How to let visitors book on Outlook from an inquiry form

You can let a visitor book a call on your Outlook calendar without leaving your inquiry form. The visitor answers a few questions, and if their answers fit your work, the form offers real times from your hours. This page shows the setup from start to finish. It is for any business that runs on Outlook.com or Microsoft 365 and takes calls or visits from its website.

Who is this for, and what does it do?#

It suits a business that wants to meet its good leads without trading emails to find a time.

1. A visitor talks to the AI in your form. Code scores the lead from their answers.
2. A rule you wrote decides what the score earns. A good score earns an offer of a meeting time.
3. The form shows times from your hours, minus anything already on your calendar.
4. The visitor picks one. The meeting is added to your Outlook calendar, and both of you get an email.

A lead that scores lower gets a different ending, such as a promise to reply by email, and never sees your open times. For why that order works, see how to put a qualifying form before your booking calendar.

What do you need before you start?#

You need three things:

1. A Qualiform form with its questions and scoring in place.
2. A Microsoft account with a calendar for each person who takes meetings. Qualiform works with Microsoft 365 work or school accounts and with personal Outlook.com accounts.
3. A plan with room for the people. One calendar person is included on every plan, Free among them. On a paid plan, each person after the first who connects a calendar is $10 a month. A person is counted once, however many calendars they connect. On Free, a second person cannot connect a calendar.

How does each person connect Outlook?#

Each person connects their own calendar, because they have to sign in to Microsoft themselves.

1. Add the person to the form. On the form's People tab, invite them with the Takes meetings tick, or give a person already there a calendar seat from their menu. Everyone on a form is also emailed about its leads.
2. They press Connect. On the People tab, the person's own row has a Connect button. Someone invited as a Guest finds the same button on their /calendar page. A short dialog asks which calendar they keep their meetings in. They press Connect Outlook.
3. They sign in and approve at Microsoft. Microsoft lets them choose which account to use. Qualiform asks for two permissions: one to stay connected, and one to read and write the person's calendars. Microsoft's permissions reference calls the second "Have full access to user calendars."
4. They land back in Qualiform. Their row now shows the calendar as connected. Qualiform also creates a calendar named Qualiform in their Microsoft account. If one is already there from an earlier connection, it uses that one.

If you want a colleague to do this, open their menu on the People tab and press Ask them to connect a calendar. A person who takes meetings and has no calendar yet shows Calendar not connected yet, and booking waits for it.

A row that says Needs reconnecting means Microsoft stopped accepting the connection. While it lasts, no times are offered on the forms that person is on. Press Reconnect and it clears.

Why does Qualiform ask for such a broad permission?#

Microsoft has no narrower permission that lets an app add a meeting to your calendar, so this one could, in principle, read your events. Qualiform does not use it that way. To find your busy times, it asks Microsoft for each event's start, end, and busy status, and nothing else. Microsoft never sends a subject, a guest, a location, or a body.

How do you choose which calendars count?#

Many people have more than one calendar in Outlook. You choose which of them block your times.

1. On the People tab, open the menu on the person's row and press Calendars. (On /calendar, the button is Choose calendars.)
2. Under Check for busy times, tick every calendar that holds a commitment you would not break. The dialog says a time is offered only when you're free on every calendar ticked.
3. Under Add booked meetings to, pick Your Qualiform calendar, another calendar of your own that you can edit, or Nowhere (email invite only).
4. Press Save.

Some details are good to know:

• If you tick nothing, Qualiform checks your main calendar only.
• A second calendar only takes times away. It never adds any.
• Every event counts as busy except those marked Free or Working elsewhere. A tentative event blocks its time. A canceled one does not.
• An all-day event that counts as busy blocks the whole business day, in the time zone of your hours.

How do you set hours and meeting details on the Booking tab?#

The form's Booking tab answers two questions: when you are free, and what a meeting is. A new form starts on From your hours, the option that uses your calendar. The other, Your scheduling link, hands the visitor a link to a scheduler you already run, and Qualiform then checks no calendar.

On From your hours, you set:

• Bookable hours. The weekdays, hours, and time zone you take meetings. A new form starts with Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.
• Meeting length. 15, 20, 30, 45, or 60 minutes.
• How you meet. Tick the video option, Phone call, or both. A video call gets a Teams link, but only where Microsoft says the host's calendar can make one (see the next section).
• Name visitors see. Your business name, shown on the booking page, the invite, and the email.
• Earliest start. How soon a meeting can begin. A new form starts at one hour.
• More limits. A gap between meetings, how far ahead times are offered, and the most meetings a day or a week.

Press Save on the Booking tab at least once. No time is offered to anyone until you do. Also check Who else hears on the Routing tab. A booking nobody would hear about offers no times.

When does a booking get a Teams link?#

Qualiform asks Microsoft whether each host's calendar can make Teams meetings, and makes a Teams link only where Microsoft says yes.

• A work or school account with Teams can. Teams has to be switched on for that account.
• A personal Outlook.com account cannot, so a host on one means phone calls.

