Introducing Scheduling poll in Outlook!

Hi Sally_Richardson AmirHaque-MSFT 

I have been looking forward to the release of the Scheduling Poll. I had a chance to test it to prepare a demonstration.

I was not a FindTime user, so I am coming with an unbiased perspective. I had mentioned what I liked about this feature's potential in my previous post in July. (I don't want to sound like a "hater" in this post.) Here are several limitations that I found with Outlook's latest feature, Scheduling Poll. 

• Delegates unable to respond on behalf of others 
• Many Admin Assistants manage calendars for executives and leaders. Now that Scheduling Poll is a core feature in Outlook, more subscribers will be using this feature. However, this missing functionality may be a deal breaker. 
• Hold Dates on My Calendar Setting
• It's great that the proposed dates are available on the Organizer's calendar. It is also imperative that the invitees hold the dates on their calendars. Some users' calendars are booked 30 to 60 days ahead, depending on the role.  By the time the organizer lands on a date, it may not be available.  It may be best to give the attendee the option to hold the dates or not. 
• Editing Voting Poll
• It was odd editing the meeting name, location, and duration from the dashboard rather than from the actual Organizer's vote page, where everything else is managed. 
• Reminder message
• I was not surprised that the Organizer could not generate a custom reminder message, but I can see users asking for it.
• Also, the reminder email goes to all attendees instead of just the non-responders. This could be a time waster for those who acted immediately.
• Anyone added after the poll is created does not get the reminder message. You must send it manually.
• Add an Attendee from the Voting Page
  • The user does not get the invite. You must send it from your email after adding them from the Voting Page first.
• Others
• The Organizer and invitees need easy access back to Outlook. I get it. The voting page and dashboard have been navigated from Outlook to accommodate external attendees, but it would be nice to get back to Outlook from these web pages via a link.
• The above functionality also explains why the Organizer and internal invitees must add the full email address on the voting page. This functionality is painful since users have never entered colleagues or teammates' email addresses. I am still determining how your developers will work their magic with this request, but it is on my wish list.
• This not a limitation but can you give a real-life work example when to use "Require attendee to verify identity.  I was drawing a blank. Is it targeted to internal and external attendees?
• One more. I would love the option to have the Scheduling Poll icon in the top navigation for easy access to navigate to the dashboard.

Still, I plan to use Scheduling Poll. It will save time in coordinating meetings.

I anticipate and look forward to the subsequent updates. My fingers are crossed that some of these limitations are rolled out in May 2023.

• /Teresa
• #traccreations4e