Highlights
This has been a substantial couple of months for Meetings, with the heaviest investment going into the reliability of Outlook synchronisation. We have closed several long-standing causes of bookings disappearance/cancellation without user interaction, and made calendar synchronisation recover on its own where it previously stalled in silence. Pre- and post-meeting buffer time can now be triggered by catering on Exchange-connected rooms, and the Blind Booking workflow introduced in the previous release gains the coordinator queue that completes it. Alongside that, the Outlook add-in has gained deterministic resource sorting and clearer handling of permissions and Microsoft consent, and administrators can now see exactly which users have been anonymised and when.
Bookings that stay where you put them
The single largest piece of work in this window was tracing and fixing the reasons a booking could vanish, or generate a cancellation email, without user interaction.
The root cause in most cases was Microsoft Graph occasionally returning a successful but incomplete response, leaving out an event that genuinely still existed. Synchronisation treated the gap as a deletion. We now re-verify each candidate deletion directly against Microsoft before acting on it, and we have extended that check to cover occurrences and exceptions within recurring series.
We have also closed three separate ways in which synchronisation could stop working quietly: a queued notification that could no longer be matched to its calendar after its subscription was recreated, a calendar that lost its subscription and was never retried, and a single duplicate event identifier that could stop a calendar syncing permanently. Room bookings are no longer refused as conflicts on the strength of a room that simply has not answered yet.
What this means for your organisation
Fewer phantom cancellations: a booking is now only removed once we have confirmed directly with Microsoft that the meeting is genuinely gone.
Recurring series are covered too: occurrences and exceptions are verified before deletion, which they never were previously.
Synchronisation heals itself: a calendar that loses its subscription, or meets an event it cannot process, is retried and recovered.
Buffer time only when it is needed
Pre- and post-meeting buffer time reserves preparation and clear-up time around a booking. Until now, on Exchange-connected rooms, it could only be applied to every booking of that room — whether or not anything actually needed preparing.
You can now set buffer time on an Exchange room to apply only when specific catering items are ordered. Mark the catering products that genuinely need preparation time, tick the setting on the room, and the buffer appears on the bookings that order them and nowhere else. It works from Planner, from the Outlook add-in and from meetings created directly in Outlook, and it recalculates when catering is added to or removed from an existing booking.
Anonymisation you can verify
Personal data retention is only useful if you can prove it happened. Two problems stood in the way: the scheduled anonymisation job could stop processing deleted users due to large datasets, and there was no way to see the outcome without reading the application log.
The job now works in bounded batches, so a large backlog no longer results in failure. In addition, a new User anonymisation page under Settings shows one row per day on which users were anonymised, with the site total above it; opening a day lists each user with their login, deletion date, anonymisation date and the retention period actually observed. That last figure is the one an auditor asks for.
Other Features & Enhancements
Booking & Synchronisation
Blind Booking: Coordinators can now see every placeholder booking awaiting a room on the Bookings page, filter the list to just those, and assign each one to a physical room; a placeholder booking cannot be saved until a room has been assigned. [BAM-529] [BAM-498]
Ongoing Meetings: Rooms, catering and equipment can now be added to a meeting that has already started. [BAM-534]
End Now: Ending a meeting early now releases its Exchange rooms immediately, so they can be rebooked straight away. [BAM-577]
Teams Links: The Join Meeting button now appears when a Planner-only owner books an Exchange room for an online meeting. [BAM-539]
False Conflicts: A room accepted by Exchange is no longer removed afterwards because of a conflict with the organiser's own roomless meeting. [BAM-532]
Recurring Prices: Converting a single meeting into a recurring series no longer resets resource unit prices to zero on the new occurrences. [PHO-246]
Recurring Reschedule: Changing a synchronised recurring occurrence between all-day and a specific time no longer returns a server error. [PHO-214]
Timezone Validation: All-day meetings spanning locations in different timezones are now blocked consistently in both booking experiences. [PHO-268]
