Outlook's Meeting Requests & Group Schedules
Adding appointments to your calendar in Outlook is one of the first steps to utilizing the productivity tools in Outlook. The next logical step is to use Outlook's meeting request to schedule meetings with colleagues. This feature is one of the key features in Outlook related to increasing productivity. We'll also take a look at how to use the Group Schedules this week.
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Outlook's Meeting Requests
To create a Meeting Request, begin in the Calendar view. Click on the 
on the New Appointment Button 
. Then from the menu, select Meeting Request.
image of new item menu in Outlook
Click on "Meeting Request" or use the keystrokes - Ctrl+Shift+Q to open the "Meeting Request" dialog box.
This will open the Meeting Request dialog box.
Fill in the names of the meeting participants in the To... box, add the subject, location and a message in the text box at the bottom of the dialog box it you want further explanation of the meeting included in the meeting request. Now, to determine availability of the participants, click on the Scheduling tab. This will bring up the Availability view.
In this view you can scroll across the dates until you find a date when all participants are available. I have also added a resource, the ADM-Conference Room 107. That allows me to see when the room is available and then schedule the room as I schedule the meeting. I found a time on Tuesday, March 29 from 10:30 - 11:30 a.m. where all participants and the Conference Room 107 are available. Now I can send the meeting request to the participants.
As the recipient of a meeting request you will see a message in you Inbox that looks like this. When you open the message or preview it in the Reading Pane there will be five buttons, Accept, Tentative, Decline, Propose New Time, and Calendar. Choose the response that is appropriate.
Once you click on the button this dialog box will appear.
Choose the correct response and click on OK. When you accept or tentatively accept the meeting request Outlook will put the meeting on your Outlook calendar automatically. If for some reason you try to delete the meeting from you calendar Outlook will ask you if you want to send a note to the meeting organizer. You have the option of sending a response or not sending one.
The meeting organizer will see four different types of messages in their Inbox once meeting participants begin to respond to the Meeting Request. Here are some examples.
The meeting organizer can track how participants have responded to a meeting request by going to the calendar item and opening it. There will be a tab called Tracking. That dialog box will show how each recipient has responded or if they have not yet responded. The meeting organizer can decide if a new meeting time would be better and can reschedule the meeting by clicking on the Propose new meeting time button. This will start the scheduling process over again and will update participants calendars as they respond.
If the meeting organizer decides to cancel a meeting, that information will go out to participants when the organizer deletes the meeting from their schedule. Here is an example of a canceled meeting notice a participant will see in their Inbox.
You can also schedule meetings that recur using the Meeting Request tool. Once you have all the criteria set, click on the Recurrence button.
Follow the steps outlined in the Computing Tip of the Week from last week; "Creating Appointments and Recurring Appointments in Outlook", to create a recurring meeting request.
Group Schedules in Outlook 2003
Another useful feature in Outlook 2003 is Group Schedules. Once a group schedule is created you can look at availability for all members of the group at a glance!
Here is a short video showing the steps included in creating a group schedule and a meeting request for the new group. Here is a Word document version of the video for those who like to have a hard copy of the process,