When you schedule a meeting, you can check to see when
the invitees are available.
About this task
The availability of invitees for meetings is based on
their free time schedules and the entries on their calendars. With
the dynamic scheduler widget, you can easily drag and drop to select
a meeting time that accommodates attendee schedules. Times that work
for all meeting attendees are shown by date in the Recommended
times panel in the scheduler, and by check marks over
columns in the time grid.
The dynamic scheduler also allows
you to schedule a meeting in your inbox while reading email. Right-click
on any document and click Find available time to
open the new scheduler. Pick your meeting time and then click Create
meeting to schedule the event.
Procedure
- When scheduling a meeting or event announcement, add invitees
and reserve any rooms or resources.
- Click Find Available Time next to
the meeting Starts and Ends fields.
-
To select a meeting time:
- Select a time in the Recommended times panel, or
- Click the time bar and drag it to the time slot that you want. If the time bar is green, all
invitees are available during the highlighted time. If the time bar is pink, only some invitees are
available during the highlighted time. If the time bar is gray, there is no "free time" information
available for anyone. You can also drop the drag bar on a day boundary to auto-expand the time grid
to 24-hour mode.
Note: Those invitees whose free time is not available or is restricted are
considered available when computing who can attend the meeting being scheduled.
Note: The
default time frame for recommended meeting times is four days. If the meeting times that display in
the Recommended Times panel don’t work for your meeting, click
Show More in the Recommended times panel to show
potential meeting times for the subsequent three days. This loads another three days in the calendar
grid, as well.
If you find a time that works with everyone except you, you can hover your cursor on the
conflicting event in the calendar grid to see its details. Based on that information, you can then
decide whether to schedule the current meeting and reschedule the conflicting event for another
time. This option is available only for meeting chairs, and for managers who have the option to see
details of employees’ busy times.
The selected available time is shown in the dialog box, before the
Recommended times panel.
- Click Ok to save the selected time
to the invitation.
What to do next
You can make changes to your invitee list in the scheduler
widget:
- Add invitees individually. In the calendar grid, right-click anywhere
on the invitee list and select Add invitee.
In the Add Invitee dialog box, select the invitee
type (required, optional, room, or resource). Then click in the address
field, and select an address from your contacts by clicking the button
next to the address field.
- Remove invitees. Clear the check box next to a person, room, or
resource, or right-click on the invitee, room or resource name and
select Remove invitee.
- You can also exclude groups. For example, to exclude all optional
invitees, clear the check box next to Optional.