Microsoft Bookings

Question

Unable to reduce "Maximum Attendees" to 1. I keep getting multiple customers on the same booking date and time.

Answer 1

Hi @Cain, Joshua,

Thank you for reaching out.

If you want only one customer per time slot in Microsoft Bookings, the most likely cause is that this service is currently set up as a group or multi-customer service, not a true 1:1 service. Since the Maximum number of attendees setting determines the service type, and once that service type is established, it generally cannot be changed back in the same service.

Because of that, the best approach is to create a new service in the Bookings web app and set Maximum number of attendees to 1 from the start. A value of 1 is the default for a standard 1:1 service. After that, save and publish the new service, then remove or unpublish the old multi-attendee service so customers can no longer book against it.

I would also recommend making this change in the Bookings web app, not in Teams or the mobile app. Editing a group booking service outside the web experience can cause unexpected attendee-setting behavior, and the web app is the recommended place to manage this properly.

Therefore, please try to recreate the service as a new 1:1 service with Maximum number of attendees set to 1, then retire the old one.

I hope this helps. Should you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out.

---

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.

Answer 2

In Microsoft Bookings, the number of customers who can book the same time slot is controlled by the Maximum attendees per event / Maximum number of attendees setting on the service. If this is set higher than 1, multiple customers can book the same date and time with the same staff.

Key points from the product behavior:

• By default, a service is 1:1 when Maximum number of attendees (or Maximum attendees per event) is set to 1.
• If this value is greater than 1, Bookings treats it as a group service (1:N or N:N), and the same appointment time remains available until that maximum is reached.
• Once the service is created, the service type (single vs multi-customer) cannot be changed; only the numeric capacity can be edited. If the UI is not allowing a change back to 1, the service may be locked as a multi-customer type and require creating a new 1:1 service instead.

To ensure only one customer per time slot:

1. Open the Bookings web app and go to Services.
2. Open the service that is allowing multiple customers on the same slot.
3. Locate the Maximum attendees per event or Maximum number of attendees field.
4. If possible, set it to 1 and save.
5. If the field or service type cannot be changed back to single-customer, create a new service:
   • Select Add a service.
   • Set Maximum number of attendees to 1.
   • Configure the rest of the details and save.
   • Publish/use this new service instead of the old one.

This will prevent multiple customers from booking the same date and time for that service going forward.

---

References:

• Creating personalized and group services in Microsoft Bookings
• Define your services in Shared Bookings
• Shared Bookings Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Manage group attendees in Bookings