Question: “When I plan to be out of the office, I put it on several people’s calendars by submitting a meeting request for the affected dates. Unfortunately, this causes their calendars to appear “busy” during those times, rather than just informing that I’m out. What am I doing wrong and is there a better way to do this?” — Lynn
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I would do the same as alot have requested, mark time as free but have them select as an all day appointment and make sure they deactivate the reminder which may wake you up at 3am. We don’t use Outlook anymore for schedules, SharePoint is a better option.
We set up an additional calendar in Outlook, titled the “Out of Office Calendar” that everyone can access. When someone is planning on being out of the office, he or she puts an appointment on this calendar (in addition to his or her own calendar). We can view the Out of Office Calendar and see who will be out on any particular day or week. The only issue is getting staff to remember to update this calendar!
I think it depends on how your Outlook is set up. We work with Microsoft Exchange so I can see if anyone I need to invite to a meeting is out of the office or busy when I need to organise it. As I only work three days a week, I have a recurring meeting on my calendar that shows I’m out of the office on the days that I don’t work.
If this is the same Lyn, then there is little point in setting up an invite. Andrea’s suggestion of a separate leave calendar is also an easier way to monitor who is on leave and when. Having an out of office reply on your email that just says you are not available between these dates and they can contact whoever in your absence.
Otherwise, I would do the same as everyone else has suggested – send it as a ‘Free’ invite and change the one in your calendar as well as making it an all day one.
When I add the appointment, I make it an all day meeting with the dropdown appearance as “available” so that it shows at the top of the day instead of in the middle of the calendar, which can be confusing. I also highlight it with the vacation catagory so that when I look at the calendar I know it is a vacation.
I do the same as Kelley and find that works well. I also make sure to show my calendar as out of the office, and turn on the “Out of Office Assistant” with a note stating when I’ll return and who should be contacted in my absence. This has worked quite well in my office.
I would like to add one more step to “Show Time As” free. After sending the invite, I go back into the invite and change “Show Time As” Out of Office, and hit “Save and Close” not “Send Update”. This way the availability on the calendar shows as out of office and the attendees do not receive an updated invite with OOO.
In the subject line I type: “Name: Vacation (6/30-7/9)”
When you do your meeting request, make sure the “Show Time As” says Free. The default is busy since you typically want the meeting time to be blocked on the calendar. By changing that to free, it will show on their calendar but the day will not look like it’s busy to others looking at their calender.
We created a separate calendar for non-meeting type information, such as vacations, out of the building meetings, etc. It is a separate calendar that can be viewed in the Shared Calendar/ People’s Calendars portion of Outlook. Your IT Manager can create the calendar and set it up to automatically accept invitations so it doesn’t have to be monitored regulary.
Lynn: When you are out of the office, that should be in your calendar not theirs. And if you’re going to be out all day or for several days, you should use the out of office feature.
In the 2007 version is reads, “Show As:” with a drop down box. Just select Free.
When you schedule your ‘meeting’, make sure you make it an all day event and the SHOW AS section is listed as :free time: and not ‘busy’.
I use the ‘out of office assistant’ that replies to all e-mails. And, for calendaring, under ‘actions’ choose ‘new all day event’ and these type of events only populate the top note section of the outlook calendar page. And, what Lynne is saying about setting time as ‘free’.
Put information in Subject (“Jill will be out of the office 6/25/10. Return 6/26/10”) and then check the All Day Event Box. This will put only one line for the day and will not take up space on other people’s calendars. This can be done for multiple days. Then invite attendees! Plus people don’t have to open the appointment to get info – it’s all right there.
The meeting request is good, however I just put an all day event on their calendar(s) w/my last name in the subject and then vacation or “PTO” in the location part of the form and then make sure that the “show time as” field is marked as “free” and then make sure that the alarm/reminder is also turned off. I do this for all of my VP’s direct reports when they let me know they will be out or traveling; she can see at a glance on her daily calendar who is in or out from her team.
Show the time as free and it will not show up as busy.
This is an easy fix – when you are setting up your calendar, in the middle by the reminder box is a drop down box that says, “Show time as”. When you click on the drop down, you set the time as “Free”.