How does the Outlook Calendar & Microsoft Teams integration work in Amelia
A customer books a consultation, and the appointment appears in the employee’s Outlook Calendar automatically. The next morning, the employee drags it to the afternoon; Amelia reschedules the appointment and sends the customer the rescheduled notification, without anyone opening the Amelia back end. This is two-way sync: Amelia adds appointments and events to Outlook Calendar, and moving or deleting those entries in Outlook updates the booking in Amelia. At the same time, Busy events in Outlook block availability in Amelia, preventing double bookings.
When an employee is connected to Outlook and the service is set as an online meeting, Amelia also generates Microsoft Teams links for appointments and adds them to both the Outlook Calendar event and customer notifications.
Note
The Outlook Calendar & Microsoft Teams integration is available in the Standard, Pro, and Elite license plans.
Azure is Microsoft's public cloud platform used to manage applications and integrations such as Outlook Calendar and Microsoft Teams. You can log in with existing outlook.com, office365.com, or hotmail.com accounts.
How do I enable the Outlook Calendar & Microsoft Teams integration?
To enable the integration, go to Features & integrations → Integrations and activate Outlook Calendar & Microsoft Teams. Then click Set up to open the Outlook settings screen and switch to the General tab to establish the main connection. This connection must be created by an Administrator, since only admins have access to the Features & integrations section.
Employees will see the Outlook Calendar integration in their Integrations tab, but they can’t connect calendars until the admin establishes the main connection. Once the admin connects an Outlook account, they can link employees to any calendars that account has access to. Employees can also connect their own Outlook accounts through their Employee panel or their WordPress account, unless an admin has already assigned a calendar to them.
If the admin connects a company Outlook account and wants to assign calendars to employees centrally, that account must contain a separate calendar for each employee; in this setup, employees can’t connect their own personal calendars.
What does this integration actually do?
The integration connects Amelia’s bookings with each employee’s Outlook Calendar, so employees can manage their day where they already work while Amelia stays accurate for customers.
- Adds Amelia bookings to Outlook Calendar; new appointments and events appear automatically in one selected calendar per employee.
- Syncs changes back to Amelia; moving or deleting an Amelia entry in Outlook updates the booking in Amelia and sends the matching notifications.
- Blocks time slots; Busy events from up to 6 selected calendars remove those times from availability in Amelia.
- Generates Microsoft Teams links; when online meetings are enabled for a service, each appointment gets a unique Teams link.
Amelia remains the source of truth for bookings, customers, and payments, while Outlook becomes a second place where employees can reschedule or reject those bookings.
Events are created in one selected calendar per employee, but you can use multiple connected calendars to detect Busy times and prevent double bookings.
How does two-way sync work with Outlook Calendar?
Two-way sync applies to the entries Amelia created in the employee’s selected calendar. Amelia pushes new and updated bookings to Outlook, and when an employee moves, resizes, or deletes one of those entries, Amelia applies the change to the booking. Entries created directly in Outlook never become Amelia bookings; they only block availability if that option is enabled.
Two-way sync works with both the Sign in with Microsoft method and the advanced Azure setup, and there are no additional settings to enable. Learn how appointments and events respond to changes below.
What happens when an appointment is changed in Outlook?
Moving an appointment in Outlook reschedules it in Amelia to the new date and time, and sends the Rescheduled notifications if they are enabled. Making the entry shorter or longer changes the appointment’s duration in Amelia as well.
Deleting the entry in Outlook sets the whole appointment to Rejected. For group appointments, this rejects every customer’s booking in that appointment, and each customer receives the Rejected notification if it is enabled. The time slot then becomes available for booking again.
Please note
Amelia doesn't validate changes made in Outlook. An employee can move an appointment to a day off, outside working hours, or onto a time that overlaps another appointment, and Amelia will accept it. Make sure employees check their availability before moving appointments in Outlook.
Employee permissions don't apply to these changes either; employees who can't reschedule or reject appointments in Amelia can still do it by moving or deleting the entry in Outlook Calendar.
What happens when an Amelia event is changed in Outlook?
Moving an Amelia event in Outlook reschedules the event in Amelia, and sends the Rescheduled notifications if they are enabled. Deleting an Amelia event in Outlook doesn’t change the event in Amelia; it isn’t rejected or canceled, and its bookings stay as they are. To cancel an event, cancel it in Amelia, which also removes it from Outlook.
What do I need to do after updating Amelia to version 9.9?
If Outlook Calendar was connected before you updated to Amelia 9.9, disconnect every connection and connect it again to start two-way sync, including the main account in the integration settings and each employee’s calendar. Until you reconnect, changes made in Outlook aren’t applied back in Amelia.
Employees can reconnect from their Employee panel, and admins can do it from the employee’s Integrations tab or from the Outlook integration settings, depending on how the calendar was connected. Employees connected after the update don’t need to do anything.
For step-by-step instructions, refer to the employee Outlook Calendar connection documentation.
Why aren't changes from Outlook showing in Amelia?
If moving or deleting entries in Outlook no longer updates bookings in Amelia, the sync channel between Outlook and your website has most likely expired. Amelia keeps this channel open through WP Cron, which runs only when your website receives visits.
On websites with little traffic or no recent bookings, the channel can stop refreshing and disconnect. To fix it, disconnect the employee’s Outlook account and connect it again, which opens a new channel. If the employee was connected before Amelia 9.9, reconnecting is also required, as explained in the section above.
Does the integration sync old appointments?
No. The integration doesn’t sync appointments that existed before the connection was created. To add a past booking to Outlook Calendar, open the appointment in Amelia → Bookings and click Update without changing anything; Amelia then creates the matching entry in Outlook.
What should I know before I start?
- Two connection methods are available; Sign in with Microsoft is recommended for most users and needs no Azure configuration, while the advanced Azure setup is for organizations that need custom Microsoft Entra ID credentials.
- Localhost is supported only with Sign in with Microsoft, and only for one-way sync; changes made in Outlook aren’t applied back in Amelia on localhost.
- Any Outlook account works for calendar sync, but Microsoft Teams meetings require a business account.
- Connection limits; employees can connect up to 6 Outlook accounts, choose 1 calendar where Amelia creates entries, and select up to 6 calendars for checking Busy events.
- Busy vs. Free; only events marked as Busy block availability in Amelia, and Outlook events created outside Amelia never appear in Amelia.
- Canceling in Amelia removes the entry from Outlook.
- Time zones can differ; Amelia follows WordPress and employee time zones, while Outlook follows the account’s time zone.
- Security; Amelia requests read and write access to calendar events only and works only with the calendars that were connected. It doesn’t access mailbox contents, OneDrive files, or contacts.