Good news! We've heard your feedback here on Tech Community as well as UserVoice that you really just want to: Put something on a shared group calendar Pick whomever you want to invite, which may not be the group itself. Over the next few days, you will have more options when managing your group calendar: Just invite anyone you want. If you want to invite the entire group, simply add the group to the attendees list. This change gives a lot more flexibility to the group calendar surface: Invite no one: this is good for putting milestones on the calendar as a visual reminder that it's coming up. If you want to add a copy of it to your own personal calendar, you can "Add to my calendar". This is also great for a vacation calendar, where you can create a ? vacation ? event on the group calendar. "Brownbag-style events": A lunchtime learning session is typically not mandatory for attendees, but is required for the organizer and the presenter. Now, you can create an event on the group calendar and add specific individuals without adding the group itself to the attendees list. This way, those individuals will get an invite from the group, and group members can freely add the event to their calendars. This is also good if you want your vacation time on the group calendar, as well as your manager's calendar. Invite the group and anyone else: For group meetings where you'd like everyone in the group to attend and edit, this is best. This is particularly handy for recurring meetings that take place over the course of many months where the a single organizer may not be around for its entire desired lifetime (i.e., if someone goes on vacation or leaves the team). Across Outlook, not much is changing: In Outlook for Windows, removing the group from a group meeting will now, in fact, actually not sent the group an invitation. In the new Outlook on the web, we've updated the tooltips to match the functionality. In the classic Outlook on the web, we won't be supporting this update. In Outlook for iOS and Android, group calendaring is coming soon. 😉 Try it out, and let us know what you think! Cheers, Ethan

Ethan Li, our users are experiencing the same issues as cbarroso described in this reply.A meeting is being planned in an Office Groups calendar using the desktop client and the group is explicitly not invited (removal of the group as organizer). The group members don't receive the initial invitation mail, but all members of the Office Group receive mails for updates of changes .When a meeting with a limited number of invitees is created in an Office Groups calendar via https://outlook.office.com/ only invited users receive updates, as expected.P.S. why did you stop replying to this post? Multiple people have indicated that this is an issue.

Ethan Li This is great progress. However, you don't mention Microsoft Teams in the post. One of the significant use cases for this is meetings scheduled within a Teams Channel where only a sub-set of the overall team need to be invited. This is especially important as Groups based within Teams are not visible within Outlook! Is this on the road map?

Hello Ethan Li , I tried doing exactly the instructions. I created an event in the group calendar --> removed group calendar name and added myself as the 'main' invitee. Then I checked out the group calendar view of each member and I do not see the event i created. However, when I checked my own group calendar view, I can see the event. I tried creating a second event without inviting anyone and everyone can see the event. This makes the group calendar inconsistent since we are viewing the same group calendar with an event on my view and without an event on other members' view. Please let me know if I am doing something wrong in setting up an event. As most of us have mentioned, the purpose of limiting notifications to the group is really for the following: (1) so that the group calendar event is actually created for everyone to see and be aware of (2) so that the specific person who should be notified of the event is sent an alert; (3) so that the rest of the group members who are just part of the 'FYI' do not need to be spammed with alerts. Hope to hear a solution from you. Thanks and regards. Marissa

Ethan Li I seem to be having the same issue as one of the users above. Outlook for Windows... when creating a NEW meeting, only those invited get the notification. But, when UPDATING that meeting, the group itself gets notified/invited. :-(

Ethan Li I am having the same problem cbarroso stated. On the group calendar, I make an event, delete the group name from the invite list, add a few people, send.When I open the invite again, it shows the group as the organizer under scheduling assistant, and the entire group has received the invite on their personal calendars. I'm not seeing a solution - has this been solved? I essentially would like everyone to have visibility to the group calendar, and to specifically add it to certain people's personal calendars.

Ethan Li

Microsoft

May 02, 2019

Invite who you want in group calendars

Good news!

We've heard your feedback here on Tech Community as well as UserVoice that you really just want to:

Put something on a shared group calendar
Pick whomever you want to invite, which may not be the group itself.

