Choosing a
Time/Sending the Request
The currently selected meeting time is shown as a white bar on the
grid (See previous graphic). Your goal is for this bar to remain white -- this indicates that no
one is busy during the planned meeting time. Any person who is busy or out
of the office will show a color on the white bar according to the color key
below the grid. The striped "No Information" indicator
shows for those who are not using your Outlook server. This would include
those who are not with your company. However, if those who are not with
your company are using Outlook, they should still receive a meeting invitation
and be able to respond, but you will not be able to see ahead of time if they
are available for the meeting.
1. Find a time when all or most of your attendees are available.
With the Options button, you can
choose to show only the working hours on the grid, show it zoomed out to see
more on the grid, and/or update the free and busy times shown for the attendees
to include any recent changes in their calendars since you started planning your
meeting.
You can pick your own time for the meeting using the drop-down arrows for date
and time, or have Outlook find the next available time when people can attend by
using AutoPick.
Use the back pointing arrows next to the AutoPick button to select a time
previous to what is currently shown for the meeting start and end times, or the
forward pointing arrows to select a time after the start and end times currently
shown. AutoPick also has some options:
For example,
you can choose to have AutoPick select a date and time when only the
required people will be able to attend. This is very helpful when you are
scheduling a meeting and a good time is difficult to find. The default
setting is to find a time when all people can attend and at least one of your
resources is available.
2. Once you have selected all of the attendees/resources and an appropriate
meeting time, choose the Make Meeting button.
3. The Untitled - Meeting window is displayed as shown below. Type
a Subject for the email and any pertinent details in the message area.
4. Choose the Send button to send the email request to the attendees.
Keep going!
