How to Schedule a Meeting with Outlook
Note: The look of the screen shots may vary slightly from what you have depending on the version of Outlook you’re using, but the instructions remain the same.
1. Open Outlook.
2. Click on the Calendar icon in the lower left-hand corner of the window.
3. Double check that you are viewing your own calendar, and then click New Meeting in the top ribbon bar.
4. A new window will open, and you can name the meeting in the Title section, and then add all those who you wish to have in the meeting in the Required section towards the top. If there are any other people that are optional to join the meeting, you may add them in the optional section.
5. Once you have all the people added that you want to include in the meeting, you can click on the Scheduling Assistant tab at the top of the ribbon.
6. The Scheduling Assistant will help you view all your participant's calendars as well as conference room availability so that you can pick the best time when everyone is available to meet. To add a room once in the Scheduling Assistant, click Add Rooms at the top of the window.
7. A new window will pop up with a list of all the rooms that you could book. To select a room, highlight the room you want, then click the Rooms button in the bottom left-hand corner. If you wish to check multiple room availabilities, simply highlight another room and press the Rooms button again to add it to your list. After you have all the rooms you wish to view, select the OK button.
8. Once your rooms are selected, you will then be able to compare all the openings for the participants and the rooms to find a time to meet.
9. You can select only certain people or rooms that you wish to view by checking or unchecking the boxes on the left hand side of the calendar. There is also a bar at the top of the calendar that gives a quick view into when there are openings for everyone as it shows when someone is Busy, Tentative, or Out of Office. The key for what each of the patterns means is located at the bottom of the Outlook window.
10. You can navigate to a certain day by using the calendar at the top of the page above the calendar, and you can also change the duration of the meeting there as well.
11. After you have the perfect time for the meeting with the rooms and participants all available, you can send the meeting by pressing the Send button on the upper left-hand side. Make sure that you only have one room selected if you added multiple to see their availability, otherwise if you have both checked, you will book both rooms.
12. Once sending the meeting, you will then get an email from the conference room saying that it was either accepted or declined. If it was declined, that will NOT cancel your meeting, it only means that you do not have a room. If you picked a time when the room was available, you will get an email saying that the room accepted the meeting, as shown below.