Week Schema Override: Resource owners can once again change the time of a booking they created outside the room's weekly schedule. [PHO-331]
Required Categories: A per-resource setting now controls whether a booking must include something from all required categories or just one, and the prompt wording matches the setting. [BAM-594]
Unsaved Changes: Resolving an equipment conflict while toggling All day no longer saves the change before the booking is completed. [PHO-323]
Booking Validation: Entering a billing note no longer re-enables Complete booking while a required room is still missing. [PHO-278]
Scheduling Assistant: Bookings can be opened from the Scheduling Assistant by every role that is allowed to edit them, not only administrators. [PHO-271]
Default Tab: A new Meeting settings option controls which tab the booking flow opens on — Facilities, Attendees, Catering or Equipment. [PHO-286]
Owner Field: The Owner field is now disabled for users without the Secretary permission, matching the classic booking flow. [PHO-222]
Attendees: Adding an attendee no longer creates a second, unremovable guest row that prevents the booking from saving. [PHO-332]
Catering & Equipment
Week Schema: Catering can no longer be ordered from the Outlook add-in outside its configured working hours and weekly schedule. [BAM-574]
Closing Days: The Outlook add-in now enforces catering closing days the same way Planner does, and prompts to remove catering when a booking is moved onto one. [PHO-292]
Recurring Catering: Recurring meetings created through the Outlook add-in now carry their catering items onto every occurrence, not just the first. [PHO-258]
Equipment Reminders: A cancellation reminder can now be enabled on equipment resources, with its own wording, in the same way as meeting rooms. [PHO-199]
Equipment Deadlines: Equipment past its ordering deadline now shows the same warning as other resources in the New Booking Experience. [PHO-218]
Catering Filter: Services remain visible in the Outlook add-in when a catering category filter or search is applied. [PHO-191]
Pickup Place: Validation messages are cleared when the Pickup Place dialog is closed without saving and reopened. [PHO-192]
Service Charge: A clear message is now shown when a service charge name exceeds the permitted length. [PHO-193]
Display
Panel Rendering: Room panels using the Orion template no longer render a background-only or blank screen on affected hardware. [BAM-560]
Panel Start-up: Panels now render immediately instead of waiting up to thirty seconds for an external font to load. [BAM-555]
End Meeting: Ending a meeting early on a panel now updates the meeting status in Planner. [BAM-540]
Extend: Extending a booking from a panel now shows the end time that was actually saved, with no intermediate or reverted value. [PHO-283] [PHO-287]
Room Names: Renaming a room's display name is now reflected immediately on the screen selection and Room Booking Panels pages. [PHO-267]
Room Sync: Rooms and locations renamed or deleted in Planner are now updated in Display administration rather than left in place. [BAM-545]
Tag Search: Location tags whose names contain leading or trailing spaces can now be selected in the Search by tags filter. [BAM-586]
Tag Filtering: Selecting more than one tag now returns the combined list of matching rooms instead of no results. [PHO-172]
Private Meetings: Meetings marked as private in Outlook now display as "Private Meeting" on panels and meeting activity overviews, and the setting synchronises both ways for recurring series. [PHO-133]
Screen Requests: A panel configured with a non-numeric screen identifier now receives a handled not-found response instead of a server error. [MEET-1592]
Help Panel: The help icon in Display administration is now correctly aligned and collapses the note frame when clicked. [PHO-288]
My Settings: Changing an email address in Display administration now confirms the change and explains that a new sign-in is required, instead of reporting a false failure. [PHO-209]
Password Validation: Password fields in Display administration are no longer autofilled and now show inline validation as you type. [PHO-211]
Outlook Add-in
Resource Sorting: Rooms and equipment are now sorted deterministically — by availability, then capacity, then name — so the list no longer changes order between sessions. [BAM-592]
Resource Names: Long room and equipment names are now shown in full inline rather than truncated behind a tooltip. [PHO-174]
Sending Email: The add-in no longer blocks standard emails with a "working on your request" message. [PHO-176]
VIP Resources: Users holding the VIP permission can now select and book VIP resources. [PHO-252]
Consent Errors: A stale organisation record no longer causes a missing-consent error when opening an existing meeting, and the message shown is now specific rather than generic. [PHO-212] [SHI-616]
