What is Workspaces
Exchange Online has a feature called workspaces that is poorly documented, works amazingly well. Especially for those of us switching to Flex space/hybrid type office layouts after Covid.
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 user@example.tld
New-DistributionGroup -Name "Building Name" -RoomList
Create a Workspace
Now you need to actual create the workspace, set capacity limits and location information.
New-Mailbox -Room "Name of Workspace" | Set-Mailbox -Type Workspace
Set-Place -Identity "Name of Workspace" -Street "5 Test Street" -City Testsville -PostalCode 55505 -State Test -CountryOrRegion US -Floor 1 -Capacity 15
Set-CalendarProcessing nameofworkspace -EnforceCapacity $True -MinimumDurationInMinutes 30
Add Workspace to Room List
Add-DistributionGroupMember -Identity "Building Name" -Member nameofworkspace@example.tld
After about 24 hours the workspace and roomlist should start appearing in Outlook for users to book and use.
