"Let’s meet later this week to discuss. When are you available to discuss?"
"I can meeting Thursday from 9-10 or 3-4."
"I am busy during those times. Can you do Friday? I can meet before 11 am Friday."
"I am out of office Friday. Let’s shoot for next week. What’s your schedule like on Monday?"
"Monday isn’t great for me…"
Sound familiar? If you’re cringing right now, you’ve probably tried to schedule a meeting with someone else outside your organization with similar results. Trying to schedule a time to meet without being able to see other people’s calendars can be a hassle.
Thankfully, if you’re using Outlook, it’s actually really easy to send someone your upcoming availability without sharing your whole calendar with them. Here’s how:
When writing your email, go to the “Insert” Tab and click “Calendar”.
You’ll get this pop up:
From this screen, you can specify how much of your calendar you want to share. You can change the date range to a specific date or date range or share the whole thing.
You can also specify how much detail your recipient can see. If you only want them to see when you’re free, you can choose "Availability only." If you’re feeling a little more open about your schedule, you can send your calendar with meeting details.
If you control more than one calendar, you can also specify which calendar to send.
Here’s what your recipient will see (you can add a message before sending). This example is for one day, with availability only:
Sending your calendar availability will hopefully make scheduling meetings a little less of a pain. Unfortunately, we can’t help you too much with the NUMBER of meetings you have to attend.
