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Renaming, Changing, or Replacing a Room, or Desk Resource

What to expect on existing meetings when you rename, change the email, delete, or recreate a room resource in Microsoft Exchange

This article explains what happens to existing bookings when an admin makes changes to a room resource mailbox in Microsoft Exchange (renaming, changing the primary email address, deleting, or recreating it), and what you need to do on the AskCody side to keep the resource working as expected.

Microsoft does not officially document this scenario in their public documentation, so the behavior described here is based on AskCody's own testing in Microsoft 365.

Who This Article Is For

IT administrators and AskCody administrators who manage room resources and need to rename, replace, or change the email address of a meeting room.

Quick Summary

Change in Exchange Existing meetings AskCody-side action
Rename room or desk display name Keep the old name on the meeting item. Booking data is intact. Update the Name field in the AskCody Portal for alignment and ease of management.
Change primary email (SMTP) Keep the old name and may fail to route updates if the old address is removed entirely. Update the Mailbox field in the AskCody Portal.
Delete the room mailbox Meetings remain in attendees' calendars but the room is no longer accepting updates and the booking is effectively lost from the resource calendar. Remove the resource in the AskCody Portal.
Recreate the room (same email) Past bookings made to the old mailbox are not restored. Re-add the resource in the AskCody Portal if it was removed.

Renaming the Display Name of a Room

If you change only the display name of the room mailbox in Exchange (for example from "Conference Room Z" to "Conference Room ZA"):

  1. The room's own calendar continues to show existing bookings under the old name. Booking data is not lost.
  2. Attendees see the old name in the Location field and in the Tracking pane on already-booked meetings, even after waiting and after restarting Outlook.
  3. Editing an existing meeting (changing the subject, time, or attendees) does not cleanly replace the old room reference. In our testing, Outlook added the renamed room as a second attendee while leaving the original name in the Location field, creating a duplicate room entry on the meeting.
  4. New meetings booked after the rename use the new name as expected.

How to Refresh the Name on an Existing Booking

The only way to get a clean update on an existing meeting is for the meeting organizer to:

  1. Open the meeting.
  2. Remove the old room from the Location field.
  3. Add the renamed room back from the room list.
  4. Send the update to all attendees.

There is no PowerShell command or admin-side action that rewrites the room name on existing meeting items. This must be done by the organizer on each meeting.

Recommendation

If only a small number of meetings are affected, ask the relevant organizers to remove and re-add the room. If a large number of meetings are affected, consider whether you can live with the old name showing on existing bookings until they end naturally, since the booking data and the room reservation are intact.

Changing the Primary Email Address (SMTP)

If you change the primary SMTP address of the room mailbox in Exchange:

  1. Keep the old address as an alias (proxyAddress) on the mailbox. This ensures that forwarded invites, replies, and updates to existing series still route correctly to the room.
  2. As with a display name change, the old name and old address may still appear on existing meeting items. The same organizer-led remove-and-readd approach applies if you want them refreshed.
  3. The AskCody Mailbox field must be updated to the new primary address (see "Updating the Resource in AskCody" below).

Deleting a Room Mailbox

If you delete a room mailbox in Exchange:

  1. The room mailbox and its calendar are removed. Existing bookings against that room are no longer reservable, and the room can no longer accept or decline meeting requests.
  2. Meetings that included the deleted room continue to appear in organizers' and attendees' personal calendars, but they show as un-resolvable in the Location field over time.
  3. There is no way to recover bookings against a deleted mailbox once the mailbox retention period has passed.

Recommendation

Before deleting a room mailbox, confirm there are no upcoming bookings against it. If there are, ask the organizers to move those meetings to a different room first.

Recreating a Room Mailbox

If you recreate a room mailbox in Exchange, even with the same email address as a previous one:

  1. The new mailbox is treated as a new resource. Bookings made against the previous mailbox are not restored.
  2. The new mailbox has its own calendar history starting from creation.
  3. The AskCody resource may need to be re-added (unless, if it was kept active during the change, in which case it should work as intended).

Updating the Resource in AskCody

The Name and Mailbox fields on an Exchange Calendar in AskCody are stored independently of Exchange. They do not auto-update when you change the underlying mailbox in Exchange, so you must update them manually after making changes.

To Update the Name or Mailbox of an Existing Resource

  1. Log in to the AskCody Portal here and choose US or EU, depending on where your organization's account is hosted. Then, log into AskCody
  2. Click Admin Center in the left panel.
  3. Click Integrations and choose MS Exchange Calendars.
  4. Find the resource you changed and open it.
  5. Update the Name field to match the new display name in Exchange.
  6. Update the Mailbox field if the primary email address changed.
  7. Click Save.

After saving, the new name and address will be used across the AskCody Platform, including Bookings, Room Displays, Visitors, and Workplace Insights.

To Remove a Resource From AskCody

If you have deleted the room mailbox in Exchange, also remove the resource in AskCody:

  1. In the AskCody Portal, go to Admin Center > Integrations > MS Exchange Calendars.
  2. Open the resource that no longer exists in Exchange.
  3. Remove or deactivate the resource. Deactivating hides it from the Bookings add-in without losing historical Insights data.

For more on deactivating versus removing resources, see Configuring resources in the AskCody Portal.

To Add a Replacement Resource

If you recreated the room mailbox in Exchange, add it to AskCody as a new calendar following the standard steps in Adding Microsoft Exchange Calendars to the AskCody Portal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will Exchange Eventually Sync the New Name to Existing Meetings?

Microsoft does not officially document this. Community answers on Microsoft Q&A are inconsistent, with some suggesting a sync delay of several days and others stating that the name never refreshes on existing items. In our testing the name did not refresh on its own, even after Outlook was restarted.

Will Renaming a Room Cause Customers to Lose Their Bookings?

No. Renaming changes only the display name and, optionally, the email address. The mailbox itself remains the same, so all bookings remain intact. Only the displayed name on existing meeting items is affected.

Why Does Editing a Meeting Add the Renamed Room as a Duplicate?

When Outlook re-resolves the rooms on an edited meeting, it appears to treat the renamed mailbox as a new attendee while keeping the original name in the Location field. This is Outlook behavior, not an AskCody behavior. The cleanest way to update the meeting is to remove the old room and add the renamed room manually.

Does AskCody Update the Room Name Automatically?

No. The Name field in AskCody is set manually and is stored independently of Exchange. It must be updated by an AskCody administrator after a rename.

What if I Cannot Update the AskCody Portal?

Contact AskCody Support and we can help validate the resource configuration and confirm the change is reflected across the platform.