Scenario
You want to add the Calendars element to a signature, and your users have individual booking links (URLs) rather than a team calendar. You would like to know what options are available to help you achieve this.
Resolution
NOTES:
Booking links don't always follow a friendly format which consistently allows for a dynamic URL, for example: https://bookinglink.com/{firstname}.{lastname}@domain.com
As an example, Microsoft Bookings links follow this format:
https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user<bookings ID>@<domain>.com?anonymous&ep=plink
Where<Bookings ID>is a unique ID assigned to a user by Microsoft Bookings.
This page refers to the static part of the link
Example: https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user
....and the dynamic part of the link
Example: <bookings ID>@<domain>.com?anonymous&ep=plink
To get the correct links for each user into your signatures, it can be necessary to store the dynamic part of the booking link in a field and then reference that field in the Calendar element in the signature.
Booking links don't always follow a friendly format which consistently allows for a dynamic URL, for example: https://bookinglink.com/{firstname}.{lastname}@domain.com
As an example, Microsoft Bookings links follow this format:
https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user<bookings ID>@<domain>.com?anonymous&ep=plink
Where<Bookings ID>is a unique ID assigned to a user by Microsoft Bookings.
This page refers to the static part of the link
Example: https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user
....and the dynamic part of the link
Example: <bookings ID>@<domain>.com?anonymous&ep=plink
To get the correct links for each user into your signatures, it can be necessary to store the dynamic part of the booking link in a field and then reference that field in the Calendar element in the signature.
You can use any one of these three possible options for configuring a unique per-user calendar booking link with the Calendars signature element:
Option 1: Use Custom Attributes to store the booking links
This option uses the basic functionality of Exclaimer Cloud, to which most subscriptions have access.
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Gather the dynamic part of the booking links for each user in your organization.
Then, you need to store the data in your Directory:
- For Microsoft 365, you can add a custom attribute.
For more information, see How to store a custom attribute for use with Exclaimer Cloud for Microsoft 365
- For Google Workspace, you can add a custom user attribute.
For more information, see How to add and store a custom attribute for use with Exclaimer Cloud for Google Workspace
- For Microsoft 365, you can add a custom attribute.
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Once the data is stored, start a manual data synchronization in Exclaimer Cloud to synchronize these details.
- Add the required Calendars element to the signature.
For more information, see Microsoft Bookings.
For more information, see Calendly Bookings.
- Add the static part of the link to the Booking page URL.
Example: - When you add the dynamic part of the Booking page URL, start typing the name of the field you have used to store your booking links and then select the appropriate field from the list.
In this example, a Microsoft Bookings element is added, and data for each user is stored in Custom Attribute 1.
Example:
The full URL is then populated: - Click OK, then click Save.
Option 2: Configure the User Details Editor to allow the users to populate their booking links in a custom attribute
NOTE: The User Details Editor feature is part of the Exclaimer Signature Marketing Cloud. Please contact the Exclaimer Sales team here (sales@exclaimer.com) to have this enabled for your subscription.
This method allows end-users to set their own dynamic part of the booking links, which may be a much less admin-intensive process overall.
In this example, custom attributes are used to store the data; however, you may wish to consider creating a custom attribute to give the field a more user-friendly name.
- Sign in to the User Details Editor as a Microsoft 365 Global Administrator.
- From the top-right of the screen, click Settings.
- Check the attribute that you want users to be able to set for the data.
- Click SAVE CHANGES.
Example:
- Users will now be able to start configuring the dynamic part of their booking links in the selected field when they log into the User Details Editor.
- Now, sign into the User Details Editor as an end-user.
- Paste the data into the designated field.
- Click Save.
Example:
- Add the required Calendars element to the signature.
For more information, see Microsoft Bookings.
For more information, see Calendly Bookings.
- Add the static part of the link to the Booking page URL.
Example: - When you add the dynamic part of the Booking page URL, start typing the name of the field you have used to store your booking links and then select the appropriate field from the list.
In this example, a Microsoft Bookings element is added, and the URLs for each user are stored in Custom Attribute 1.
Example:
The full URL is then populated: - Click OK, then click Save.
Option 3: Upload the booking links via CSV
NOTE: The User Details Upload feature is part of the Exclaimer Signature Marketing Cloud. Please contact the Exclaimer Sales team here (sales@exclaimer.com) to have this enabled for your subscription.
This method allows an Exclaimer Cloud admin to upload a CSV file containing the user's booking links.
For more information, please see User Details Upload.
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Gather the booking links for each user in your organization.
Once you have all the links, click EXPORT EXISTING to export a CSV file of your existing users and their current override data.
Example: - Edit the CSV file. The below examples display using Microsoft Excel.
- In the first free column, add a header. This will be the name of your field for storing the data.
NOTE: The headers must start with a letter followed by alphanumeric characters (only.and_special characters are allowed). Please take care when creating header names; any mismatches will be treated as new columns.
Example:
- Populate the data for each user as required.
Example:
- Save the CSV file.
- Click UPDATE EXISTING, then select the updated CSV file to import the data.
Example:
Once the booking links are imported:
- Add the required Calendars element to the signature
For more information, see Microsoft Bookings.
For more information, see Calendly Bookings.
- Add the static part of the link to the Booking page URL.
Example: - When you add the dynamic part of the Booking page URL, start typing the name of the field you have used to store your booking links and then select the appropriate field from the list.
In this example, a Microsoft Bookings element is added, and the URLs for each user are stored in a field called BookingLink.
Example:
The full URL will then populate: - Click OK, then click Save.
Additional note for all solutions
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You can set the visibility on the Calendars element to ensure that it only shows if the field containing the dynamic part of the booking link is populated.
For example, where the dynamic part of the booking link is stored in {CustomAttribute1}.
For more information, see how to use Conditional Visibility.