Accept & Do Not Send a Response

Yes and yes to both questions. I think that if the organizer does not request responses is mainly because she doesn't want a bunch of incoming emails, but updates to the tracking list don't bother.

1. YES!!

2. YES!! - Avoid emails please. Give us one button and depending on the organizers setup an email will be avoided or sent.

I just received seven invitations from my Project Manager with 10 participants at each occasion. She now will receive 70 emails just because we want her to know we are coming. I also can't just click accept. I need to click twice on each invitation.

Please read this thread for more input and some takes on how absurd the present option (to hide from the organizer that you are coming) is: https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/322590-outlook-2016-for-windows/suggestions/13424976-accept-do-not-send-a-response

I'm sure this would cause an issue, the point around 'Do not send a response' is that it doesnt send a response. There can be many reasons why this might be the case, for example if you were forwarded a meeting and dont want to create undue 'stress' to the meeting organiser in advance.

I think the problem here is offering too many choices by intersecting two separate functions, Accepting the meeting request and communicating with the organiser. Would it not be simpler to have a simple Accept Button and a Reply Button next to each other. Then the choice to update the meeting organiser could be treated more like Read Receipts and become a separate user choice.

1.  Yes. The confusion the current behavior causes was so great we recently REMOVED the 'do not send a reply' option through GPO.  Although we'd like to avoid the clutter of unnecessary emails, the attendance tracking is essential.

2. Yes.  Again, attendance tracking is essential.  Even if the organizer doesn't care about attendee acceptance, the presence of the tracking data seems harmless and simply be ignored.

Hi Julia,

For 1, yes, this would be a good change. Many a time, we look at tracking status for a meeting, and we have no idea if half the attendees might attend or not.

For 2, probably yes, but only if the lack of options would only apply to full "Accept". Any tentative accept or a decline should always have the option to send a response. For example, if I have overlapping meetings, I may do a tentative acceptance on one of them, and provide feedback to indicate why I'm only tentative. Similarly, if I decline, I should have the opportunity to inform the meeting organizer of the reason as it may prove to be a reason to reschedule the meeting.

1. Yes. I & my colleagues always assumed no email was sent but the response was tracked. Irritated to find it was not because I would accuse my colleagues of not replying when they knew they had (because the tracker stated 'no response').

2. I think just an accept button is fine so long as the response is tracked - we dont need confirmation emails if we can rely on the tracker working as above! 

Yes and yes please - the current response labels do not accurately describe what's going on to the user. The default response should allow tracking but not email, then tracking with plus a user-edited email, then no response (with a clear indication the organiser will not know your response). I have been confused by the current descriptions, like many.

Nobody wants emails from all meeting attendees, this is a vestige of the past.

1) Yes to both questions.  

2) Yes - change this as well.

We have confusion within our organization, as everyone we have spoken to has expressed they have the expectations that this already works this way.

Thanks,
James

Yes and Yes.  This is an ongoing issue for our organization.