How to use the Scheduling Assistant to view Person Availability
If you want to view someone's availability for a meeting or to check if they are busy before stopping by their desk, you can use the Scheduling Assistant from Outlook.
1. Open the Outlook app.
2. Navigate to the Calendar icon at the bottom left hand side of the window.
3. Select the New Meeting button in the top ribbon.
4. Then find the tab titled Scheduling Assistant and click it.
5. There are two ways that you can add someone to then view their calendar. The first way is on the right hand side of the screen, where there will be options to Add optional attendee and Add required attendee underneath your name. Click into one of those options (if you are simply viewing their availability, it does not matter which one you choose) and start typing the name of the person you want to add and select them. You can add as many or as little people as you want to view, and their calendars will then be visible to the right of their names in a row. Note: The top row also offers a quick glance of when there are available times to book and there is a key for what each of the patterns mean at the bottom of the window.
6. The second way to look someone up would be by selecting the button to Add Attendees in the top ribbon.
7. Then you can search for the person that you want to add using the search bar at the top of the new window.
8. Once you find the person, select them by clicking on them, and then click the Required button or Optional button to add them. You can add more people by repeating this process.
9. After adding all the people you want, click OK.
10. This will then add everyone to the right hand side bar and you can uncheck those who you do not want to view there.
11. Once you have all the people you wanted to look up added, you can view their schedule and see when they are available. You can also change the date and time in the middle of the screen to check their availability on a specific day.
12. If all you wanted to do was view their availability, you are done! If you want to then schedule a meeting, you can add rooms, see their availability, and then you can send the invitation once you have found a common time.
