Table of Contents
System administrators and IT professionals managing Exchange Online need to be aware of a developing issue affecting room resource management. Specifically, the manual confirmation workflow for booking requests is currently malfunctioning. While automated room bookings remain operational, specific resources requiring human delegate approval are failing to generate the necessary interactive email notifications.
The Breakdown of the Approval Workflow
Under normal operations, organizations configure specific high-priority rooms (such as boardrooms) to require manual approval. The standard process flows as follows:
- A user requests the room.
- The room delegate receives an email notification.
- The email contains clickable Accept or Decline buttons.
- The delegate clicks a button, and the system notifies the requester.
The Current Failure State
Delegates are no longer receiving the approval email containing the action buttons. Instead, the system sends a standard meeting invitation. This invitation includes text stating, “This resource request, which complies with the policy, has been forwarded to you for approval,” yet it lacks the functionality to actually approve the request efficiently.
Operational Impact and Temporary Workarounds
This error breaks the seamless management of facilities. Because the delegate receives a standard meeting invite rather than a resource request, accepting the invite adds the appointment to the delegate’s personal calendar rather than just managing the room’s calendar.
Until Microsoft deploys a patch, administrators must advise delegates to use the following manual workaround:
- Direct Calendar Access: Delegates must open the specific Room Calendar directly.
- Manual Acceptance: Locate the pending appointment within the Room Calendar and accept it there.
- Calendar Cleanup: Delegates may need to delete the duplicate, unwanted appointment that the system forces onto their personal calendar.
Microsoft Support Status and Verification
Microsoft Support has acknowledged this issue. Escalation engineers have successfully reproduced the bug internally, confirming this is a server-side failure within the Exchange Online environment, not a client-side configuration error.
A Note on Support Interactions
Administrators opening tickets for this issue might encounter initial confusion from frontline support. Reports indicate that support agents may incorrectly reference older, resolved incidents (specifically a similar 2023 outage documented by community experts). If you contact support, emphasize that this is a recurrence of the missing approval button interface, distinct from previous delivery failures.
Advisory Recommendation
Do not attempt to rebuild your room mailboxes or reset permissions at this stage. This is a backend service degradation. Monitor the Microsoft 365 Service Health Dashboard for updates regarding Exchange Online resource scheduling.