Setting Up Meetings

The previous chapter provided details about creating appointments and events. Although these two types of Calendar items can help you organize your day, you probably can't go very long without scheduling meetings with other people. Outlook's meeting request can assist you in scheduling your meetings. You can invite people to a meeting as well as book additional resources such as conference rooms or projectors. You can send a meeting request to the attendees and view their schedules if you have access to their free/busy information to ensure that all required attendees are available for the meeting.

There are several ways to generate a new meeting request. You can create a new meeting request directly from the Calendar folder, create an appointment and invite attendees, or create a new meeting request from a contact item.

Creating a meeting request from a contact item is discussed in "Appointments or Scheduling Meetings with a Contact," p. 228.


Creating a Meeting from the Calendar Information Viewer

To create a meeting from the Calendar, right-click the appointment area and select New Meeting Request or use the drop-down menu next to the New button on the toolbar and select Meeting Request. A new meeting request form is displayed as shown in Figure 13.3.

Figure 13.3. A new meeting request form enables you to invite people to your meeting.

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Inviting People to Your Meeting

To invite individuals to your meeting, click the To button to display the Select Attendees and Resources dialog box, shown in Figure 13.4. This box defaults to your primary address list. For Exchange users, this is usually the Global Address List. Select the attendees you want to invite to your meeting. There are three categories of recipients for a meeting request:

  • Required Attendees Those individuals who must attend the meeting.

  • Optional Attendees Those individuals who don't need to attend the meeting, but should be notified of the meeting.

  • Resources Objects such as conference rooms, projectors, and white boards. Resources must be added as valid recipients on the Exchange Server to be available in meeting requests.

Figure 13.4. Choose required attendees, optional attendees, and resources.

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Select your recipients and click the appropriate button to add them to Required Attendees, Optional Attendees, or Resources. When you're done adding recipients, click OK to return to your meeting request.

TIP

You can also invite people to your meeting directly from the Scheduling tab by entering their names on any blank line of the Attendee section of the tab, as shown in the next section.


Enter additional information such as a start time and end time, location, subject, and any notes, files, or images associated with the meeting. You can give your meeting a label, associate contacts and categories with the meeting, and set a reminder for the meeting.

Planning a Meeting Around the Attendees' Commitments

After you've added your meeting participants, it's a good idea to check whether these participants are free during your proposed meeting time. To view the schedules of your attendees, click the Scheduling tab to display Figure 13.5.

Figure 13.5. The Scheduling tab enables you to see whether your attendees are free during your proposed meeting time.

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NOTE

You'll notice that one of the attendees doesn't have any scheduling information displayed. There are a couple of reasons for this. He might not have an account on your Exchange Server or have his information listed on an Internet Free/Busy Server. However, if that's not the case, he might have corrupted free/busy information. In that case, starting Outlook with the /cleanfreebusy switch will usually solve the problem.


The Scheduling tab enables you to see the calendar information of those users who have published their free/busy information on a server you can access. Unless they've given you permission to share their calendar through Exchange Server permissions, you won't see any details of their appointments, meetings, or events, but you will see the free/busy status. In Figure 13.5, Sally is busy during the part of the proposed meeting time. Therefore, Sally probably won't be available for this meeting. You should choose a time when all your required attendees, and as many of your optional attendees as possible, are available.

Outlook can find a suitable time for you. Simply click the AutoPick Next button and Outlook will find the next time during your working hours that all attendees and at least one resource are available. If you want Outlook to pick the next previous time that all attendees and at least one resource are available, click the button.

To configure AutoPick options, click the Options button above the AutoPick button and select AutoPick. There are four separate options to choose from. You can configure AutoPick to select the next time All People and Resources are available, All People and One Resource are available, Required People are available, or Required People and One Resource are available. If you want to choose a new time yourself, simply change the meeting start and end time using the drop-down calendars and time lists or use the scrollbars on the attendee availability viewer to find the next available time for all attendees. Click the available time in the attendee availability viewer to select an available 30-minute block of time.

On the attendee availability viewer, the green bar represents the start of the appointment and the red bar represents the end of the appointment. To change the duration of the appointment in the attendee availability viewer, use your mouse to drag these bars left or right.

Notifying Invitees

When you've selected an appropriate time for your meeting, click Send to send your meeting request. Recipients will receive the meeting request in their inbox, as shown in Figure 13.6. They can open the meeting request or act on it directly from the Reading Pane. Both options result in the same actions.

Figure 13.6. You can act on a meeting request directly from the Reading Pane.

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You have four different options to respond to a meeting request. You can accept the request, decline the request, reply with a tentative status, or propose a new time for the meeting request directly from the Reading Pane.

