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Use Outlook free/busy status in conflict rules

Outlook lets people show an event as Free, Tentative, Busy, Away, or Working elsewhere. By default, every event GoMeddo syncs from Outlook blocks that person's time, including events shown as Free. This guide shows you how to bring the Show as status into GoMeddo and use it in a Conflict Rule, so events shown as Free in Outlook no longer block bookings.

Before you start: you need the Outlook integration set up and syncing, Conflict Rules enabled in GoMeddo settings, and permission to create custom fields and custom metadata records. See Conflict Rules for how to enable them.

How it works

You create a field on Reservation, then add a Sync Field Mapping that copies the event's Show as property into that field. A Conflict Rule can then ignore overlapping reservations whose field says the event is free.

Outlook stores the status in the event's showAs property:

Value

Shown in Outlook as

free

Free.

tentative

Tentative.

busy

Busy.

oof

Away (out of office).

workingElsewhere

Working elsewhere.

unknown

Unknown.

Create the free/busy field on Reservation

  1. Go to Setup > Object Manager.

  2. Open Reservation and click Fields & Relationships.

  3. Click New.

  4. Select Text as the data type.

  5. Enter Outlook Show As as the Field Label and set Length to 20.

  6. Check that the Field Name is Outlook_Show_As.

  7. Give access to the profiles that use GoMeddo.

  8. Click Save.

Use a Text field. Formula fields cannot be written by the sync, and other field types can fail when Outlook sends a value they don't accept. You can use a different field name, as long as you use the same API name in the rule later on.

Map the Outlook property to the field

  1. Go to Setup > Custom Metadata Types.

  2. Click Manage Records next to Sync Field Mapping.

  3. Click New.

  4. Enter a Label, for example Outlook Show As, and a Sync Field Mapping Name.

  5. Set Type to Outlook.

  6. Set sObject Type to Reservation.

  7. Set sObject Field to Outlook Show As.

  8. Enter showAs in API Field.

  9. Make sure Is Active and Is Editable are both enabled.

  10. Click Save.

From the next sync onwards, the field holds the Show as value of each synced event. Existing reservations get a value the next time their event changes in Outlook.

The mapping works in both directions. If someone edits Outlook Show As on a reservation in GoMeddo, that value is sent to the Outlook event. Only enter values from the table above, spelled exactly as shown.

Update the Staff already booked rule

You can't edit the formula of a default Conflict Rule, so you replace the default Staff already booked rule with a copy that ignores free events. We recommend changing only the Staff rule. A reservation can hold both a staff member and a room, and you usually want the room to stay booked even when the organizer shows the meeting as Free.

  1. Go to the Conflict Rule tab.

  2. Open the Staff already booked rule.

  3. Clone the rule.

  4. In the clone's formula, add the free/busy condition inside the FILTER, as in the examples below.

  5. Use the syntax checker to validate the formula.

  6. Mark the clone as active and save it.

  7. Open the original Staff already booked rule again.

  8. Mark it as inactive and save it.

The formula looks like this:

B25__Status__r.B25__AllowDoubleBooking__c != true AND COUNT(FILTER(overlappingReservations AS rsv, rsv.B25__Status__r.B25__AllowDoubleBooking__c != true AND rsv.Outlook_Show_As__c != "free")) > 0

Start from the formula your own rule already has, since it can differ between GoMeddo versions, and add only the AND rsv.Outlook_Show_As__c != "free" part inside the FILTER. An empty field counts as busy, so reservations synced before you added the mapping keep blocking time. Tentative, Away, and Unknown events also keep blocking time.

To let more statuses through, add a condition for each one. For example, to also ignore events shown as Working elsewhere:

rsv.Outlook_Show_As__c != "free" AND rsv.Outlook_Show_As__c != "workingElsewhere"

The new rule is now active, and events shown as Free in Outlook no longer block that staff member.

Verify the configuration

  1. In the connected Outlook calendar, create an event and set Show as to Free.

  2. Wait for the next sync run.

  3. Open the synced reservation in GoMeddo.

  4. Check that Outlook Show As shows free.

  5. Book the same staff member at the same time.

GoMeddo saves the booking without a double-booking conflict. If you repeat the test with an event shown as Busy, the booking is blocked.