Microsoft Places and
Hallway Room Displays

Microsoft Places is Microsoft's answer to a messy hybrid-work problem: when nobody has a fixed desk and half the team is remote on any given day, finding a room -- or even knowing who is actually in the office -- becomes guesswork. Places layers a coordination experience on top of the room and desk mailboxes you already run in Microsoft 365, so employees can plan their in-office days and reserve the right space from Outlook or Teams before they leave home.

But Places lives on personal devices. The moment someone walks up to a meeting room door, they need a different signal: a glance that says available or in use, right now, without opening an app or logging in. That is where a wall-mounted iPad display comes in. This guide explains what Microsoft Places does, how its room booking works, and how a hallway room display complements it -- both reading the exact same room mailboxes, so they never disagree.

What is Microsoft Places?

Microsoft Places is a Microsoft 365 app for hybrid workplaces that helps employees find and book spaces -- meeting rooms and desks -- and coordinate which days they and their colleagues come into the office. It is designed to make a flexible, hybrid office feel less random by connecting people, their schedules, and the physical spaces around them.

Under the hood, Places builds on infrastructure you likely already have. It reads the room and desk resource mailboxes in Exchange Online and enriches them with building, floor, and capacity metadata -- sometimes referred to as the Places directory. That means Places does not replace your calendar system; it presents your existing rooms with better structure and a friendlier finding experience.

In practice, Microsoft Places typically surfaces inside the tools people already use, primarily Outlook and Microsoft Teams. Commonly described capabilities include seeing when teammates plan to be on-site, finding rooms and desks near the people you are meeting, coordinating in-office days, and basic wayfinding around a building. Some of the more advanced features are tied to additional licensing (for example, Teams Premium or a Places premium tier), so it is worth confirming exactly which capabilities your plan includes before you roll it out organization-wide.

How does Microsoft Places room booking work?

Microsoft Places room booking works through your existing Exchange Online room mailboxes -- Places does not create a separate booking system, it presents the same rooms with richer metadata and a better discovery experience. When an employee reserves a room through Places, the reservation is still a normal calendar event written to that room's mailbox.

The mechanics are the same ones any Microsoft 365 admin already knows. A meeting request is sent to the room mailbox as an attendee, and the mailbox's calendar processing rules automatically accept or decline it based on availability and your scheduling policies. If you have not configured those policies yet, our Microsoft 365 room mailbox setup guide walks through creating rooms, setting auto-accept, booking windows, and maximum durations with PowerShell.

What Places adds is on the discovery side: it uses room metadata to suggest suitable spaces and helps people book the right room rather than whatever happens to be free. But the source of truth never changes. Whether a booking is made in Places, in the classic Outlook Room Finder, or straight from a Teams meeting invite, it lands on the same room mailbox calendar.

What is the room finder in Microsoft Places?

The room finder in Microsoft Places is an updated version of the Outlook Room Finder that uses building, floor, capacity, and equipment metadata to suggest rooms that actually fit a meeting. Instead of scrolling a flat list of every room in the company, an employee filters by location and size and sees only relevant, available options.

The quality of those suggestions depends entirely on how well your room metadata is maintained. Each room mailbox should have its capacity, building, and floor set -- typically with the Set-Place cmdlet in Exchange Online PowerShell -- and rooms should be grouped into room lists by building or floor. Well-maintained metadata is what makes "room finder Microsoft Places" results useful; sparse metadata makes them nearly useless. Our Microsoft 365 setup guide covers the metadata and room-list details that both the Places finder and The Room Display rely on.

Does Microsoft Places replace a room display outside the door?

No -- Microsoft Places and a physical room display solve two different halves of the same problem. Places helps people find and reserve a room on their own device before they arrive; a door display shows real-time status to anyone walking past, with no app, no login, and no personal device required.

Think about the walk-up scenario. Someone is in the hallway between meetings and wants a quiet room for a ten-minute call. They do not want to open Outlook, load Places, filter by floor, and cross-reference which of the three rooms in front of them is which. They want to see a green screen on a door and walk in. Equally, when a room is booked but obviously empty, a screen on the door that clearly reads in use until 3:30 -- Product Sync makes the ghost booking visible to everyone. The Room Display can also reclaim those no-shows automatically: with check-in enabled, the display shows a Check In button when a meeting starts, and if no one taps it within a set window (5, 10, or 15 minutes, 10 by default) the booking is released and the room returns to available -- no sensors or extra hardware required. (For more on that dynamic, see why walk-in booking still matters and how hybrid work is reshaping room demand.)

How does The Room Display complement Microsoft Places?

The Room Display is an iPad app that mounts outside each room and shows its live status -- green for available, red for in use -- reading directly from the same Microsoft 365 room mailbox that Microsoft Places books against. It turns any iPad into a piece of meeting-room digital signage that anyone can read at a glance.

