Outlook - Using the Outlook Scheduling Assistant

Scheduling meetings can be a difficult task when you are dealing with multiple attendees and their availability. The Scheduling Assistant helps you find a meeting time based on attendees’ own calendar availability and can identify an available meeting location.

To avoid booking conflicts, please ensure your own calendar is always up to date.

  1. From the Inbox, select New Items > Meeting or in the Calendar, select New Meeting. You also can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Q to create a new meeting request.
  1. Add attendees in the ‘Required’ or ‘Optional’ fields.
  1. In the ‘Title’ field, enter a description of the meeting or event.

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  1. Select Scheduling Assistant from the Ribbon.

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    You'll see a row for every recipient you entered in the ‘Required’ or ‘Optional’ fields. If you want to add more attendees, you can type their name in any blank row in the Scheduling Assistant. 

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  1. Times that your attendees are busy are shown in dark blue. Times that your attendees that have a tentative appointment are shown in a light blue hashed block, and times outside of your attendees' working hours are shown in light gray. Select an available time for all your attendees.
     
  2. If your meeting is to include video conference equipment, you can use the ‘Room Finder’ feature to also book the conference room equipment. Please note that this does not book the room for you; that must be done separately. For more information about how to book video conference equipment using the ‘Room Finder’ feature, please see the document ‘Using the Scheduling Assistant Room Finder’.
     
  3. Booking a meeting room must be done as a separate task. This is done in the public folder calendars (example ‘CVC Bookings’), or if no public folder calendar exists for the room, by contacting the Registrar’s Office for academic uses, or Facilities for other uses like meetings.