There is a tool within outlook that lets you make yourself available to the outside world - that is people who are not users at LIS (staff, faculty, students) and it is very simple to use.
Click Here to set up BookWithMe
Here you can create bookings pages - these behave a lot like the Office Hours links that the students can use to book in time with faculty, but they are just for you.
There are two types - a public page which anyone could use from a page, and a private link that you can send to someone who you have already engaged with.
Let’s say that i want to be available whenever i am free - i can be generally available, or i can add a description. I love to talk about the four cornerstones of Rock - what is all the fuss about Hot Space? What was the thinking behind the running order of Greatest Hits? Did Freddie Mercury REALLY call Sid Vicious “Mr Ferocious”?
I’m going to add a Private Page link for this:
This is broadly how the meeting will appear in my and the requesters calendar.
If you haven’t already set up the hours that you are available for meetings, click on “see regular meeting hours” and set it in your outlook. This will prevent clashes with anything else that you have in your diary, but also give you a chance to limit your availability rather than it just being any free time you appear to have.
In the middle of that page you will see this:
Under advanced you can also build in a few parameters - how far in advance the bookings can be made, the “slots” by default a nice neat thirty minutes) and whether you need a bit of space in-between events, which I would strongly recommend.
Once it is saved, you will go back to your (as in for you to manage, not for public use) booking page, and your event will be there ready to propagate:
Click on our friendly three dots at the top right and you will see that you can send a one use only link, a general link, and if you want turn a public event to a private one and vice versa
In order to share the link to your new bookings calendar, click the share button and you'll see this:
By default this is a re-useable link - you will be able to share your bookings page with the “share” button on the top right - think of this as published, available to anyone in the world. Select 'make link valid for only one booking' if that's what you need to do - but for most use cases leaving it re-usable is best.
If you don’t want to be free forever. you can go back to your hours, and create times that you are available, irrespective of what’s in your calendar. I for instance only feel I can talk in any real detail or with any sense of authority about Queen, when i am on reception, so:
When we use anything for the first time we worry that we might have missed out a step - that’s why the helpdesk is here, so let us know, or if you want to self diagnose maybe first send your meeting to a non LIS email account - perhaps your private address - and open the link in an incognito tab and see if you are happy with it.
If not, there is always helpdesk@lis.ac.uk