PURPOSE

In Microsoft Outlook you can use the Room Finder feature in the Scheduling Assistant to find the available rooms and check for any possible conflict with the availability of the attendees.



Scheduling Assistant

  • From you Outlook program:
  • Select New Items > Meeting
    • or in your Calendar: Select New Meeting
    • or you also can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Q to create a new meeting request
  • In the Title field, enter a description of the meeting or event
  • Add attendees to the Required or Optional field
  • Add Room by clicking on the Location box (Note: The selected Room will be added to the Required field)

  • Select Scheduling Assistant from the top Ribbon

  • You will see a row for every recipient you entered in the Required or To box
  • If you want to add more attendees, you can type their name in any blank row in the Scheduling Assistant.
    • Times that your attendees are busy are shown in Dark Blue
    • Times that your attendees have a tentative appointment are shown in a Light Blue hashed block
    • Times outside of your attendees' working hours are shown in Light Gray
  • Select an available time for all your attendees
  • When you're done setting up your meeting, click Send


Room Finder

  • To select an optimal time for all your attendees, use the Room Finder in the right column
  • You can see what times your attendees have conflicts
  • The Suggested Times pane locates the best time for your meeting, which is defined as the time when most attendees are available
  • The best meeting time appears at the top of the pane
  • To select any one of the suggested times, click the time suggestion in the Suggested Times pane. You can also manually select a time on the free/busy grid

  • When you're done setting up your meeting, click Send



Recurrence

  • If you want to make the meeting recur, on the Meeting menu, in the Options group, click Recurrence, select the recurrence pattern, and then click OK
    • When you add a recurrence pattern to a meeting request, the Meeting menu changes to Meeting Series
  • When you're done setting up your meeting, click Send



How to see a Room Calendar in Outlook


In Outlook click the Calendar icon at the bottom-left of the folder tree

  1. Right-click on Other Calendars
  2. Then go to +Add Calendar
  3. Click on From Room List...


Here you will see a list of all available Room Calendars for SIHC, Inc. Double-click on the calendar to add to your Outlook tree and press OK.

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