The Room Display runs on an iPad mounted outside the room. It shows current availability, today's schedule, and instant quick-book buttons, and it auto-refreshes every 30 seconds so the door always reflects reality. This is the counterpart to Places: Places gets people to the right room, and the display confirms its status when they get there.

Because The Room Display reads room mailboxes directly, it works whether or not you have adopted Microsoft Places -- and if you have, the two simply reinforce each other.

How do Microsoft Places and The Room Display stay in sync?

They stay in sync because both read from the same source of truth: the room's Exchange Online mailbox calendar. When someone books through Places, Outlook, or Teams, the event lands on that room mailbox, and The Room Display picks it up on its next 30-second refresh. There is no separate database, no middleware, and no integration to break.

This local-first design is deliberate. The Room Display connects straight to your Microsoft 365 room mailboxes rather than syncing everything into a cloud SaaS backend of its own, so there is no new server to run and no extra copy of your calendar data sitting in a third-party system. For instant bookings from the door, an Exchange admin can grant the signed-in account Full Access to the room mailbox, which lets the app write bookings directly onto the room calendar instead of routing them through an invitation -- the Microsoft 365 setup guide explains this direct room access step. If keeping room data on your own infrastructure matters to you, our note on local-only displays versus cloud SaaS goes deeper.

Setting up Microsoft Places and iPad room displays together

To run Microsoft Places and The Room Display side by side, you configure them against the same room mailboxes -- there is no duplicate setup and no separate room list to maintain. Get your Exchange Online rooms right once, and both experiences benefit.

1. Create or confirm your room mailboxes. Every room needs a resource mailbox in Exchange Online. If you are starting from scratch, follow the room mailbox setup guide to create rooms and enable auto-accept.
2. Add metadata for the room finder. Set capacity, building, and floor with Set-Place, and group rooms into room lists by building or floor. This is what powers the Microsoft Places room finder and helps people book the right space.
3. Roll out Microsoft Places. Enable Places for your organization so employees can coordinate in-office days and find rooms from Outlook and Teams, according to whichever license tier you are using.
4. Mount an iPad and install The Room Display. Put an iPad outside each room, install The Room Display from the App Store, choose Microsoft 365 as the platform, sign in, and select that room's mailbox.
5. Enable instant booking (optional but recommended). Grant the signed-in account Full Access to the room mailbox so quick-book bookings from the door appear immediately rather than after a short invitation delay.

That is the whole integration. Because both tools point at the same mailboxes, a booking made in Places shows up on the door display, and a quick-book from the door shows up everywhere Places, Outlook, and Teams look.

How much does adding a Microsoft Places room display cost?

The Room Display is a one-time $99 per iPad purchase on the App Store -- no subscription and no per-room fee -- on top of the Microsoft 365 licensing you already pay for. You are not adding another monthly line item to your software budget just to get a screen on the door.

That pricing model is a real difference from dedicated room panels and subscription signage, which typically charge per room per month indefinitely. Because The Room Display runs on any iPad with iOS 15 or later (models from 2017 onward), many offices repurpose older iPads they already own, which keeps hardware cost near zero. The app is fully localized, made by Elin Egholm ApS in Denmark, with support by email. See the pricing page for the full breakdown, or read why we charge $99 once instead of a subscription.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Microsoft Places required to use The Room Display?

No. The Room Display connects directly to your Microsoft 365 (or Google Workspace) room mailboxes, so it works with or without Microsoft Places. If you have rolled out Places, the two complement each other because they read the same room calendars.

Does Microsoft Places include a room display for outside the door?

Microsoft Places focuses on helping people find and book spaces from their own device in Outlook or Teams, not on hardware mounted outside the room. For at-a-glance hallway status you add a physical display, such as a wall-mounted iPad running The Room Display.

Will bookings made in Microsoft Places show up on The Room Display?

Yes. Any booking made through Microsoft Places, Outlook, or Teams is written to the room's Exchange Online mailbox, and The Room Display reads that same mailbox and refreshes every 30 seconds. There is no separate system to keep in sync.

Do I need a Microsoft Places license to use The Room Display?

No. The Room Display only needs a standard Microsoft 365 account with access to your room mailboxes; it does not depend on any Microsoft Places or Teams Premium licensing. Microsoft Places licensing is a separate decision that affects only the Places experience itself.

Can The Room Display automatically release a no-show booking?

Yes. When check-in is enabled, the display shows a Check In button as each meeting starts, and if no one checks in within a configurable window (5, 10, or 15 minutes, 10 by default) the booking is automatically released and the room returns to available -- no sensors or extra hardware. It needs direct room access (Full Access to the room mailbox) so it can write that change back to the calendar.