Room Rename: A Planner-only room now stays on the booking, under its new name, after being renamed in Planner. [PHO-213]
Email Notifications & Reporting
Booking Notifications: Booking emails now run on a dedicated queue, so they are no longer delayed behind long-running background jobs. [BAM-571]
Change Highlights: The consolidated Booking Updated email now highlights the fields that changed for edits made in the classic booking flow. [PHO-210]
Shared Tenants: Two sites sharing a single Outlook tenant now both receive synchronisation messages for a shared room. [BAM-573]
Report Language: Weekday and month names in report exports now follow the user's language rather than the regional setting. [PHO-197]
Test Email: The Send test email button now reports what actually happened, with an explanatory message when notifications are switched off or the account has no address. [PHO-277]
Administrative & API
Booking API: A new endpoint returns bookings filtered by creation date. [PHO-198]
API Date Handling: An omitted end date on the date-range endpoints is now treated as no upper bound, and the error messages match the real cause. [PHO-215]
API Versioning: A version 2 of the Planner API returns dates in ISO 8601 format; version 1 is unchanged. [PHO-216]
Single Sign-On: Sign-in now validates the assertion against every certificate published by the identity provider, restoring access for organisations that had rotated theirs. [BAM-590]
Consent Cancellation: Cancelling the Microsoft permission screen now returns you to the page you started from, with an explanatory message, instead of a server error, and no longer disconnects an already-connected import job. [PHO-274] [PHO-279] [PHO-327]
Licence Warnings: Facility, equipment and catering licence limits now raise their own warnings independently of the user licence. [PHO-185]
Licence Warnings: The licence limit warning is no longer repeated after every action in Classic View. [PHO-227]
Resource Categories: A category name can no longer be cleared and saved empty. [PHO-280]
Visitor Host: An alternative host set on a meeting now synchronises to Visitor and prints on guest cards. [PHO-345]
UI/UX & Reporting
Long Names: Long category and resource names are now truncated with an ellipsis across the booking flow instead of overflowing their containers. [PHO-196] [PHO-195]
Dropdowns: Long posting type and billing account names are truncated with the full text on hover. [PHO-294]
Required Fields: The New Location dialog now marks Name as required and no longer marks the pre-filled Timezone field. [PHO-219]
Validation State: The New Address dialog now clears its validation state when reopened. [PHO-217]
Profile Form: The profile form no longer shows validation errors on fields containing valid values. [PHO-170]
Empty States: The "No data" panel on the Bookings page now fills the full width when the table is scrolled horizontally. [PHO-226]
Closing Days: The "No data" label is now removed once closing days are listed, and the result count matches the rows shown. [BAM-604]
Session Table: The session table on the user import details page now scrolls horizontally instead of clipping its columns. [PHO-273]
Notifications: Long confirmation messages now wrap onto a second line instead of being cut off. [PHO-272]
Currency: Currency values in the Outlook add-in and the New Booking Experience now follow the site's regional settings. [PHO-291]
Loading State: The Exchange linking banner on the Calendar page now shows its loading indicator. [PHO-194]
Confirmation Text: The delete category confirmation no longer contains a duplicated question mark. [PHO-281]
Menu State: Editing a user import now keeps Import users highlighted in the settings menu. [BAM-634]
Navigation: Using the browser Back button after signing in, or after opening Visitor self-registration, now returns to a normal page. [PHO-322] [PHO-231]
Performance & Stability
User Import: Azure AD user import sessions now complete in seconds again rather than minutes/hours. [BAM-566]
Reschedule: Rescheduling a meeting whose Exchange link is still pending no longer leaves the request running indefinitely. [SHI-708]
Synchronisation Throughput: Calendar synchronisation now recovers cleanly from message backlogs, and a slow synchronisation releases its calendar lock rather than holding it until it is force-cleared. [PHO-260] [BAM-570]
Microsoft Graph: Subscription renewals and deletions now run within their own rate-limit allowance, and unexpected or incomplete Graph responses are handled without failing the whole synchronisation. [PHO-264] [PHO-240] [PHO-245]
Declines: Declining an event in a room that organises itself now removes the event instead of failing repeatedly. [PHO-243]
Deleted Users: Calendars belonging to users who have been deleted and anonymised are no longer synchronised. [PHO-289]