Microsoft Bookings admin controls

Microsoft Bookings has no admin console of its own. Its controls are split across three places: Settings → Org settings → Bookings in the Microsoft 365 admin center (the tenant switch and the granular controls for Shared Bookings), each user's licence apps, and Exchange Online PowerShell (OWA mailbox policies and the mailbox cmdlets that manage booking pages). This chapter maps every control to what it does, where it lives and what it doesn't do, as of October 2026. The commands themselves are in PowerShell for Bookings admins.

I want to…#

The tenant switch#

Allow your organization to use Bookings is the only on/off for the whole tenant. The turn-on article names the entry "Shared Bookings" in Org settings, and Microsoft warns that switching it off "will disable all access to the service including creation and management of Bookings pages". Three things it doesn't do:

• It doesn't remove pages. Booking mailboxes stay in Exchange and keep their data. Delete them separately if you want them gone.
• It doesn't switch off Bookings with me. The Personal Bookings article says Bookings "doesn't have to be turned on for the organization using tenant settings for users to access Personal Bookings". Only the Bookings app on the user's licence matters.
• It doesn't apply in Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet. Microsoft says these admin controls aren't available there.

The Set-OrganizationConfig reference lists $false as the default for BookingsEnabled, which doesn't match tenants where Bookings is already on. Read your own value with Get-OrganizationConfig rather than assuming. The Learn steps use a global admin; use the least-privileged role that works.

Per-user access#

There are two separate per-user levers, and they do different things:

• The licence app. Clearing Microsoft Bookings in a user's Licenses and apps removes their own access. The FAQ also mentions restricting licences with "a group policy". They can still be added to pages as staff by email address, and the FAQ says staff in the Administrator or Viewer role can open those pages.
• An OWA mailbox policy. BookingsMailboxCreationEnabled:$false stops people creating new shared pages but leaves the app working. The Learn steps assume you have no other OWA mailbox policies, so set it on every policy you have, or users on a second policy keep the ability. OWA policy changes can take up to 60 minutes, according to the cmdlet reference.

The person who creates a shared page needs a plan that includes Bookings; staff and customers don't. See Bookings licence requirements. If a licensed user still can't open Bookings, Mailbox not found has the checks in order.

Turning off Bookings with me#

Microsoft now calls Bookings with me "Personal Bookings" in its admin docs. The only control is PersonalBookingsDisabled on an OWA mailbox policy: set it to $true on the default policy to turn personal pages off for everyone, or on a separate policy assigned with Set-CASMailbox to turn them off for some people. The reverse also works: off on the default policy, then a second policy with it $false for the people who should keep it.

The same Learn article contradicts itself. Its note says admins can't control Personal Bookings through EWS organization or CAS mailbox settings any more, yet it still tells admins to read EwsEnabled, EwsApplicationAccessPolicy, EwsBlockList and EwsAllowList to find out whether it's enabled. Read PersonalBookingsDisabled instead, since that's the setting that now decides it. The cmdlet reference has no description for this parameter as of October 2026. For what users see when it's off, see Bookings with me not available; the full set of switches is in turning Bookings off for users.

The granular controls for Shared Bookings#

These sit under Settings → Org settings → Bookings, apply to every shared page in the tenant (new and existing), and can't be overridden by page owners. Microsoft says changes "may take up to four hours to apply".

What isn't on the list matters as much: there's no tenant-wide switch for the email verification code, no CAPTCHA or rate limit (spam bookings), no way to restrict Bookings with me to internal bookers, and no documented way to hide booking mailboxes from the global address list. The admin checklist walks through setting all of these in order on a new or sprawling tenant.

Domain, naming and URLs#

A shared page's address comes from its booking mailbox, so the domain is decided when the page is created. BookingsMailboxDomain on an OWA mailbox policy sets the domain for new pages, either for everyone (the default policy) or for the users on a custom policy; Microsoft says pages that already exist aren't affected. Custom domain support, and what changing an existing page's address breaks, is covered in customizing and publishing the booking page.

Access, deletion and migration#

• Opening any page. Tenant admins can list every booking mailbox but can't open one in Bookings unless they're Administrator or Viewer staff on it, or hold Full Access. Microsoft calls Full Access plus Send As making someone a "super user", and it only works if they aren't already a Viewer on that page. Steps: admin access to every calendar.
• Deleting a page. Only admins can, by deleting the page's user in the admin center or with Remove-Mailbox; pages created in 2017 or earlier need PowerShell. Microsoft documents this inconsistently: the delete article says everything is "permanently deleted and can't be recovered", while the Remove-Mailbox reference says the mailbox is retained until the deleted-mailbox retention period ends (Exchange Online calls these soft-deleted mailboxes). Microsoft doesn't document restoring a booking page from a soft-deleted mailbox, so export before you delete. See deleting a page.
• Moving to another tenant. As of October 2026 there's no supported migration; you rebuild and the URL changes. See cross-tenant migration.

Data location#

Bookings data lives in Exchange Online in your tenant, one mailbox per shared page, and follows your tenant's existing data location. Microsoft publishes no Bookings-specific residency setting. Where copies end up and how to handle GDPR requests is in where Bookings stores data.

BookingsXP is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft.