Exchange Online Workspaces

tankerkiller125

What is Workspaces

Exchange Online has a feature called workspaces that is poorly documented, but works amazingly well. Especially for those of us switching to Flex space/hybrid type office layouts.

Workspace allow multiple people to book a space at the same time, and once the capacity limits are reached the Calander will automatically deny future request. In my companies case we are working on having a flex space with about 15 desk, so our capacity will be 15, and when remote employees want to work from the office they'll need to schedule it in Outlook.

Create a Room List

You'll for sure want a room list if you don't already have one OR if the one you currently have is synced from On-Prem, as in my testing I found that Workspaces don't work with synced room list.

Connect-ExchangeOnline -UserPrincipalName [email protected]

# Create a distribution group (if needed)
New-DistributionGroup -Name "Building Name" -RoomList

Create a Workspace

Now you need to actual create the workspace, set capacity limits and location information. To see the full Set-Place arguments check the Microsoft docs.

# Create the room mailbox
New-Mailbox -Room "Name of Workspace" | Set-Mailbox -Type Workspace

# Sets the location information, for a full list of options see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/exchange/set-place?view=exchange-ps
Set-Place -Identity "Name of Workspace" -Street "5 Test Street" -City Testsville -PostalCode 55505 -State Test -CountryOrRegion US -Floor 1 -Capacity 15

# Tell the workspace how to handle capacity and other information
Set-CalendarProcessing nameofworkspace -EnforceCapacity $True -MinimumDurationInMinutes 30

Add Workspace to Room List

# Add the Workspace to the distribution list so it can be used.
Add-DistributionGroupMember -Identity "Building Name" -Member [email protected]

After about 24 hours the workspace and roomlist should start appearing in Outlook for users to book and use.