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Help and Support

Creating a Meeting in Outlook 2010


This tutorial teaches you how to create a meeting. 

 

 

 


Meetings vs. Appointments


Meetings and appointments are similar in the fact that they take up time in the calendar by default.  The difference is however, that meetings are not just for yourself.  A meeting is basically an appointment, but with attendees other than yourself.  Meeting requests and responses are handled through email, whereas there is no email associated with appointments. Additionally, the location of an appointment is strictly informal, whereas for a meeting, the location can be tied to an existing resource (room).

 


Creating a Meeting Without Resources

 

  1. Ensure Calendar is selected from the Navigation Pane
    • On the Home tab, in New grouping, click New Meeting
    this image shows you how to create a new meeting

    2. NOTE: If you select an area in your calendar before hitting new meeting, the corresponding start and end times will be defaulted. You can also double-click anywhere in your calendar to create an appointment, and then use the Invite Attendees button to change the appointment into a meeting.

     

  2. The Untitled Meeting window will appear
    • Enter or search for the email address of the person(s) you wish to invite, just as you would when composing an email
    • Enter a Subject (title) for the meeting
    • (Optional) Enter the Location of the meeting
    • Select or append the Start and End times
    • (Optional) Enter any details for the meeting
    • Click Send
    this image shows you the options to customize when creating a new meeting


Meetings With Resources


Similar to a person, rooms and other resources in Exchange are "invited" to meetings; this is done by adding them as you would add a person in the To … field. Outlook will recognize the resource as a Room and fill in the location accordingly.  Rooms are listed in the GAL just like people. The MOST IMPORTANT thing about booking a room is to ALWAYS invite the room FIRST, if you do not know whether you have rights to book it. The room will accept or decline your meeting (just like a person) based on its availability and whether or not you have permission to book it. If you invited people at the same time, and the room declined, you would need to find a new room and email all the invitees this update. Invitees do not see updates to a meeting until you email them.

 


Using the Room Finder


Room Finder presents you with listings of rooms organized into departments and groups. By default, it is enabled, but if you do not see it, you can enable it from the Options grouping in the Home tab. The button appears highlighted when it is enabled.

 

  1. To open the Room Finder ensure you are in a meeting window
    • Click the Room Finder button in the Options grouping on the ribbon (may already be clicked by default)
    this image shows the room finder button in the ribbon
  2. The Room Finder will appear on the side. The following lists the features of the room finder:
this image shows the various features of the room finder
  1. Monthly Calendar

    2.  

  2. Availability indicators – in this example, June 6 has “fair” availability, whereas other dates are “good.”

    3.  

  3. Room list drop down box – use this to select the group/department rooms you’d like to view.

    4.  

  4. Available Rooms -You can select a room from this list.

    5.  

    NOTE: Available Rooms shows rooms that are available at the time currently selected for your meeting, and does not show all rooms in the room list selected. Also, it does not indicate that you have permission to book the resource.

     

  5. Suggested times – this section will look at all of invitees’ and room’s availabilities and suggest free times. These times are based on the length of the meeting you’ve set. In this case, the meeting duration was set for 30 minutes, so Suggested times is showing free 30 minute intervals in everyone’s schedule.

    6.  

    NOTE: This section does not take into account whether or not you have permission to book a room, hence why you should always invite the room first if you do not know.


Availability and the Scheduling Assistant


When booking a group of people and/or a room, it is very handy to be able to overlay the schedules and determine a free time. Scheduling Assistant allows you to do this. Switch to Scheduling Assistant view by clicking the Scheduling Assistant button in the Show grouping on the Home tab. Here, you can see when the attendees are free or busy. The top row shows the collective schedule of all the attendees.

 

  1. Scheduling Assistant view – toggle between the Scheduling Assistant and Appointment view by clicking one button or the other.
  2. Invited attendees, including rooms
  3. Current selection for meeting time – can be changed by clicking and dragging.
  4. Combined availability of all attendees
  5. Add another attendee (or resource) from this box.
  6. Use the scroll bar and arrows to step through days.
  7. Availability legend, explaining the colours in Scheduling Assistant

    8. this image shows the features of the scheduling assistant


Changing a Meeting


Whether updating the description, room or subject, modifying a meeting requires you to send an update to your invitees at some point. You can choose to update a meeting and not email the update to the invitees, but they will not see your updates until you email them. (Invitees will not be required to re-accept a meeting after you make a change, unless the time or location is changed.) If the change you make is to add or remove attendees, you can choose to send the update to only these people (You will be prompted for a choice).

 

  1. To edit a meeting, double click it in your calendar
    • Make the required changes
    • Click Send Update
    • If you wish to Cancel a meeting, choose Cancel Meeting from the Actions grouping.
    this image shows you the buttons for sending an update and cancelling a meeting

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