> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.anny.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Connect Outlook Calendar with anny
> Sync bookings and appointments between anny and your personal Outlook calendar in real time.
[Outlook](https://outlook.com) is Microsoft's email and calendar service. With the integration, you connect a resource in anny with a calendar of your personal Outlook account and keep both sides in sync automatically (two-way synchronization). You find an overview of all calendar integrations in the article on calendar integrations.
With Outlook you can in anny:
* Automatically create your resource's bookings as appointments in your Outlook calendar
* Import appointments from your Outlook calendar into anny as blockers or bookings, so busy times cannot be double-booked
* Optionally have a Teams meeting created for each synced appointment
The integration is especially useful when a resource is coupled to your personal calendar, for example for consultants, trainers or a personally managed room.
## Typical use cases
| Use case | Description |
| :------------------------------------ | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Consultation appointments at a glance | **All bookings appear automatically in your Outlook calendar.** You see your anny appointments where you already plan your day, without manual copying. |
| Avoid double bookings | **Private and external appointments block your resource in anny.** When you create an appointment in Outlook, that time is no longer bookable in anny. |
| Online consulting with Teams | **Every booking automatically gets a Teams meeting.** Customers and participants are invited to the appointment directly. |
## How the Outlook connection works
The connection is established through your Microsoft account: you sign in with Microsoft once and grant anny access. anny only requests read and write access to your calendars and your basic profile, no access to emails, contacts or files.
After the synchronization starts, anny first imports all future appointments and bookings. After that, changes are synced in real time: Microsoft actively notifies anny of changes in the calendar, and anny transfers booking changes to the calendar immediately.
| Data | Direction | Frequency |
| :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | :------------- | :---------------------- |
| Bookings and blockers of the resource (incl. changes, cancellations) | anny → Outlook | Real time |
| Appointments of the selected calendar (incl. series appointments, changes, deletions) | Outlook → anny | Real time |
| Teams meeting link (optional) | anny → Outlook | On appointment creation |
Synchronization runs from today up to around 13 months into the future; the period is automatically extended every month. Past appointments and bookings are not imported.
If your authorization expires, for example because you changed your password or revoked access, the integration deactivates itself. Admins are notified by email, and **Reauthorize** appears in the integration row.
## Connecting Outlook
### Requirements
Before you connect Outlook, make sure you have the following:
* A Microsoft account with an Outlook calendar (a personal account; for shared resource and room calendars of your organization, there is the Microsoft 365 Workspace integration)
* Editing rights for the resource in your anny account
* Optional: your own sub-calendar in Outlook, if you want to keep the anny appointments separate
### Setting up the connection
Open your resource settings, switch to the **Integrations** tab and, in the **Personal calendar integrations** section, click **Connect Outlook**.
Click **Authorize** and sign in with your Microsoft account. After a successful sign-in, the confirmation "Successfully authenticated" appears.
In the **Calendar** field, choose the calendar to sync with the resource. All calendar activity runs in this calendar. You can also create your own sub-calendar in Outlook and select it here.
Define how appointments and bookings are imported (see Settings & options), then click **Start sync**.
Once synchronization has started, anny imports all future appointments and bookings. After that, all changes are synced in real time.
Connect each resource with its own (sub-)calendar. If you connect the same calendar with several resources, duplicate entries can occur; the **Error diagnosis** points out such overlaps.
### Settings & options
| Setting | Description |
| :----------------------------------- | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Select active booking options | An appointment is only created for bookings of the selected booking options. Without a selection, **All booking options** applies. Blockers are always synced. |
| Title of bookings in anny | Determines the title of imported appointments in anny: **Title of the event** or **Anonymized**. Appointments marked as private or confidential are always anonymized and appear as "Not available". |
| Title of appointments in Outlook | Determines the appointment title in the calendar: **Title of the booking**, **Booking number**, **Name of the resource**, **Name of the service** or **Name of the resource and booking option**. |
| Add preparation and follow-up time | When the toggle is active, the appointment also includes the booking's preparation and follow-up time. For example, a 30-minute booking with 15 minutes of preparation time is synced as a 45-minute appointment. |
| Sync all events | When the toggle is active, appointments with the status "free" and "working elsewhere" are also imported into anny. Otherwise, such appointments are skipped. |
| Create appointments as blockers | When the toggle is active, imported appointments are created as blockers. Otherwise, real bookings with the selected default service are created. |
| Default service for bookings | The service that bookings created from appointments receive. The appointment organizer is taken over as the customer, appointment participants become booking participants. |
| Add Teams meeting to the appointment | The appointment created for a booking is additionally set up as a Teams online meeting; the customer and participants are invited. Via **For selected booking options** you can limit this to specific booking options. |
When you switch from **Create appointments as blockers** to bookings, anny offers the option **Convert existing blockers to bookings**: all future blockers previously created from appointments are then converted to bookings with the default service when you save and activate.
Via the three-dot menu of the integration you reach the **Error diagnosis**. It checks, among other things, the calendar's reachability, automatic replies, overlaps with other calendar connections and the real-time connection.
## Limitations
The Outlook integration does not support:
* **Past appointments:** synchronization runs only from today, up to around 13 months into the future.
* **Multiple resources per connection:** each integration connects exactly one resource with exactly one calendar. For further resources, you set up a separate connection each time. However, an integration on a parent resource also syncs the bookings of its child resources.
* **Shared resource and room mailboxes:** the Microsoft 365 Workspace integration exists for that.