Over the next few days, you will have more options when managing your group calendar: Just invite anyone you want. If you want to invite the entire group, simply add the group to the attendees list.

This change gives a lot more flexibility to the group calendar surface:

Invite no one: this is good for putting milestones on the calendar as a visual reminder that it's coming up. If you want to add a copy of it to your own personal calendar, you can "Add to my calendar". This is also great for a vacation calendar, where you can create a ? vacation ? event on the group calendar.
"Brownbag-style events": A lunchtime learning session is typically not mandatory for attendees, but is required for the organizer and the presenter. Now, you can create an event on the group calendar and add specific individuals without adding the group itself to the attendees list. This way, those individuals will get an invite from the group, and group members can freely add the event to their calendars. This is also good if you want your vacation time on the group calendar, as well as your manager's calendar.
Invite the group and anyone else: For group meetings where you'd like everyone in the group to attend and edit, this is best. This is particularly handy for recurring meetings that take place over the course of many months where the a single organizer may not be around for its entire desired lifetime (i.e., if someone goes on vacation or leaves the team).

Across Outlook, not much is changing:

In Outlook for Windows, removing the group from a group meeting will now, in fact, actually not sent the group an invitation.
In the new Outlook on the web, we've updated the tooltips to match the functionality.
In the classic Outlook on the web, we won't be supporting this update.
In Outlook for iOS and Android, group calendaring is coming soon. 😉

Try it out, and let us know what you think!

Cheers,

Ethan

Calendar

Office 365 Groups

53 Replies

Oz Oscroft
Iron Contributor
May 21, 2019
Thanks Ethan Li - this is the missing functionality that we've been waiting for before showing users what they can do with Group calendars. Following a little testing, we're still slightly confused as to who gets invites to Group meetings and when. Could you clarify please:
If you don't click on 'Invite members' or 'invite attendees', the appointment will not appear in anyone's personal calendar.
If you add individuals to the 'invite attendees' field they get an invite and it appears in their personal calendar as well as the Group one.
If you click 'Invite members', only some members of the Group have been receiving the invite / the appointment appearing in their personal calendar. Does this depend on whether they 'Follow' that Group or have notifications turned on? This is the only thing we can think of.
When using Outlook client, you can expand the Group name to show all individuals so that may be a workaround if you wish all Group Members to receive an invite.
When using Outlook online you can't expand the Group to individuals so is there any way around that?
What happens when people are added to or leave the Group - do the invites get updated automatically?
Really hope you can clarify as this sounds like exactly what we want, but we need to properly understand it and train our users before rolling it out in anger.
Thanks again, Oz
- marissambp
  Copper Contributor
  Jun 06, 2019
  Hello Ethan Li ,
  
  I tried doing exactly the instructions. I created an event in the group calendar --> removed group calendar name and added myself as the 'main' invitee. Then I checked out the group calendar view of each member and I do not see the event i created. However, when I checked my own group calendar view, I can see the event. I tried creating a second event without inviting anyone and everyone can see the event. This makes the group calendar inconsistent since we are viewing the same group calendar with an event on my view and without an event on other members' view.
  
  Please let me know if I am doing something wrong in setting up an event.
  
  As most of us have mentioned, the purpose of limiting notifications to the group is really for the following: (1) so that the group calendar event is actually created for everyone to see and be aware of (2) so that the specific person who should be notified of the event is sent an alert; (3) so that the rest of the group members who are just part of the 'FYI' do not need to be spammed with alerts.
  
  Hope to hear a solution from you.
  
  Thanks and regards.
  
  Marissa
  - cbarroso
    Brass Contributor
    Jun 12, 2019
    Ethan Li , One user of my company report me the same problem, sometimes he create an event group, no one get the invitation and the event is visible in the group calendar just to himself, the other people in this group cannot see it (in the group calendar). :(
    
    EDIT: When I create an event group, at first I am the organizer of the event, after few seconds the Group become the organizer. But sometimes the group doesnt become the organizer and in this case no one receive the invitation and the event is visible (in the group calendar) only by me.
    /!\ Seems that event in that case disapear after few days, we just lost some important data... This functionality seems really bugged, shouldnt been released in this state.
- Ethan Li
  Microsoft
  May 21, 2019
  Oz Oscroft Points 1-3 are all correct. That being said, for (3), when you "stop following", the default is that you'd still get meeting invitations, just not conversations. You'd really have to try hard to turn off meeting invitations as well.
  
