Setup
General
Exchange Online (Microsoft 365)

Fishbowl integrates with your Microsoft 365 Room and Equipment Mailboxes.

You will need to perform the following steps with a Microsoft 365 Administrator account

  1. Create a Room Mailbox
  2. Set a password for the room mailbox
  3. Allow meeting subject display
  4. Hide private meetings
  5. Configure Fishbowl with Microsoft 365

Note: When a meeting is created in Microsoft Exchange, it exists in the Room calendar separately from the Organizer's calendar. Fishbowl can only access the Room calendar, and not the calendars of Organizers. While this is good from a privacy perspective, it unfortunately means that if Fishbowl ends or extends a meeting, this is not propagated to the Organizer or Attendees' calendars. Usually this is not a problem though, because only ongoing meetings can be extended or ended early. Attendees would be attending the ongoing meeting and would be aware of any changes that are made on your Fishbowl tablet.

1. Create a Room Mailbox

In most cases you will already have a room mailbox, and you can proceed without the following steps.

  1. Log into the Microsoft 365 admin center with an Administrator account.
  2. Select Resources > Rooms & equipment from the menu on the left. You might have to click on "Show all" first.
  3. Click the + Add resource button to add a new meeting room.
  4. Enter your room details (Name and Email are required fields), and be sure to make a note of the email address of the mailbox.
  5. Click Save

2. Set a password for the room mailbox

When setting up Fishbowl, you'll need to provide user credentials of a user with Editor permissions.

The easiest is to simply set a password for the room mailbox that you created in Step 1. This will not affect your existing bookings. By default, the room mailbox password is set to a random password, so the below steps will not affect your calendars and it is safe to set.

  1. Log into the Microsoft 365 admin center with an Administrator account.
  2. Select Users > Active users from the menu on the left.
  3. Click on the room mailbox that you created in Step 1.
  4. Click on the Reset a Password button (the "key" icon)
  5. Make sure that all checkboxes are unticked / not selected, then enter a password.
  6. Click on Reset password

3. Allow meeting subject display

Microsoft 365 by default does not allow access to the meeting subject (title), and the organizer's name is shown instead. If you'd like to display the meeting subject please follow the instructions below.

You need to connect to Exchange Online through PowerShell or the Azure Cloud Shell. If you already have PowerShell configured with the MSOnline module, then you can just execute the command in step 6.

Important: This setting is unfortunately not retrospective, so existing meetings will still have their subject hidden. Only new meetings will be affected.

  1. Log into the Microsoft 365 admin center with an Administrator account.
  2. Click on the Cloud Shell icon in the top right.
  3. If this is the first time that you use Cloud Shell, you might have to connect an Azure Subscription and Azure storage. This might incur Microsoft subscription charges.
  4. If this is the first time that you are connecting to Exchange Online through Cloud Shell, first install the Connect-ExchangeOnline Module:
    5. Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement

    Note: Even though this is an official Microsoft module installed from the PowerShell Gallery, it may still give you an Untrusted Repository warning.

  5. Now connect to Exchange Online by typing the following:
    6. Connect-ExchangeOnline
  6. Finally, enter the following for every room mailbox: 
    Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity [email protected] -DeleteSubject $False -AddOrganizerToSubject $False

    Note: [email protected] is the mailbox that was configured for each meeting room in Step 1.

    For additional information, refer to the relevant Microsoft support page
  7. Close the Cloud Shell

4. Hide private meetings

Microsoft 365 by default does not send the "Private" flag to meeting rooms. This means that if you have marked a meeting as private, the Resource Booking Agent will remove it.

Important: This setting is unfortunately also not retrospective, so existing meetings will not be marked as private. Only new meetings will be affected.

  1. Follow the instructions 3.1 to 3.5 above.
  2. Enter the following for every room mailbox: 
    Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity [email protected] -RemovePrivateProperty $False

    Note: [email protected] is the mailbox that was configured for each meeting room in Step 1.

  3. Close the Cloud Shell

5. Configure Fishbowl

  • When configuring Fishbowl, on the Select server type page, select Microsoft 365.
  • Log in using Modern Authentication and the email address and password of the room mailbox that you created in Step 2, then tap on Next.
  • On the Select your room calendar page, your room mailbox should already be selected. If you logged in as an admin with delegated permissions, you can clear and search for a specific room. Tap on Next.
  • (Android only) Scan your Fishbowl license QR code, or enter your license code manually, and tap on Next.
  • Configure your logo and colour settings and tap on Next.