In this article, we will look into this integration's features, prerequisites, and current limitations.

Features

The following features are included:

• Room-centric Sync:

  • Implement a room-centric synchronization approach, where reservations are linked to specific meeting rooms in Exchange/Google Workspace.

  • Ensure that reservation updates in either Spacewell Workplace or Outlook/Google Calendar are accurately reflected in both systems, maintaining consistency.

• User-centric Sync is currently not supported

• Single Room Reservations:

  • Allow users to create single reservations from one of the Spacewell Workplace touchpoints, which will be synced with Outlook/Google Calendar.

  • Allow users to create single reservations from Outlook/Google Calendar, which will be synced to all relevant Spacewell Workplace touchpoints.

  • Ensure that reservation details, including date, time, duration, and attendees, are accurately reflected in both systems.

• Recurring Reservations:

  • Allow users to create recurring reservations in Workplace Management, allowing users to book meeting rooms for a series of dates, which will be synced with Outlook/Google Calendar.

  • Allow users to create recurring reservations in Outlook/Google Calendar, ensuring that all occurences are synced to all relevant Spacewell Workplace touchpoints.

• Multi-Room Reservations:

  • Allow users to book multiple rooms for a single reservation from one of the Spacewell Workplace touchpoints, which will be synced to Outlook/Google Calendar.

  • Allow users to book multiple rooms for a single reservation from Outlook/Google Calendar, which will be synced to all relevant Spacewell Workplace touchpoints.

  • Allow users to book multiple rooms for a recurring reservation in Workplace Management, which will be synced to Outlook/Google Calendar.

  • Allow users to book multiple rooms for a recurring reservation from Outlook/Google Calendar, which will be synced to all relevant Spacewell Workplace touchpoints.

• Conflict Management:

  • Conflict detection to prevent double bookings or scheduling conflicts between Spacewell Workplace and Outlook/Google Calendar.

  • Logging information available for debugging purposes.

  • Failure notification emails can be enabled for system administrators.

• Real-Time Updates:

  • Real-time* updates between Spacewell Workplace and Outlook/Google Calendar, ensuring that changes made in one system are immediately reflected in the other.

Microsoft Exchange/Outlook

Graph API

A robust and secure integration using the Graph API to establish a connection between Spacewell Workplace and Microsoft Exchange.

Outlook Add-in

• The Outlook add-in for Office 365 is an add-in that works in combination with the calendar integration

• The add-in can be distributed by IT to the list of employees. Alternatively it can be downloaded manually from the official Office 365 Outlook add-in store.

  • Press the Spacewell icon in the Outlook event ribbon to open the add-in in a sidebar

  • Changing details in the Outlook event will update the available rooms shown in the add-in.

  • Available rooms can be consulted in a list view and or on a floorplan.

  • Once a room is selected, the room is added to the outlook ‘meeting location’

Open

Outlook add-in

SLAs on events

*Microsoft itself does not give SLAs for the time it takes between an event (e.g. a new or update reservation) to occur in Outlook and the Graph API delivering the change notification (Set up notifications for changes in resource data - Microsoft Graph. This means that it can sometimes take longer for reservations to be synced between Workplace Management and Outlook, due to reasons outside our control.

Migration from EWS to Graph

Some customers are currently using the EWS interface (Exchange Web Services) to sync reservations between Outlook and Axxerion. This is the ‘old’ way of interfacing these reservations, and this is announced end of life by Microsoft as of October 1, 2026 Retirement of Exchange Web Services in Exchange Online.

For a detailed description of how to migrate from EWS to Graph, see: https://spacewell.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/KB/pages/383615037

Prerequisites

• Authorization to the Rooms calendar (not the people’s calendar, they’re invited to the meeting as a participant).  

• Meeting rooms and workspaces must be in sync between both systems. There is no automatic update between rooms defined in Workplace Management and rooms defined in Exchange/Google Workspace. If a meeting room or workplace name or capacity is changed in Exchange/Google Workspace, the change is not automatically reflected in Spacewell Workplace. Room and workplace names and capacity need to be changed manually in Workplace Management.

• Rooms and workplaces need to be created in the other system with the exact same configuration (e.g. reserve the meeting room in advance until this needs to be aligned to prevent conflict cases).

• Each room and workplace in Exchange must be associated with at least 1 room list.

• Reservations in the past will not be taken into account, when the calendar integration is activated.

Limitations

• The organizer of the meeting must be a real Exchange Sync user, not an external email address. This is a limitation of the Microsoft Graph API possibilities.

• Adding services e.g. catering or equipment e.g. a flipchart via Outlook/Google Calendar to your meeting is not supported. Also adding servcies and equipment in Workplace Management, after the reservation is created in Outlook/Google Calendar is not supported.

• Reservations can only be changed/canceled in the system they are created in (e.g. either in Outlook/Google Calendar or in Workplace). So a reservation created via Outlook/Google Calendar, cannot be changed in any way in a Spacewell Workplace touchpoint. There are some exceptions to this which are described here: Room-centric calendar integration with Workplace

• If a meeting is forwarded to new users, they will not be added as participants in the reservation in Workplace Management. You need to add the new user as a participant in the meeting and send an update to all. This is a limitation of Microsoft Graph API possibilities.

• The following features from Workplace Management are not supported by Exchange/Google Workspace and therefore not supported by the calendar integration:

  • Composed meeting rooms

  • Specific authorization levels

  • Room compositions

  • Set up and clean up times before and after a meeting

  • Reserve a meeting room in advance from a pre-defined period

• If a customer already has existing future reservations in Outlook/Google Calendar, it is currently a manual task by the integration team. Estimated time for migrating is 15 - 50 meeting rooms per day over all customers. So this must be planned ahead with the integration team.