  On 4, whoever received an invitation/in their calendar will still have the invitation, even if they leave the group. There shouldn't be any changes with this update in this regard.
  
  Gilles Couzin: Hmm--this shouldn't be happening. Let me follow up with our engineers.
  - Ethan Li
    Microsoft
    May 24, 2019
    Gilles Couzin: Thanks for the report! We've found an issue and have since made a fix that's rolling out in the coming days.
Shane Gill
Copper Contributor
May 08, 2019
Ethan Li Hi Ethan, this sounds like great news and will be a welcomed change. Is it supposed to be working now? If so, it is not for us. I have tried the web version of Outlook with the new layout. When I create a new appointment it actually says "An invitation will not be sent to group members unless you invite them" Yet the group is automatically added and each person in the group gets a copy of the invitation on their calendar. These are Teams Groups if that is helpful.
- klineberry
  Copper Contributor
  Aug 16, 2019
  Shane Gill We have the same problem. Our Support Staff Team is trying to use the group calendar to track vacation days, when someone is covering for someone else, out of office notices etc...
  
  What we want to do is to put my doctors appointment on my personal calendar and "invite" the support group calendar so it posts for everyone to see WITHOUT sending the entire group an email.
  - Paul Mitchell
    Brass Contributor
    Oct 18, 2019
    That's exactly what we want klineberry
    I assume the current situation is that its just not possible?
- Ethan Li
  Microsoft
  May 09, 2019
  Shane Gill Let me follow up with you offline so we can help troubleshoot.
  - adam deltinger
    MVP
    May 09, 2019
    Ethan Li , Will members get Mail when doing a meeting update! Can’t seem to get this to work
philmaynard_wap
Iron Contributor
May 08, 2019
Ethan Li This is great progress. However, you don't mention Microsoft Teams in the post. One of the significant use cases for this is meetings scheduled within a Teams Channel where only a sub-set of the overall team need to be invited. This is especially important as Groups based within Teams are not visible within Outlook! Is this on the road map?
raschimmel
Copper Contributor
May 06, 2019
Ethan LiHi Ethan, my company is very new to 365. I am the admin, and have been asked to manage a company calendar showing scheduled vacation days. I set up a group calendar. Is there any way I can send out an email as an announcement, not as an invite, each time I add a new entry to the calendar? I just need to email a notice to each member; I do not need a reply.
Thanks for any insights. -Rob Schimmel
cistern4
Copper Contributor
May 03, 2019
Ethan Li Still not working...

I went to a outlook.office.com, then to a group calendar. When I try to invite just one person I can add them, but Send a meeting invitation to group members is still checked and I cannot un-check it.

Am I mis-understanding something?
- Ethan Li
  Microsoft
  May 03, 2019
  cistern4, that's the classic Outlook on the web. You'll need to toggle to "Try the new Outlook" to invite select attendees.
  - cistern4
    Copper Contributor
    May 03, 2019
    So this is not rolled out for the Outlook desktop client? Only the "new" web client?
Daniel Carp
Brass Contributor
May 03, 2019
Ethan LiThis is great news - thank you! When choosing to intentionally invite the group and others, is it possible to track responses? This would be a huge functionality improvement over the old public folder calendars.
- Ethan Li
  Microsoft
  May 03, 2019
  Daniel Carp while accept/tentative/declines are not sent to anyone, responses (including Add to my calendar) are saved to calendar item on the group event. Open the event on the group calendar (not your own personal copy) and you will see the accept/tentative/decline responses.
  - cppriest
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 25, 2022
    Ethan Li: We have clients that often include customized text in their calendar responses. Is it possible to see those custom responses somewhere? This is critical, otherwise using the group calendar will not work for us.

Forum Discussion

Invite who you want in group calendars

53 Replies

Resources