In this article, we will look into this integration's features, prerequisites, and current limitations.
Features
The following features are included:
Integration with MS Graph:
A robust and secure integration using the Graph API to establish a connection between Spacewell Workplace and Microsoft Exchange.
Room-Centric Sync:
Implement a room-centric synchronization approach, where reservations are linked to specific meeting rooms in Exchange.
Ensure that reservation updates in either Spacewell Workplace or Exchange are accurately reflected in both systems, maintaining consistency.
People-Centric Sync is currently not supported
In the context of Exchange, room-centric sync and people-centric sync are two approaches for synchronizing reservations or appointments.
Room-Centric Sync: In a room-centric sync, the meeting is created from the meeting rooms calendar. The users are invited to the meeting as participants. For this approach there needs to be full access to the meeting rooms mailboxes.
People-Centric Sync: In a people-centric sync, the meeting is created from the users calendar and the meeting room is added as a recource and users are invited to the meeting as participants. For this approach there needs to be full access to the users mailboxes.
Single Room Reservations:
Allow users to create single reservations from one of the Spacewell Workplace touchpoints, which will be synced with Outlook.
Allow users to create single reservations from Outlook, 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.
Allow users to create recurring reservations in Outlook, 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.
Allow users to book multiple rooms for a single reservation from Outlook, 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.
Allow users to book multiple rooms for a recurring reservation from Outlook, 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 Exchange.
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 Microsoft Exchange, ensuring that changes made in one system are immediately reflected in the other.
*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 (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/webhooks?context=graph%2Fapi%2F1.0&view=graph-rest-1.0#latency. This means that it can sometimes take longer for reservations to be synced between Workplace Management and Outlook, due to reasons outside our control.
Outlook Add-in
The Outlook add-in for Office 365 is an add-in that works in combination with the Exchange Sync
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’
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. If a meeting room or workplace name or capacity is changed in Exchange, 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.
Upon activating Exchange Sync, Outlook meetings or workplace reservations where the start date and time are in the past will not be synchronized
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 to your meeting is not supported.
Services and equipment can’t be added from Workplace Management, not even after the reservation is made in Outlook. This is because of the room-centric approach, a reservation created in Outlook cannot be changed via Workplace Management in any way, due to the user not being the creator of the reservation from the Outlook point of view (the room is), and thus Outlook will not accept a change coming from the user (just like you cannot change some else’s reservation in outlook)
Reservations can only be changed/canceled in the system they are created in (e.g. either in Outlook or in Workplace). So a reservation created via Outlook, cannot be changed in any way in a Spacewell Workplace touchpoint. This limitation is due to the room-centric approach and support of the Graph API.
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 MS Exchange and therefore not supported by the Exchange Sync:
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, 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.
Brainrules in Workplace Experience (for example automatically cancel reservation, if no occupancy is detected after a specified period) only work for Outbound reservations. So if a reservation is created in any of the Spacewell touchpoints (Workplace Management, Go, Workplace App, Floor display and Room display), the brainrule can automatically cancel a reservation by the brainrule. If the meeting is created in Outlook and is synced to Workplace, the Brainrule can not cancel the meeting in the room-centric approach, where Workplace is not the source where the reservation is created.
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 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/retirement-of-exchange-web-services-in-exchange-online/ba-p/3924440.
For a detailed description of how to migrate from EWS to Graph, see: /wiki/spaces/KB/pages/383615037