ABE / T3B Room Booking

Four Microsoft 365 components, each doing one job. SharePoint is the single source of truth; Power Apps is the front door for staff; Power Automate handles everything that needs to happen in the background; Outlook delivers the human-readable confirmations.

Build these first. Everything else (app, flows, QR links) references these lists by ID, so get the schema right before touching Power Apps.

List 1 — Rooms

Seed this list with your 13 rooms:

List 2 — Bookings

List 3 — PermittedUsers

The app checks the PermittedUsers list on every launch — not SharePoint item-level permissions — so you can manage who can book from one list without touching site permissions.

Power Fx — App.OnStart

// Runs once when the app opens. Sets a global flag used to gate every screen.
Set(varCurrentUserEmail, Lower(User().Email));

Set(
    varIsPermitted,
    CountRows(
        Filter(
            PermittedUsers,
            Lower(Email) = varCurrentUserEmail && Active = true
        )
    ) > 0
);

// Deep-link handling — see Section 7 for how RoomID arrives via QR code
If(
    !IsBlank(Param("RoomID")),
    Set(varDeepLinkRoomID, Param("RoomID"));
    Navigate(scrRoomDetail, ScreenTransition.Fade),
    Navigate(scrOverview, ScreenTransition.Fade)
);

One app, two entry points. Staff coming from the app icon land on the Overview screen. Staff scanning a QR code on a door land straight on that room's Detail screen. Both share the same booking logic underneath.

Screen 1 — scrOverview

• Gallery of all 13 active rooms, filterable by floor and room type (chips at top).
• Date picker defaults to today; staff can pick any date up to Today() + 30.
• Each room card shows a horizontal strip of that day's hourly slots — tap any free slot to open the booking dialog for that room + date + hour.
• Search box filters on room name (StartsWith / "*" in Title).

Screen 2 — scrRoomDetail (QR entry point)

• Opens locked to the room encoded in the QR link — no room picker, so it's a one-tap booking flow at the door.
• Top strip shows the next 7 days, with today visually emphasised (amber outline) and pre-selected.
• Below it, that day's hourly grid, largest element on screen — this is the "focus view on today" you asked for.
• A secondary "Pick date" chip opens a full date picker for booking further out (up to 1 month), without leaving the room's context.

Power Fx — generating the 7-day strip

// Items property of the horizontal day gallery on scrRoomDetail
ForAll(
    Sequence(7, 0),
    {
        TheDate: Today() + Value,
        DayLabel: Text(Today() + Value, "ddd"),
        DayNum: Text(Today() + Value, "dd"),
        IsToday: (Today() + Value) = Today()
    }
)

Power Fx — building the hourly slot grid for a room + date

// Items property of the slot gallery — one row per operating hour
ForAll(
    ["08:00","09:00","10:00","11:00","12:00","13:00","14:00","15:00","16:00","17:00"],
    With(
        {
            _existing: LookUp(
                Bookings,
                Room.RoomID = varSelectedRoomID
                && BookingDate = varSelectedDate
                && StartTime = Value
                && Status = "Confirmed"
            )
        },
        {
            SlotTime: Value,
            IsBooked: !IsBlank(_existing),
            BookedByName: If(!IsBlank(_existing), _existing.BookedByName, "")
        }
    )
)

Power Fx — submitting a booking (with conflict check)

// OnSelect of the "Confirm booking" button
If(
    !IsBlank(
        LookUp(
            Bookings,
            Room.RoomID = varSelectedRoomID
            && BookingDate = varSelectedDate
            && StartTime = varSelectedSlot
            && Status = "Confirmed"
        )
    ),
    // Someone booked it in the seconds since the screen loaded — refuse and refresh
    Notify("That slot was just taken — pick another.", NotificationType.Warning);
    Refresh(Bookings),

    Patch(
        Bookings,
        Defaults(Bookings),
        {
            Title: varSelectedRoomID & "_" & Text(varSelectedDate,"yyyy-mm-dd") & "_" & varSelectedSlot,
            Room: LookUp(Rooms, RoomID = varSelectedRoomID),
            BookingDate: varSelectedDate,
            StartTime: varSelectedSlot,
            BookedByEmail: varCurrentUserEmail,
            BookedByName: User().FullName,
            Purpose: txtPurpose.Text,
            Status: "Confirmed"
        }
    );
    Notify("Room booked — check your email for confirmation.", NotificationType.Success);
    Navigate(scrConfirmation, ScreenTransition.Fade)
)

The same flow whether staff start from the app icon or a QR code — they only differ in how they arrive at step 2.