If you can't attend the meeting at its currently scheduled time (perhaps because you forgot to update your calendar), you can propose a new time for the meeting. Click Propose New Time to display Figure 13.7.

Figure 13.7. You can propose a new time for any meeting request you receive.

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Use the Attendee Availability area to choose a new time for your meeting. The Propose New Time dialog box shows the current meeting time in yellow and enables you to have Outlook automatically pick a new time or choose a new time manually. When you're done choosing a new time, click the Propose Time button to display Figure 13.8.

Figure 13.8. Proposing a new time displays a meeting response form with the original time and proposed time displayed.

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Enter any notes, such as the reason for proposing a new time, and click Send. The originator of the meeting will receive the proposal in her inbox. She must open the proposal to act on it. The originator can either accept the proposal or view all proposals to display Figure 13.9.

Figure 13.9. Viewing all proposals displays the original meeting time and any proposed changes from meeting recipients.

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Select the final time for the meeting and click Send Update to update all attendees.

If you don't want to propose a new time, you should accept, decline, or tentatively accept the meeting request. No matter which option you choose, you'll see the dialog box in Figure 13.10.

Figure 13.10. When replying to a meeting request choose to send the response now, edit the response before sending, or don't send a response.

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Editing the response before sending enables you to enter notes in your meeting response. You might do this if you want to ask the organizer whether you need to bring anything to the meeting.

Choose one of the options shown in Figure 13.10 when acting on the meeting request.

Inviting Resources

A resource is an inanimate object that you want to schedule at your meeting. A resource can be a projector, meeting location, or any other shared object that you define. Resources must have their own accounts on the Exchange Server to be reserved via meeting requests. If a resource has been defined on the Exchange Server, however, it can act just like an attendee displaying availability information. Resource accounts are set up to automatically accept or decline meeting requests based on their availability.

To configure a resource mailbox, open Outlook using the mailbox's profile and select Tools, Options, Calendar Options, Resource Scheduling to display Figure 13.11.

Figure 13.11. You can configure a resource mailbox to automatically accept or reject meeting requests.

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Check the box marked Automatically Accept Meeting Requests and Process Cancellations to configure this account as a resource. You can also select to Automatically Decline Conflicting Meeting Requests or Automatically Decline Recurring Meeting Requests.

If you want to allow users to view the resource's availability while they're offline, use the Set Permissions button to give all users at least Read permissions to the resource calendar.

If the resource is available for the time of the scheduled meeting, you'll receive a message that the resource was successfully booked after you send the meeting request. If the resource isn't available at the desired time, you'll see the message displayed in Figure 13.12.

Figure 13.12. Outlook notifies you that the resource has already been reserved and you should find another time or choose another resource.

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Resource availability is checked before the meeting request is actually sent, so if the resource is already booked, you'll be able to change either the time or the resources associated with the meeting and send again.

Once you choose a time when the resource is available, you can send your meeting request. After the meeting request is sent, Outlook displays the message shown in Figure 13.13.

Figure 13.13. Outlook notifies you that the resource was booked successfully.

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Sending Updates to Attendees

You might occasionally need to make a change to a meeting you've organized. When you open a meeting request and enter notes, change the time, or attach files to the meeting request, you can send an update to all attendees.

Certain changes will prompt you to send an update. If you change the time or location of the meeting, Outlook will inform you that you've changed the meeting and ask you if you would like to send this updated meeting to the attendees now. If you click Yes, all attendees will receive an updated copy of the meeting in their inbox with the word Updated before the subject of the meeting. Attendees can then accept the update and commit the changes to their copy of the meeting.

NOTE

If you add notes to a meeting, you won't be prompted to send an update to all attendees. However, you can manually send an update by clicking the Send Update button.


Checking Response Status of Attendees

As the meeting organizer, you might want to check to see which attendees have responded to your meeting request. Open a meeting request that you originated and click the Tracking tab (see Figure 13.14).

Figure 13.14. Use the Tracking tab to view attendee response status.

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The Tracking tab lists all attendees and their response status. As the meeting organizer, you don't need to actually respond to a meeting request, so your status always shows as None. If some of your recipients haven't responded to your meeting request, you can send them an updated meeting request in the hope that seeing the request in their inbox will prompt them to send their responses.

Creating a Meeting from an Appointment

To create a meeting from an existing appointment, open the appointment and click Invite Attendees. The appointment form changes into a meeting request form. An additional line for recipient information is added to the appointment form to enable you to select the individuals to invite to your meeting.



Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
ISBN: 0789729563
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 426

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