Scheduling Meetings
A primary difficulty when scheduling a meeting is finding a time
that works for all the people who need to attend it. Scheduling
meetings through Outlook is significantly simpler than scheduling
meetings by discussing times and locations with the participants,
particularly when you need to accommodate the schedules of several people. Outlook displays the individual and
collective schedules of people within your own organization, and of
people outside of your organization who have published their calendars
to the Internet. You can review attendees' schedules to locate a time when everyone is
available, or have Outlook find a convenient time for you.
You can send an Outlook meeting invitation (referred to as a
meeting request) to any person who has an e-mail account—even to a
person who doesn't use Outlook. You can send a meeting request from
any type of e-mail account (such as an Exchange account or an Internet
e-mail account).
The meeting window has two pages: the Appointment page and the Scheduling Assistant (or
Scheduling) page. The Appointment page is visible by default. You can enter
all the required information directly on the Appointment page, or use
the additional features available on the Scheduling Assistant page to
find the best time for the meeting.
People you invite to meetings are referred to as
attendees. By default, the attendance of each
attendee is indicated as Required. You can inform non-critical
attendees of the meeting by marking their attendance as Optional. You can invite entire groups of people by
using a contact group or distribution list. You can also invite
managed resources, such as conference rooms and audio/visual
equipment, that have been set up by your organi-zation's Exchange
administrator.
A meeting request must have at least one attendee other than
you, a start time, and an end time. It should also include a subject
and a location, but Outlook will send the meeting request without this
information if you specifically allow it. The body of a meeting request can include text and Web links, as
well as file attachments. This is a convenient way to distribute
meeting information to attendees ahead of time.
The secondary page of the meeting window is the Scheduling Assistant page, if your e-mail account is
part of an Exchange Server 2010 or Exchange Server 2007 network.
Otherwise, the secondary page is the Scheduling page, which doesn't
include the Room Finder feature we discuss below. If you're organizing
a meeting for a large number of people and want to view collective
information about their schedules, you do so on the Scheduling or
Scheduling Assistant page.
The Scheduling and Scheduling Assistant pages include a group schedule that
shows the status of each attendee's time throughout your working day.
Outlook indicates your suggested meeting time on the group schedule
with green (start time) and red (end time) vertical bars. If
free/busy information is available for meeting attendees, their time is shown as white (Available),
blue (Busy), or purple (Out of Office). Their Tentative bookings are indicated by light-blue diagonal
stripes. If no information is available (either because Outlook can't
connect to an attendee's calendar or because the proposed meeting is
further out than the scheduling information stored on the server), Outlook
shows the time with gray diagonal stripes. The row at the top of the
schedule, to the right of the All Attendees heading, indicates the
collective schedule of all the attendees.
Tip
You can enter additional attendees in the To box on the
Appointment page or in the All Attendees list on the Scheduling or
Scheduling Assistant page.
You can change the time and duration of the meeting to work with the displayed
schedules by selecting a different time in the Start Time and End Time
lists, by dragging the green and red vertical bars (the start time and
end time bars) in the group schedule, or by clicking the time you want
in the Suggested Times list.
On the right side of the Scheduling Assistant page, the
Room Finder task pane is open by default. The monthly
calendar at the top of the Room Finder task pane indicates the collective
availability of the group on each day, as
follows:
-
Dates that occur in the past and non-working days are
gray.
-
Days when all attendees are available are white
(Good).
-
Days when most attendees are available are light blue
(Fair).
-
Days when most attendees are not available are medium blue
(Poor).
Tip
The Room Finder task pane is available only for Exchange
accounts. You can display or hide the Room Finder task pane on the
Appointment page or on the Scheduling Assistant page by clicking the
Room Finder button in the Options group on the Meeting tab.
Managed conference rooms that are available at the indicated
meeting time are shown in the center of the Room Finder task pane. At
the bottom of the Room Finder task pane, the Suggested Times list
displays attendee availability for appointments of the length of
time you have specified for the meeting.
Selecting a date in the calendar displays the suggested meeting
times for just that day. (Scheduling suggestions are not provided for
past or nonworking days.) Clicking a meeting time in the Suggested
Times list updates the calendar and the meeting request.
Outlook tracks responses from attendees and those responsible for scheduling the resources you requested, so you always
have an up-to-date report of how many people will attend your meeting.
The number of attendees who have accepted, tentatively accepted, and
declined the meeting request appears in the meeting header section
when you open a meeting in its own window. In this exercise, you'll
create and send a meeting request.
Note
SET UP You don't need any
practice files to complete this exercise. Display your default
calendar and inform two co-workers or friends that you are going to
practice inviting them as attendees to a meeting. Ask the attendees
not to respond to the meeting request that they receive. Then follow
the steps.
-
In the Date Navigator, click
tomorrow's date. Then in the Calendar pane, click the 3:00 P.M. time slot (or if you have a
conflicting appointment, click a time when you have 30 minutes
available).
-
On the Home
tab, in the New group, click the
New Meeting
button.
An untitled meeting window opens. The selected date and
times are shown in the Start Time and End Time boxes above the
notes pane.
-
In the To box, type the
e-mail address of the first co-worker or friend with whom you
arranged to practice.
-
In the Subject box, type
SBS Get-Together.
-
In the Location box, type
Test meeting to indicate that the
meeting request is for testing purposes only.
You have provided all the standard information for a meeting
request.
-
On the Meeting tab, in the Show group, click the Scheduling Assistant
button.
The All Attendees list on the Scheduling Assistant page includes you and the
attendee you entered in the To box (showing the attendee's e-mail
address or, if the attendee has an entry in your Address Book, the
associated name). The icon next to your name, a magnifying glass
in a black circle, indicates that you are the meeting organizer.
The icon next to the attendee's name, an upward-pointing arrow in
a red circle, indicates that he or she is a required attendee.
-
If necessary, scroll to the bottom of the Room Finder task pane to display the
Suggested times list.
The times shown are based on your schedule and the schedule
information that is available for the first attendee.
-
In the All Attendees list,
click Click here to add a name,
enter the e-mail address of the second person with whom you
arranged to practice, and then press Tab.
The Suggested Times list in the Room Finder task pane is
updated to reflect any schedule conflicts for the second
attendee.
-
Click the Required
Attendee icon to the left of the second attendee's
name.
A list of attendance options expands.
-
In the list, click Optional
Attendee.
The second attendee's icon changes to the letter i (for
information) in a blue circle to indicate
that you're sending the meeting request for his or her information, but he
or she does not need to attend.
-
In the group schedule, experiment with changing the meeting
time and duration by dragging the green start time bar and the red
end time bar. Then in the Suggested
times list, select a meeting time that works for all
three attendees.
The start time and end time bars move to the selected time
slot.
You can change the Show As and Reminder settings, create
recurrences, assign color categories, and make any other changes
you want. The availability specified in the Show As list will
apply to all attendees who accept your meeting request.
-
After you select the meeting time you want,
click the Appointment button in the
Show group.
On the Appointment page, the second attendee has been added
to the To box, and the Start Time and End Time boxes display the
meeting time you selected.
-
Verify the meeting details, and then click
the Send button.
The meeting appears in your calendar, and your co-workers or
friends receive the meeting request.
Note
CLEAN UP Remind your attendees
not to respond to the meeting request. Retain the SBS Get-Together
meeting in your calendar for use in later exercises.
