Forum Discussion

Ed-at-Greyston's avatar
Ed-at-Greyston
Copper Contributor
May 01, 2020

What the best way to bring external users into a calendar invite?

Hello.

 

Every week I host a meeting for 5 people not in our organization.

Right now, I am MANUALLY typing in everyone's entire email for every meeting.

Is there a better way to do this?  

 

THINGS I TRIED:

  • Try - I looked at contacts hoping to add an external contact
    Fail - It doesn't allow external contact entry.
  • Try - I looked at channels
    Fail - That doesn't allow external contacts either.
  • Try - Tried creating the meeting with the intent of grabbing the "Join" link to send to everyone using regular Outlook. 
    Fail - I couldn't find a place to copy the meeting "Join" link.  The link only appears AFTER manually entering an external contact.
  • Try - Copied in a text file of external contacts to the "Invite" space and used different separators, (space, comma, semi-colon).
    Fail - The application would not resolve them unless entered one at a time.
  • Try - I tried creating the first meeting with all attendees and then tried to copy or move it to another date.
    Fail - There is no copy or drag feature.

Work-around...

The only thing I could do was to create the meeting as a recurring meeting.  This kept the invitees on the later occurrences.  The drawback is that the meeting is not ALWAYS the same day and time, so I will need to adjust the meeting from week to week as the meetings occur.

 

I am at a loss. The only saving grace is that my meeting is only for a handful of people.  Good grief, what if the meeting was for 20 or more people!

 

Thanks,


Ed

 

best practices
meetings
microsoft teams

2 Replies

  • Rob Ellis's avatar
    Rob Ellis
    Bronze Contributor
    May 01, 2020
    If you are using Outlook desktop app on PC or Mac, you should be able to create a meeting invite as normal in Outlook - including adding recipients via their email address (from your own contacts, or the Outlook autocomplete if they have previously been emailed by you)

    You then click the 'Teams meeting' button on the Outlook ribbon - this inserts the meeting join details into the appointment, then finally you send that invite.