Highlights
This release marks a significant advancement in our synchronisation capabilities and user safety protocols. Key highlights include the launch of the Long-Horizon Sync Capability, extending our Exchange booking window to nearly two years , and the Booking Save Guard, which ensures all Planner-specific data is secured within the Outlook workflow.
Additionally, we have enhanced our Sign In App (SIA) integration with better host data handling and staggered recurring notifications to improve the visitor experience.
This window also focuses on refined reporting and continued security hardening across the platform.
Long-Horizon Sync Capability
We have implemented iterative synchronisation to support extended booking windows while maintaining system performance.
Extended Sync Window: Planner now supports tracking and syncing Exchange meetings up to 719 days in the future and 1 day in the past.
Iterative Processing: The 720-day synchronisation is split into 90-day chunks, ensuring near-future updates are processed rapidly while distant events are updated incrementally.
Boundary Validation: Date pickers and calendars across all surfaces now enforce these boundaries to prevent unsupported "ghost" bookings.
Secondary Lookup Validation: To reduce false positives, the service now cross-checks room mailbox calendars to verify booking status before marking resources as accepted. This directly corrects the sub-optimal Exchange behaviour where rooms never accept a room booking resulting in 'none' booking status.
Sign In App (SIA) Integration Enhancements
We have refined the data flow between Planner and the Sign In App to improve the visitor and host experience.
Host Data Pass-Through: Pre-registration payloads now include host name and email (derived from the meeting contact person) to ensure SIA can notify the correct staff upon visitor arrival.
Per-Occurrence Registration: For recurring meetings, pre-registrations are now held and dispatched at a configurable lead time (default 24 hours) before each instance to avoid spamming visitors.
Meeting Metadata: Notes passed to SIA now automatically include the meeting room name, date, and time window.
Automated Cleanup: Deleting or cancelling a meeting in Planner now correctly removes associated pre-registered visitors from SIA.
Outlook Add-in (Manifest) Updates
The following changes require an update to the Outlook Add-in manifest file (4.0.0) to enable new functionality.
Booking Save Guard: A new safety mechanism requires users to click "Save Booking" within the Add-in before sending an Outlook invite, preventing the loss of catering or billing data.
Force-Save & Send: Clicking "Save Booking" now triggers a confirmation and can automatically force-send the Outlook invitation once saved.
Draft Room Retention: Resolved an issue where non-Exchange (Planner-only) rooms would disappear from Outlook drafts upon reopening the Add-in.
Corrected AppId: Updated support documentation to reflect the correct Add-in AppId for Application Access Policies.
Display Solution Enhancements
Updates specifically targeting the Planner Display solution.
Auto-Decline Prevention: Fixed an issue where booking a room directly from a Display panel incorrectly auto-declined the Exchange room resource.
JS Loading Reliability: Implemented a fix for "loading header" errors by updating the dependency order and minification of JavaScript core scripts on the panels.
Updated Support Links: All support and guide links within the Display service have been updated to point to the current documentation hub.
EWS Connectivity: Provided a resolution guide for "server refused connection" errors caused by recent Microsoft changes to EWS usage in Exchange Online.
Other Enhancements & Fixes
Performance & Synchronisation
Notification Deduplication: Implemented a "snapshot" layer that compares meeting details before triggering notifications, preventing email spam caused by minor metadata updates from Exchange.
Buffer Enforcement: Outlook bookings that conflict with a room's preparation or follow-up buffer in Planner are now automatically declined with a clear explanation.
Recursive Sync Correction: Fixed an issue where multi-location recurring meetings would lose assigned rooms during synchronisation.
Reporting & Data
Consolidated Multi-Room Reminders: Bookings with multiple rooms now receive a single consolidated reminder email listing all resources rather than individual emails per room.
Attendee Grouping: Confirmation emails now group participants into "External" and "Internal" categories, sorted alphabetically.
Pickup Location in Reports: The "Meeting Production" report now correctly displays the designated pick-up place for catering orders even when a specific meeting room is not the destination.
Timezone-Correct Reports: Fixed an issue where scheduled reports used UTC timestamps in the footer instead of the configured portal timezone.
Advanced History View: The Bookings history view now aggregates data from both Reservation and Booking levels to show a full meeting lifecycle.
User Experience
Input Smoothness: Optimised the meeting title input field to eliminate character rendering lag in the New Booking Experience.
Help Settings Expansion: Added a "Website/URL" field for Contact Persons in Help Settings to link directly to external regulatory pages.
Typo Corrections: Corrected multiple English translation typos across the application, including "occurred" and "possession".