Understanding Booking Policies: Guidelines for Efficient Space Bookings and Usage

This article outlines booking policies and their implications to ensure that space utilisation is optimised

Written By Natalia Povrozniak (Administrator)

Updated on October 20th, 2026

Applies to app version 2026.02 onwards

 

What are booking policies

Booking policies serve as essential frameworks that govern the process of bookings spaces for various purposes. Whether it's a conference room, a general meeting room, or a desk, these policies establish rules and guidelines to ensure smooth and fair utilisation of spaces.

A booking policy defines how a certain space type can be booked and limits booking time for floor or building. They define when spaces can be booked, which dates may be excluded, and the rules for starting and ending bookings in addition to how the booking behaves in the system once created by the end-user. You can use those settings to foster certain booking patterns or limit unwanted behaviour.

Policies are typically created by the owners or administrators of the different spaces types and play a crucial role in maintaining order, maximising efficiency, and accommodating various user requirements.

⚠️ Hierarchy of rules set in different booking policy types is cascading down from Building to Floor to Space.

Booking policies play a critical role in establishing rules and guidelines for reserving and using spaces efficiently. By defining availability, exclusion dates, booking durations, etc., these policies ensure fair access and optimal utilisation. Understanding and adhering to booking policies is crucial for both space administrators and users.

ℹ️ 

All pages and actions within IBSS apps are security controlled.

⚠️ While the product names and pages names have changed, we're still working to rename associated permissions.

ADMINPORTAL.Manage.BookingPolicies Shows the Booking Policies menu item in the Operations sidebar and the page.
DATAMODEL.BookingPolicies.Read Lets the user view existing booking policies. The sidebar and Home tile also need it, together with the ADMINPORTAL permission.
DATAMODEL.BookingPolicies.Create Allows creating and saving a new policy from the list page.
DATAMODEL.BookingPolicies.Update Opens the edit route and shows Save when you edit an existing policy. It also shows Save on the Assign to Spaces page, which applies a policy to spaces.
DATAMODEL.BookingPolicies.Delete Turns on the Delete button on the list page, once at least one policy is selected.
 

Booking policies and IBSS for M365 Sync Service

For organisations that use IBSS for M365 Sync Service and Outlook as the primary source for space bookings, there's no need to set any booking policies as they are ignored by the Sync Service.

Read more about booking policies here: