Meeting Scheduling and Management Solutions: Riva and Microsoft Bookings

Is your enterprise in a regulated industry? Does it require a tool to reduce the friction in meeting scheduling and the inevitable back and forth leading up to the meeting? If you answer yes, this comparison between Microsoft Bookings (MS Bookings) and Riva is for you.  

MS Bookings is an entry level booking tool offered on the Microsoft365 platform, and the resulting meeting data is not integrated with any CRM – including Dynamics.  Riva’s booking solution is built on the Riva ecosystem and was explicitly designed for regulated industries. Riva’s booking too is the one-stop solution for more sophisticated revenue data operations needs. Read on—and learn where MS Bookings falls short and Riva excels. 

Enterprise-Grade Data Privacy and Security Practices 

Riva’s booking solution is part of the Riva ecosystem and is designed with sophisticated B2B for enterprises in regulated industries. It is integrated into Riva’s sync, unification, and flow automation to consistently capture activity information in the record system and the system of action. And it provides granular privacy and security settings to align with your data governance needs.  

MS Bookings does not offer stringent compliance practices for data governance. 

Riva features a meeting approval process that can be carried out automatically or by the meeting organizer to add a layer of increased security. MS Bookings does not yet have this important flow. Furthermore, Riva matches emails before taking further cancellation or rescheduling actions to avoid potential fraud and security concerns.  

Riva offers multiple deployment methods, whereas MS Bookings is cloud-only. Organizations can choose to have their bookings instance deployed on Riva’s cloud AWS environment or directly on their cloud environment—providing complete control over your infrastructure. 

Riva Bookings does not store meeting information such as subject, description, attachment, date, or time – only the meeting ID. While MS Bookings serves the purpose of managing appointments for MS 365 users, they fall short of compliance management. In contrast, Riva succeeds as an enterprise-grade booking solution backed by robust data security and MNPI handling. 

Accommodating the Complex External Meeting Needs of Regulated Industries 

Business leaders within FinServ often request meeting delegations, and Riva’s booking tool supports this workflow. With the meeting host delegation function, end users such as executive assistants are empowered to create meeting links on behalf of non-users or anyone who needs to stay focused on business and revenue goals.  

Riva separates optional attendees from those who are required internal attendees. Optional attendees are invited to meetings to stay informed, but their calendar availability doesn’t determine meeting times.  

To date, MS Booking does not support meeting host delegations nor differentiate internal from external attendees.  

Frictionless User Experience 

MS Bookings does not feature a global setting, so you must update your settings with each link you create. With Riva, you can pull all booking users’ preferences, such as default availability, to free up your time for more valuable things like interacting with customers. 

Riva can build meeting reports for their users on an as-needed basis with no time limit or additional cost, whereas meeting reports for MS Bookings can only be downloaded for the past 60 days and the upcoming 60 days. 

Riva Bookings integrates with a wide range of meeting platforms. Teams and Zoom meetings are available out of the box, and other online meetings like Webex can be supported via our “other” option. On the other hand, MS Bookings only integrates with Teams or Skype and does not have a direct integration with other popular virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom. 

Riva also provides highly flexible brand customization in color, logo, and privacy or security disclaimer. MS Bookings has limited options to customize branding. Users can only set email reminders and calendar invitations and modify color schemes and logos.

Not all online booking tools are created equally. MS Bookings is online booking software segregated from customer and revenue data. In contrast, Riva Bookings is part of the Riva ecosystem and is designed for enterprises in regulated industries needing a seamless scheduling experience as part of their revenue data operations. 

Comparing Capabilities

Security
Security
  • Proven enterprise-level security, privacy, and scalability mandated by regulated industries 
  • Increased security controls with a combined manual and automatic approval process  
  • Meeting details are not stored 
  • No compliance management based on our research  

Global Setting 
Global Setting 
  • Available  
  • Able to pull all booking users’ default availability for multiple stakeholders 
  • Not available

Approval Workflow
Approval Workflow
  • Automatic approval offered 
  • Approval by the meeting organizer also offered for increased security 
  • No manual approval process

Meeting Host Delegation 
Meeting Host Delegation 
  • Assistants able to book meetings on behalf of others like the CEO and choose to be part of the meeting as a required or an optional attendee 
  • Not available

Reporting
Reporting
  • Reports can be built on an as-needed basis – no time limit or additional cost 
  • Reports for bookings made in the past 60 days and upcoming 60 days can be downloaded  

Signature Links  
Signature Links  
  • Dedicated signature link available  
  • Not supported

Distinction of required and optional attendees 
Distinction of required and optional attendees 
  • Option for “required attendees” and “optional attendees” 
  • Not available based on our research

Branding Customization 
Branding Customization 
  • Highly customizable branding to meet enterprise needs: color, logo, and privacy or security disclaimer 
  • Limited: Users can set email reminders and calendar invitations and modify color schemes and logos 

Deployment Method 
Deployment Method 
  • Hybrid deployments 
  • Cloud only 

Meeting Platform  
Meeting Platform  
  • Teams and Zoom meetings are available out of the box 
  • Other online meetings like Webex can be supported via our “other” option 
  • Integrates with Teams or Skype only, not Zoom 

We’re Here to Help. We Make Revenue Operations Easier.

We understand that researching and choosing the right revenue data ops solution is challenging. That’s why we’re here. Talk to one of our Riva specialists today to find the rev ops solution you need to connect your revenue and communications data—and start leveraging the full potential of your CRM.