* **Appointments with the status "free":** these are not imported by default (changeable via **Sync all events**).
* **Double connection of the same calendar:** a second Outlook connection of the same resource with the same account and calendar cannot be activated.
## Disconnecting
When you deactivate the integration, synchronization stops immediately; already synced appointments and blockers remain. When deleting, anny asks whether **All synchronizations (including past ones)** or **Only future synchronizations** should be removed: blockers and bookings created from appointments are deleted, and appointments created from bookings are removed from your Outlook calendar. Appointments originally created in Outlook and bookings originally created in anny remain.
You can do both under **Integrations**: deactivate via the **toggle** in the top right, delete via the **three dots** → **Delete**.
## FAQ
Appointments marked as private or confidential are always imported anonymized and appear in anny as "Not available". In addition, via **Title of bookings in anny** you can anonymize all imported appointments.
As blockers by default: the time is then not bookable in anny. If you disable **Create appointments as blockers** and choose a **Default service for bookings**, real bookings are created instead, including the customer (appointment organizer) and participants.
In real time. Microsoft actively notifies anny of calendar changes, and anny transfers booking changes immediately. After the first connection, importing all future appointments can take a few minutes.
Yes. Series appointments from Outlook are imported as individual blockers or bookings. Changes to individual appointments of a series or deletion from a certain date onward are also carried over.
If the appointment came from an anny booking, the booking is canceled and the customer notified. If the appointment created a blocker, the blocker is removed.
## Troubleshooting
Your authorization has expired, e.g. after a password change or because access was revoked. Click **Reauthorize**, sign in with your Microsoft account and then reactivate the integration via the **toggle**.
Most common cause: the appointment is set to "free" or "working elsewhere" in Outlook and is therefore skipped. Activate **Sync all events** if these appointments should also be imported. Also check whether the appointment is in the connected calendar, starts in the future and whether the integration is active. The **Error diagnosis** in the three-dot menu shows further possible causes.
The same calendar or the same resource is probably connected more than once, e.g. via a second Outlook connection, a Microsoft 365 rule or an ICS import. Run the **Error diagnosis**; it shows such overlaps. Then remove the extra connection.
anny could not establish the real-time connection to Microsoft or the authorization failed; the affected admins were notified by email. For temporary disruptions, anny retries automatically several times. Check the authorization and reactivate the integration via the **toggle**.
> Important information for agents:
>
> **Distinction:** "Outlook" is the personal calendar integration (one Microsoft account of a single person, set up per resource). It is NOT: the Microsoft 365 Workspace integration (central connection of the organization tenant with rules for resource/person calendars, article m365-workspace), the Outlook Add-In (booking from within Outlook, article outlook-add-in) and not the MS Teams video meeting integration (article ms-teams). Overview: article kalenderintegrationen.
>
> **UI paths:** Setup NOT via the central integrations page, but: Resource → **Integrations** tab → "Personal calendar integrations" section → "Connect Outlook" button. Setup steps: "1. Authorize your integration" ("Authorize" button), "2. Choose a calendar" ("Calendar" field, first sub-calendar preselected), "3. Adjust the settings", final button "Start sync". Settings labels verbatim: "Select active booking options", "Title of bookings in anny" (options "Title of the event", "Anonymized"), "Title of appointments in Outlook" (options "Title of the booking", "Booking number", "Name of the resource", "Name of the service", "Name of the resource and booking option"), "Add preparation and follow-up time", "Sync all events", "Create appointments as blockers", "Default service for bookings", "Add Teams meeting to the appointment" (+ "For selected booking options"), checkbox "Convert existing blockers to bookings". Actions in the three-dot menu: Activate/Deactivate, Delete (query "All synchronizations (including past ones)" / "Only future synchronizations"), Test connection, "Error diagnosis" (modal "Rule diagnosis").
>
> **Quirks:** (1) Sync window: today to 365+30 days, monthly automatic extension; the past is never imported. (2) Requested (not yet confirmed) bookings and blockers are also synced as appointments; declined/canceled bookings lead to appointment deletion. (3) Appointment participants are only invited when "Add Teams meeting to the appointment" is active; otherwise the appointment is created without invitees (no invitation emails from Outlook). (4) Appointments from anny receive the Outlook category "anny \[resource name]" and the booking's information note as the description. (5) In booking mode, the appointment organizer is automatically created as a customer (if the email is unknown) and a completed order without a price is generated; if the organizer is the calendar owner themselves, no customer is set. (6) Appointments with display status "free"/"working elsewhere" are skipped without "Sync all events"; if an existing appointment switches to "free", the associated blocker/booking is removed. (7) If a booking changes its resource, the appointment is deleted in the old calendar and created in the new one. (8) Duplicate lock only per resource (same account + same calendar); the same calendar on several resources is possible but only reported as a duplicate risk by the error diagnosis. (9) Webhook setup is retried after 30 min / 2.5 h / 5 h during Microsoft disruptions, then error + self-deactivation + email. (10) When deleting the booking in anny, the customer notification is suppressed if the booking came from an appointment. (11) Synced bookings link to the appointment at outlook.office365.com.
>
> **Relationships:** Feature gating via the plan feature calendar synchronization (same feature as Google Calendar, Microsoft 365 Workspace, Google Workspace); without the feature, the area is locked. Additional requirement: editing rights for the resource. Teams meetings are created through the same Microsoft account (no separate Teams article reference). In parallel to the Outlook integration, the same resource can also be connected with Google Calendar; the error diagnosis reports conflicts with ICS import/export.