Responding to a Meeting Request

When you click Send on a meeting form, a meeting request e-mail message is sent to the invited attendees. This message allows the attendees to accept, tentatively accept, or reject the meeting invitation; propose a new time for the meeting; and include a message in the reply.

Receiving a Request for a Meeting

The attendees you’ve invited to your meeting will receive a meeting request message similar to the one shown in Figure 21-10. When an attendee clicks Calendar, a copy of his or her calendar opens, showing the meeting tentatively scheduled.

A meeting request received by an invited attendee.

Figure 21-10. A meeting request received by an invited attendee.

An invited attendee has four options when replying to a meeting request:

  • Accept the meeting outright.

  • Tentatively accept the meeting.

  • Decline the meeting.

  • Propose a new time for the meeting.

When an attendee chooses to accept, tentatively accept, or decline a meeting request, he or she is presented with three options: send the response immediately (which sends the default response), edit the response before sending (which allows the attendee to send a message with the response), or send no response.

To propose a new meeting time, the attendee can click Propose New Time. The Propose New Time dialog box that appears is essentially the same as the Scheduling page of the meeting form. From here, the attendee can select a new time for the meeting and propose it to the meeting organizer by clicking Propose Time.

Troubleshooting

You’ve lost a meeting request

When you respond to a meeting request in e-mail, the original request message is automatically deleted from your Inbox. Outlook 2007 automatically adds the meeting information to your Calendar folder when you receive the e-mail message. If you respond to the meeting request from your calendar, however, the e-mail message is not deleted from your Inbox.

If you need to retrieve any of the data in the e-mail message, check your Deleted Items folder for the meeting request itself and your Calendar folder for the meeting information.

To have Outlook 2007 keep meeting request messages in your Inbox even after you’ve responded, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Tools, Options, and then click E-Mail Options.

  2. Click Advanced E-Mail Options.

  3. Clear the Delete Meeting Request From Inbox When Responding check box.

Receiving a Response to Your Request

When an invited attendee responds to a meeting request, a message is returned to you, the meeting organizer. This message contains the response, including any message the attendee chose to include. In the meeting request response shown in Figure 21-11, the attendee has accepted the meeting and included a message. Notice that the response also lists the attendees who have accepted, tentatively accepted, and declined up to this point.

A response to a meeting request shows the acceptance status of the request and any message from the attendee.

Figure 21-11. A response to a meeting request shows the acceptance status of the request and any message from the attendee.

Figure 21-12 shows a response in which the attendee has selected the Propose A New Time option on a meeting request.

When an invited attendee proposes a new time for the meeting, the response to the meeting organizer looks like this.

Figure 21-12. When an invited attendee proposes a new time for the meeting, the response to the meeting organizer looks like this.

When you receive a response proposing a new meeting time, you have two choices:

  • Click Accept Proposal to accept the new time and open the meeting form. Verify any changes, and then click Send Update to send the new proposed time to the attendees.

  • Click View All Proposals to open the Scheduling page of the meeting form, which displays a list of all proposed new times for the meeting suggested by any of the attendees, as shown in Figure 21-13. You can select a new time from the list of proposed times and then click Send to send the new time to the meeting attendees.

You can view the meeting times proposed by all attendees.

Figure 21-13. You can view the meeting times proposed by all attendees.

Checking Attendees

After you send a meeting request, you can check which attendees have accepted or declined by opening the meeting form in the Calendar folder and clicking the form’s Tracking button in the Show group on the Meeting tab, as shown in Figure 21-14. (The Tracking button is not displayed on the initial meeting form; Outlook 2007 adds it after the meeting request has been sent.) The Tracking button shows each invited attendee and indicates whether their attendance is required or optional and the status of their response. The meeting organizer is the only person who can view the status of attendees.

Only the person who scheduled the meeting can view the status of the attendees.

Figure 21-14. Only the person who scheduled the meeting can view the status of the attendees.

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