Build these in the same environment as your SharePoint site. Assign each to a different team member (see Section 8) — they don't depend on each other, only on the Bookings list already existing.

6.1 — Booking confirmation

Trigger: When an item is created on Bookings.

1. Condition: Status is equal to Confirmed
2. Yes → Office 365 Outlook: Send an email (V2) to BookedByEmail, subject Booking confirmed — {Room} {BookingDate} {StartTime}
3. Office 365 Outlook: Create event (V4) on the booker's calendar (start = BookingDate + StartTime, end = +1 hour, location = Room) so it shows up in Outlook/Teams automatically

6.2 — Double-booking backstop

Trigger: When an item is created on Bookings.

1. Get items from Bookings: filter Room eq '@{RoomID}' and BookingDate eq '@{BookingDate}' and StartTime eq '@{StartTime}' and Status eq 'Confirmed'
2. Condition: count of items > 1 (i.e. a duplicate slipped through the app's own check)
3. Yes → keep the earliest Created item, set every later duplicate's Status to Cancelled, and email the affected booker that their slot was already taken

6.3 — Daily reminder (scheduled)

Trigger: Recurrence, every weekday at 07:30.

1. Get items from Bookings: filter BookingDate eq '@{utcNow('yyyy-MM-dd')}' and Status eq 'Confirmed'
2. Apply to each → Outlook: send a short reminder email with room, time and a "Cancel this booking" link

6.4 — Cancellation notice

Trigger: When an item is modified on Bookings.

1. Condition: Status changed to Cancelled
2. Yes → Outlook: send cancellation confirmation to BookedByEmail; delete the matching calendar event created in 6.1

Each printed QR code encodes a URL that opens the Power App and passes the room's code as a parameter, which App.OnStart (Section 3) reads and routes straight to that room's Detail screen.

Link format

https://apps.powerapps.com/play/e/{environment-id}/a/{app-id}?RoomID=T3B-3F-MTG-01

1. Publish the app once, then open it via Power Apps Details to copy the environment-id and app-id from the play link.
2. Build 13 links, one per RoomID from Section 2's Rooms list — a quick Excel formula does this in one column.
3. Paste each link into qr.io or any offline QR generator (or generate via a Power Automate "Create QR code" step if you'd rather keep it all in Microsoft 365).
4. Print and laminate one per door, sized ~6×6cm, at eye level beside the room nameplate.

Six work packages that can run largely in parallel once the data model (Section 2) is signed off. Suggested split across your 7 direct reports — adjust based on who already has Power Platform exposure.

• Non-permitted email logs in → sees "access not enabled" screen, cannot book
• Permitted staff can see all 13 rooms and 30 days of dates on Overview
• Two people tapping the same slot within a few seconds — one succeeds, one gets "already taken"
• Booking beyond Today()+30 is not selectable in the date picker
• Weekend dates are excluded or hidden (Mon–Fri only, per your spec)
• Booking confirmation email arrives within ~1 minute, correct room/date/time
• Calendar invite appears correctly in the booker's Outlook calendar
• Cancelling a booking frees the slot immediately in the app and sends a cancellation email
• Each of the 13 QR codes opens the correct room, not a neighbouring one
• Deactivating a staff member in PermittedUsers blocks their next login within the session refresh
• Untick a room's "Active" flag → it disappears from Overview but existing bookings stay intact

Two audiences, two different needs.

For your 7 direct reports (builders)

• A 30-minute walkthrough of Sections 2–6 is enough if they've touched Power Apps/Automate before; budget half a day if this is their first build.
• Recommend pairing someone confident in Power Fx (Packages 2–3) with someone confident in Power Automate (Package 4) so knowledge doesn't sit with one person.

For general staff (bookers)

• They need almost no training — the QR-code path is designed to be self-explanatory (scan → see today → tap a free hour → done).
• One laminated A5 card at reception or on the staff intranet covering: where to find the app icon, what the QR codes are for, and how to cancel a booking, is sufficient.