Outlook for Windows Calendar Scheduling Assistant

The Scheduling Assistant works with Exchange accounts to help you find optimal times and locations for meetings. It analyzes when recipients and meeting resources, such as rooms, are available. As long as those you're planning on meeting with are on the same Exchange server, shared access to everyone’s calendar to use the Scheduling Assistant is unnecessary.

How to use the Scheduling Assistant: 

1. From the Home tab, select the New Items drop-down menu. Then select Meeting and go to the Scheduling Assistant in the Show tab.

2. To add new attendees: 

   • Click the Add Attendees button. In the Select Attendees and Resources dialog box, enter an attendee name individually. 

   • Another way to add new attendees is to click the box where you see the prompt: Click here to add a name. 

     Note: Attendees from the To: box will automatically appear in the All Attendees list on the left.

3. If you are using Room Mailboxes, you can click the Add Rooms button, which will display a Select Rooms dialog similar to the Select Attendees and Resources above. The room will appear in the All Attendees list with a house icon.

4. In the center window is a date/time display grid that will display schedule blocks for attendees as they are added. White spaces indicate time blocks that are available.

5. You can use point-and-click to drag the vertical meeting time bar to a new date and time, and you can resize the bar to change the meeting duration.

6. You can also use the calendar pickers in the Start time and End time boxes below to select the start and end times.

7. If you select a likely date, you can use the Suggested times feature to fine-tune your selection. You can find the Suggested times pane in the Room Finder panel on the right (be sure Room Finder is highlighted in the Options group on the Meeting tab).