Best Practices for Working with Meeting Requests

A calendar appointment is not a single item that all invitees are viewing.  The meeting organizer has their own copy, and invitees get their copy via the meeting invitation email.

• As a meeting invitee, accept or decline every update to be sure that the copy on your calendar is up to date unless it specifies "No response required."

• As a meeting invitee, always send a response to the meeting organizer as a matter of etiquette so the organizer knows who is attending and who is not.

• As you accept changes and cancellations, your copy of the meeting entry is modified on your calendar.  As long as all of the invitees process the changes on their calendars, everyone is in sync. If someone misses or deletes a change email, then his/her copy of that appointment is now different than the other attendees.

• When meetings are canceled, be sure to click the "Remove from calendar" button in the cancellation email.

When setting up a meeting, please click on the "Scheduling Assistant" button in the Ribbon Bar to view the free/busy times for all invitees.  Choose a time slot where all the required invitees are free.  Otherwise invitees will wonder why they have been invited to a meeting when their calendar clearly shows they are already busy in that time slot.

If you setup a recurring meeting (others invited), set the range of recurrence to end within a quarter (3 months).  Long recurring meetings or those set with "No end date" tend to become corrupt over time.

Calendar problems are infrequent, but mobile devices are often the source of such problems.

• You can set up personal appointments on a mobile phone, but schedule meetings and accept meeting invitations using Outlook or OWA.

• Update your mobile phone software when prompted so that recent fixes may be applied.

Try not to give more than one delegate permission to update your calendar.

If you have a delegate manage your calendar, agree on which one of you will consistently accept and decline appointment invitations and updates.

In selecting a room for your meeting, invite the room to the meeting just as you would invite an individual.

• Check the scheduling assistant to be sure the room is available.

• Make sure you get an acknowledgment from the resource that it has been accepted.