Setting up the Microsoft Exchange / Office 365 integration in Q-Cal

This guide walks you through connecting Q-Cal to Microsoft Exchange or Office 365, so calendar events automatically appear in Q-Cal.

1. Add the integration

Go to Main menu > Calendar integrations, click "+", and select Microsoft Office 365.

2. Basic configuration

You'll land on the Basic configuration tab. Name is the only required field here — see the Basic configuration guide for details on the rest.

3. Microsoft Exchange configuration

Click the Microsoft Exchange configuration tab.

Two-way sync: this toggle sits at the top of the tab, and offers the possibility to export events back to Exchange, if the source allows it. This is typically needed when events created within Q-Cal — for example, an ad-hoc meeting booked from a meeting room display — also need to appear back in Exchange.

Authentication

Synchronization strategy: there are three ways the integration can pull data from Exchange/Microsoft 365:

1. Synchronizing an individual user (or resource) account — the simplest option. It synchronizes a single calendar, belonging to the user who's logged in.
2. Synchronizing a shared calendar through an individual user account — almost identical to the first option, but syncs a shared calendar instead.
3. Synchronizing room- and resource calendars in an organization — the more advanced option, where you can later pick between individual (or groups of) resource calendars. This applies if your organization has resources set up in Exchange/Microsoft 365 with individual calendars.

Recommended: option 3, room- and resource calendars. It imports all the calendars from your organization, and you then choose which ones to actually display in Q-Cal — rather than having to set each one up individually.

If you choose option 3: this requires some preparation on the Exchange/Microsoft 365 side first, by someone with admin access to your organization's Exchange environment — typically an IT specialist. NordicScreen support isn't able to configure this for you, as it falls outside of Q-Cal itself. Ask your IT specialist to set up:

• A RoomList distribution group in Exchange, containing the room mailboxes you want to sync. See Microsoft's documentation on room lists for how to do this.
• If you're using a dedicated service account to access these calendars (rather than inviting the account to every meeting individually), the account also needs impersonation rights on the room mailboxes. See Microsoft's documentation on application impersonation.

A known issue to flag to your IT specialist while you're at it: Exchange can sometimes show the meeting organizer's name instead of the event subject on resource calendars. This isn't a bug — it's a setting that can be turned off. See Microsoft's guide on resource mailbox calendars showing the organizer's name.

Login method: two tabs, Old login-method and New login-method.

• New login-method (Microsoft Graph) is recommended. It doesn't require managing or renewing passwords, and Microsoft has been phasing out support for service accounts on the old method (EWS) for organizations using cloud/online Exchange.
• Old login-method (EWS) still works for some environments, but isn't the recommended path going forward.

Custom Application: leave this off unless you specifically want to use your own Azure Application Registration (with your own Application ID and secret) instead of the one provided by Q-Cal.

Exchange domain: enter your organization's domain, e.g. mycompany.com.

Grant access using Azure: click this to log in and authorize the connection. A warning icon here means access hasn't been granted yet — it turns into a green checkmark once authorized.

Select Resources

Only relevant if you're syncing room- and resource calendars.

• Calendar distribution: defines how imported events are distributed across calendars in Q-Cal. The available options depend on which synchronization strategy you picked under Authentication:
  • Mapping by the Rooms/Location-field — uses the location field from the Exchange event to decide which calendar it goes to. Simple, but a small spelling mistake in the location field will cause a new calendar to be created. No further fields to configure.
  • Mapping by Exchange resource-booking — ensures a 1-to-1 relationship between rooms and calendars, ignoring the location field. Selecting this shows an "Exchange Resource mapping" section:
    • Room-list or manual mapping: toggle this on if you want resource selection to be based on the RoomList set up in Exchange (see above, under Authentication). Leave it off to manually select rooms using the lists below instead.
    • Create all at once: if enabled, all mapped calendars are created immediately in the overview. If disabled, a calendar only appears once there's an actual booking to sync.
    • Available rooms / Selected rooms: drag and drop rooms from Available to Selected to choose which ones sync to Q-Cal. Remember to save once you're done.
  • Mapping by color categories — uses Exchange's color categories to distribute events by category. Only available when the synchronization strategy is set to "Synchronizing an individual user (or resource) account" or "Synchronizing a shared calendar through an individual user account."
  • Fixed calendar mapping — imports all events into a single calendar. Selecting this shows a "Map to fixed calendar" dropdown, where you pick which calendar all events should go to.

Settings

• Auto-add organizers: creates the event organizer as a client in Q-Cal.
• Auto-add participants: also imports event participants as clients.
• Days ahead: how many days into the future bookings are imported.

Advanced

• Public on "*": if enabled, an event is only marked public if its subject is prefixed with an asterisk (*). This is optional and only relevant for certain Q-Cal view configurations.
• Mark events as pinned using "+": marks an event as pinned if its subject is prefixed with a plus sign (+).
• Prevent subject import: prevents the event subject from being imported from the Exchange server. Note: if you're seeing the organizer's name instead of the actual event subject, that's usually an Exchange-side setting your IT specialist needs to adjust (see above, under Authentication) — this toggle is unrelated to that issue.
• Resources refresh rate: how often the system refreshes its cached list of resources (rooms). If your organization has a long list of resources, it's recommended to set this as high as possible — keeping in mind that a higher value also means changes to your resources will take longer to be picked up.

4. Activate and save

Once authentication is confirmed (green checkmark under "Grant access using Azure") and your resource/calendar selections are made:

1. Toggle Activate module on.
2. Click Save & Close.