Best Practices for Working with Calendars and Meetings
- Fung, Odette A
- Former user (Deleted)
- Grosshandler, Mike
Following these guidelines and best-practices to help be sure that your meetings will work properly and everyone involved will be in sync.
Preferred Apps
The latest versions of Microsoft Outlook (Windows or Mac), Outlook on the web, and the Outlook mobile app (Android, iPhone or iPad) are the recommended apps.
On Windows, the "New Outlook" is not recommended at this time as some functionality is still missing.
If you use a mobile device to manage your calendar, use the Outlook mobile app (instead of the native mail and calendar apps) to accept/decline meeting requests.
Meeting Invitees
A calendar meeting is not a single item that all invitees are viewing. The meeting organizer has their own copy, and invitees get their own copies via the meeting invitation email.
Act on invitations as you receive them (Accept, Accept as Tentative, or Decline). Do not just delete meeting requests even if you plan to not attend. This ensures your copy of the meeting entry matches everyone else’s.
When meetings are canceled, click "Remove from calendar" in the cancellation email to ensure the event is removed from your calendar.
Don’t copy/paste meeting events. This is especially susceptible to corruption and causing problems. If you need to duplicate an event, create a new one from scratch, and then copy/paste the contents from the original.
Do not forward meeting requests to other recipients. Forwarding invitations does not add the new recipients to the attendee list, and any updates will not be sent to new attendees. Instead, ask the meeting organizer to add the new attendees and send an update to the original meeting.
Recurring Meetings
Always schedule end dates for recurring meetings
Set the range of recurrence to end no more than 6 to 12 months out for monthly recurring meetings. Long recurring meetings or those set with "No end date" tend to become corrupt over time, leading to unpredictable behavior.
If you have a weekly recurring meeting or make frequent updates to the meeting, we recommend creating even shorter recurring meetings (e.g., 4 weeks at a time).
To change an existing series of meetings, edit the recurring series and change the end date of the series to the current date. This will delete all future occurrences but keep the past meetings for historical purposes.
Schedule a maximum of 25 occurrences for recurring meetings or even fewer if frequently edited or changed.
Avoid frequent changes. Recurring meetings can become corrupted if they are modified too many times.
If you have a meeting series that requires many changes, like multiple location changes, cancel the series for everyone and create individual meetings instead or shorten the recurrence period to 1-3 months instead.
Changes made to an instance of a recurring meeting series create exceptions that are stored in the series. Every change to the meeting - the subject, body, location, or time - creates a corresponding exception. Over time, these exceptions grow the size of the recurring meeting and can lead to corruption and unpredictable behaviors.
You can mitigate this by setting an end date or maximum recurrence count. Then, create a new recurring meeting instead of extending the existing recurrence per this Microsoft article.
Attachments are not recommended for recurring meetings. Share files as a link to content in OneDrive or Teams instead of attaching them in the meeting itself. Each exception to a recurring meeting contains its own copy of the attachments.
Calendar problems are infrequent, but mobile devices are often the source of such problems.
If using a mobile device to schedule and accept meeting invitations, only use the Outlook mobile app to avoid issues.
Update your device’s software when prompted so that recent fixes may be applied.
Delegates
Microsoft recommends limiting the number of delegates to one or two people.
Why limit the number of delegates?
Track meeting processing - it's easier to track when and how a meeting was processed if only one delegate has Editor permissions.
Avoid conflicts - assigning Editor permissions to more than one delegate can cause conflicts and slow down your calendar.
Avoid confusion - if more than one delegate receives meeting requests, it can be confusing who should process them.
If more than one user must have access to your mailbox, consider whether these users need to be delegates or if you can assign Reviewer/Editor permissions instead. See What is the difference between sharing and delegate access? for more information.
If you do have multiple delegates manage your calendar, agree on which one will consistently accept and decline appointment invitations and updates. All others should ignore (e.g., do not process, delete, move, etc.) meeting requests for the mailbox if they receive them.
There will be times when someone else needs to accept/decline the meetings, but generally try to limit multiple people doing it at once.
Mailbox owners and any delegates should all use the same platform (Windows or Mac) and the same version of Outlook.
It is recommended to use the default or simplified permissions levels (can edit, can view titles and locations, etc.) rather than customizing permissions for delegates. Custom permission levels are not supported in new model sharing and can lead to unexpected results.
If you are managing another user’s calendar, it is recommended that mobile devices only be used for viewing that calendar. Mobile devices tend to cause the most issues with appointments becoming corrupt, missing, or out of sync.
Delegates should be running Outlook in Cached Exchange Mode for optimum performance.
Creating and Editing Meetings
If you cancel or delete a meeting, ALWAYS Send Update to EVERYONE if given the choice.
If you cancel or delete a meeting, but you do not send the update, the meeting is only removed from your calendar. If you are the organizer, no one is notified that you are canceling the meeting. If you are an attendee, no one is notified that you are not attending.
If you didn't organize the meeting, don't modify your calendar item.
Don't put personal notes in the body of a meeting item in the calendar. If you are an attendee of this meeting, your notes will be lost if a meeting update is received. If you are the organizer, your personal notes will be sent to everyone on the attendee list. Consider storing your notes in OneNote instead.
Do not invite a LISTSERV list to the meeting.
You may not always know who is subscribed to the list and tracking information of responses isn't reliable. The list members also all end up as Optional Attendees.
You can’t change the meeting organizer.
Outlook doesn’t allow you to change the meeting organizer. The original meeting must be cancelled by the original organizer and re-scheduled by the new organizer.
Do not copy meetings.
Recent versions of Outlook (version 2311 and higher) no longer support copying meetings.
Use the Scheduling Assistant tab while creating a meeting to find an available time for a meeting, instead of opening the calendar for each person and resource that needs to be invited separately. This allows you to enter the attendees and possible resources so you can see the availability of all of them at once.
If selecting a physical room or resource for your meeting, invite the room/resource 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 room/resource to confirm that it has been accepted.