Video is offered only when every person who can be booked on the form has a calendar that makes a link. If hosts on Outlook and on Google share a meeting, they share one video call, and each event carries the same link.

How do you make a rule offer a time?#

Booking settings alone reach nobody. A visitor sees a time only when a rule on the Routing tab offers one.

1. Open the Routing tab. Each rule has a cut-off score and an ending.
2. On the rule for your best leads, choose the ending Book the soonest time. The visitor sees up to three of the soonest times, plus a way to pick a later one.
3. On a rule below it, you can choose Book any time. The visitor then sees all your open days.
4. Under Routed to, choose who the meeting is with. Everyone offers a time only when all of them are free, and the meeting goes on all of their calendars. Taking turns and The primary offer a time when any one of them is free, and the meeting goes on that person's calendar.

A lead lands on the first rule its score reaches, reading down. Lead routing rules for a small service business covers the cut-offs.

What does the visitor see?#

When a lead's rule offers a time, a booking card appears under the conversation.

1. The soonest times. Up to three appear first, under Soonest times. Pick a later time opens a day-and-time picker, with the visitor's time zone shown.
2. Their details. Name, email, and phone are filled in from the conversation. A phone call needs a number, and the card says "We'll call you at" it.
3. Confirm booking. Then the card says "You're booked."
4. An email. It confirms the meeting and carries a calendar file that opens in any calendar. For a video call, it has the Teams link. It also has a link to reschedule or cancel, and from that page the visitor can pick a new time or cancel.

While a visitor decides, the soonest time is held for them for 15 minutes after each message, so it is not offered to someone else meanwhile.

What lands on your Outlook calendar?#

For each person who attends, Qualiform adds one event to that person's Qualiform calendar. It is listed with your other calendars in Outlook.

• The title reads like "15-minute phone call with" and the visitor's name.
• The notes hold the visitor's email, their phone number if it is a phone call, and a link that opens the lead in Qualiform.
• A Teams link, when the visitor chose video and your calendar can make one.
• It shows you as busy.
• Nobody is invited. The visitor is not an attendee, and no response is asked for. Microsoft sends no email about the event, so the only messages are Qualiform's own.

When a meeting is canceled or moved, Qualiform deletes the event. A move adds a new one at the new time. When every attending host got an event, the host's email leaves out its calendar file, so the meeting is not on your calendar twice.

What does Qualiform never store or read?#

The privacy policy makes these promises, and the code is built to keep them:

• It asks Microsoft at the moment a visitor is choosing a time, and reads start and end times and whether you are busy. It never asks for a subject, a guest, or a location.
• Nothing about your calendar is stored. The answer is used to hide times you are not free, and then discarded. Your calendars' names are shown while you choose, and not stored.
• It does not store which Microsoft account the calendar belongs to.
• It stores the connection itself: encrypted tokens, which calendars you ticked, where bookings go, whether your account can make Teams meetings, and the ids of the events it added, so it can delete them.

To stop it all at any time, press Disconnect on the person's row. You can also remove Qualiform's permissions in your Microsoft account. For a work or school account, use the My Apps portal at myapplications.microsoft.com and choose Revoke Permissions. Events already on your calendar stay where they are.

How do you test it before it goes live?#

1. Preview. Press Save in the form header, then press Preview. Under the form, Endings has a button for each rule that is switched on. Press the one that books. The card is built from your real hours, so you can check the times, the picker, and the wording. It is only a picture. No time is held, no booking is made, and nothing is written to your calendar.

2. A real booking. Open the form's direct link and fill it in as a good lead. Pick a time and confirm. This is a real lead, so it shows in your Leads list and sends the usual emails. Then check four things:

1. The event is on your Qualiform calendar in Outlook, at the right time, with the right notes.
2. The visitor email arrived, and its calendar file opens. For a video call, the Teams link is in it.
3. The time you picked is no longer offered.
4. Cancel from the link in the email, and the event disappears.

If the card offered no times, check the People tab. It says when a calendar cannot be read.

What are the honest limits?#

• The permission is broad. Qualiform never asks for what is in an event, but Microsoft offers no narrower choice.
• An organization can say no. If your administrator limits which apps staff can approve, they have to approve Qualiform first.
• Microsoft may mark Qualiform unverified. Until Microsoft finishes verifying Qualiform as a publisher, its sign-in screen calls the app unverified. The connection works the same.
• Only people who are connected are checked. If nobody on a form has connected a calendar, Qualiform checks your hours and the meetings already booked, and nothing else, so keep those hours to times you are really free. If one person has connected and a colleague has not, the colleague is not offered at all.
• A calendar that cannot be read offers no times. Qualiform will not guess. The fix is on the People tab.
• Times show as UTC in Outlook's editor. Qualiform writes each event in UTC, so Outlook may label it that way when you open it. The time itself is right.
• Days off are blocked on your calendar. There is no separate list of dates in Qualiform. To close a day, block it in a calendar you ticked. To shorten a day every week, change that weekday's hours.
• Disconnecting does not clean up. Events already on your calendar stay. A meeting canceled after you disconnect can no longer remove its event, so delete that one yourself.