Forum Discussion
MicrosoftAccept & Do Not Send a Response
Hi Calendar Community,
We'd like your feedback & reactions to a change we're considering:
Current experience:
When attendees receive a meeting invite, they are provided with 3 response options:
The first two options (Edit the response before sending & Send the response now) both send an email to the organizer, and the attendee's response is recorded in the organizer's tracking list.
The third option (Do not send a response) does not notify organizer, so the attendee's response remains as "None" in the organizer's tracking list.
What we'd like to change:
Many users report that they expect Do not send a response to be recorded in the organizer's tracking list, but just not to send an email. We are considering updating the behavior so that all 3 response options are recorded in the organizer's tracking list. Attendees can still use the Do not send a response option to avoid sending email to the organizer, but their response would now be recorded & shared with organizer.
Questions to the Community:
- Do you like this change? Does this match what you & others are expecting?
- What about when an organizer does not request responses (so there is just a simple Accept button without additional options)? Do you think the intention is to avoid email responses? In other words, would you expect this same behavior (responses are always recorded) to apply even when organizer does not request responses?
What's the status of this change to allow for tracking the response if the user selects "Accept Do Not Send a response"?
Thank you - Jack
307 Replies
Julia Foran I was shocked to find out that this how Outlook works. I echo the statements of others above that the expected behavior is that when a recipient clicks "do not send a response" it still records the response on the sender's Outlook, it just doesn't send an email.
Please fix this ASAP and provide an ETA, so I don't have to educate all of my staff to do something different to address this "flaw" only to have it corrected within a month.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/troubleshoot/meetings/meeting-tracking-tab-not-updatedIf the attendees accept the meeting and choose to not send a response, it is expected that the tracking tab is not updated with their response.Julia Foran I cannot believe that this how Outlook works. Expected behavior is that when a recipient clicks "do not send a response" it still records the response on the sender's Outlook, it just doesn't send an email. I just found out that Outlook does not do this and cannot believe this is how it works. It's a big miss in my opinion.
As for the second question, here I think if the Sender does not request responses, it means they do not care whether you are coming or not, so it's OK for the response not to be recorded.
Julia Foran clearly people only come to this thread when they find out the hard way (myself included) that the meeting invite is not updated when you select "Accept & Do Not Send a Response". It has had 62.7k visits with 163 replies which are the people that take the time to setup an account or login. This should have been fixed for Office 365 customers on a PC many months ago, especially considering we are coming up to 2 years since the issue was first identified.
- Yes, please! Everyone I know that uses "Do not send a response" thinks I will get their response anyway without an e-mail. I don't understand the use case for this feature. It is confusing and not useful.
- 1 YES, that is what I and everyone else I asked expects
2. YES The difference in behavior for users who are on Office 365 and not is maddening. This seems to address that change. I like it.
Right now, if group calendar at Org 1 sends a meeting to someone at Org2 (also on O365) and the person responds Accepts, the Org 1 meeting organizer recieves no notification at all. I'm under the impression this is by desgin. But that means a portion of the extenal invites send mail responses and those on Office 365 do not.
- Julia ForanHi Frank, yes that's by design for group mailboxes. The person who created or updated the meeting on the group mailbox does not receive email notifications. A great place to suggest changes like this would be UserVoice: outlook.uservoice.com.
From my point of view is the approach suggestion a topic which has to be redesigned in the way as proposed. To accept an invitation without an sending a response is necessary but without an acceptance in the tracking tool is a no-go and creates confusion on invitation organizer side. Best regards, JPH
- I think Microsoft have taken the easy way out and decided not to reply to anyone on this issue that is affected hundreds if not thousands of people.
- Julia ForanHi Stephen, I last updated this thread 2 months ago stating that Windows is in progress. We do not have a date when it will be released, but I do plan to update this thread as soon as it's available in Windows.
Here's a link to my September post: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Calendar/Accept-amp-Do-Not-Send-a-Response/m-p/850087/highlight/true#M387
Yes I agree with both. Didn't previous versions of Outlook do that?
Someone brought up the topic of when you would want to accept but not have your attendance registered, and that is something I used to think of when I would accept and not send the response. The idea was that I would be adding it to my calendar for awareness but would not want to be considered as acknowledging that I would be there to represent my team. (On a change control, for example). Now I just use Tentative for that. I think if the invitee's response is always going to be registered with the organizer, then Accept/Tentative/Decline is all that anyone would need and the default should be to not send an email reply.
