Scheduling meetings with Outlook

Scheduling meetings with Outlook

Remember the old days of scheduling meetings? Depending on the number of people involved, it might have taken weeks of email back and forth, with people listing available times that were no longer available by the time you'd heard from everyone else.  Generally a big pain.  Well, Outlook can make this so much easier!

If all meeting attendees use Exchange AND if attendees actually maintain an accurate online calendar (a big "if" sometimes, depending on your group) then it's easy to see what times are available to meet.  No need to grant special access to your calendar.  Schedulers don't need to be able to see what you are doing, only if you are free or busy.  

Here are the steps for creating a meeting using Outlook and viewing free/busy times:

1. Open your Outlook calendar and choose File -> New -> Meeting Request
2. Enter names or email address of all attendees in the "to" line.  Be sure the name resolves to the correct email address.  Some folks have @email.uky.edu addresses, others use @uky.edu addresses, and others have set up a Universal Email Address.  All may work for receiving email, but not for scheduling info.  If you have trouble finding scheduling info for one style address, try another.
3. Set the date/time for an approximate meeting date.
4. Click the "Scheduling Assistant" button to view free/busy times:

Busy times show up with a purple bar, free times are open, and tentative appointments are hashed.  If you do have access to view a person's calendar details, you will see appointment details (text in the bars). Otherwise, just shaded bars to indicate free/busy times.

• Use the "Suggested Times" pane to see which time blocks are available to most attendees, or just scan the free/busy times on the grid until you find a good time.  If you use the grid, you can click on the time you want to set it for the meeting. Hover over the red end time line and click/drag to adjust the meeting duration.
• Once you've selected a time, click the "Appointment" button to get back to the message screen to add text to the meeting request and send the invitation.

Tip:  Sometimes, even if I'm not going to use Outlook to create a meeting request, I might still use this method to just see if someone is available!  Go through steps 1-5 and just look at the free/busy grid but don't actually send the meeting request.

Another Tip: If you have a meeting across campus and need travel time, you might add a "meeting buffer" to your calendar, since that is time that you are unavailable for other appointments.

Yet Another Tip:  Attendees don't use their online calendars, or some attendees are not from UK and don't have access to Exchange?  Try Doodle!  Doodle is a free web-based scheduling assistant.  Specify possible meeting times and generate an email link attendees can use to fill in their availability.  Doodle even has time-zone support, to convert to local times.

Final Tip:  If you're a UK person, please use your Outlook calendar!  You'll find it useful personally, and it's also a real time-saver for people you collaborate with.

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