Conference Room and choose Edit.
   • On the Booking Delegates tab, under Booking requests, choose either:
     • Accept or decline booking requests automatically, or
     • Use customized settings to accept or decline booking requests with the room configured to auto-accept in‑policy requests.
2. Make sure the CEO is allowed to book automatically
   • In Outlook on the web for the room mailbox, open Resource scheduling settings.
   • Under Scheduling permissions, configure one of the following so that the CEO is included:
     • These people can schedule automatically if the resource is available, or
     • These users can schedule automatically if the resource is available and can submit a request for owner approval if the resource is unavailable, and add the CEO explicitly if using “Specific people and groups”.
   • This ensures that when the room is free, the CEO’s requests are auto‑accepted and not left tentative.
3. If using delegates, adjust calendar processing so CEO’s requests are not treated as “request for approval”
   • With PowerShell, review the room’s calendar processing:

          Get-CalendarProcessing "Executive Conference Room" | fl *policy*,ResourceDelegates,ForwardRequestsToDelegates
     

   • Typical auto‑accept configuration (no approval needed) has:
     • AllBookInPolicy : True
     • AllRequestInPolicy : False
   • If the room is currently configured so that in‑policy requests still require delegate approval, change it, for example:

          Set-CalendarProcessing "Executive Conference Room" -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept -AllBookInPolicy $true -AllRequestInPolicy $false
     

   • If approval is required only for some users, keep AllBookInPolicy as $false and add the CEO to BookInPolicy so his requests are auto‑accepted while others still require delegate approval.

Once these settings are in place, when the CEO books the Executive Conference Room and it is available, the meeting should be automatically accepted (not tentative and not awaiting delegate approval).

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References:

• Create and manage room mailboxes in Exchange Server
• Resources in Exchange don't respond to meeting requests