Forum Discussion
MicrosoftInvite 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
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?
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. :-(
- I think I found where the issue is (not a bug... just need to be aware how it works). When I invite myself I am set up as the organizer. But, if I delete my own name from the invite list, then the meeting automatically sets the group as the organizer which is why updates get sent to everyone.
I think.....??- Nevermind... my comments above weren't accurate. After a little while no matter what I try, the Group itself becomes the organizer (replacing my name) and any updates to the meeting go to the entire group thereafter. :-\
Ethan LiSo where is this functionality gone, to not invite the whole group to the group event? Seems to have disappeared, and it was working so well for us!
I notice the 'try the new outlook' toggle has gone, but the functionality of specific invites has also gone. Am I missing a way to have this working again?
When do we gain these kinds of features within Micorosft Teams when scheduling a meeting within Channels?
Sigh. We're running into this issue too. Our sales team wants to send meeting invites to a subset of the MS Team members and include a common calendar so everyone can see information about the meetings but not be required or optional attendees. I thought it'd be great to use the MS Teams Office 365 Group calendar, and then I learned there's no way to invite just the calendar without inviting the entire Team/Office 365 Group. I think we'll have to switch to a separate Shared mailbox. It may work, but it's messy since there'll be yet another Calendar and the Group Calendar will go completely unused.
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.
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.
That's exactly what we want klineberry
I assume the current situation is that its just not possible?
- Ethan Li
Shane Gill Let me follow up with you offline so we can help troubleshoot.
- Ethan Li , Will members get Mail when doing a meeting update! Can’t seem to get this to work
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
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
Then I checked out the group calendar view of each member and I do not see the event i created.
Can you share more about this means? I'm not following here.
- Ethan Li
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
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.
Ethan LiWe have found that when a member creates an event and adds a "Reminder" that the group will force itself as an attendee and then all members of the group get the invitation. Is there a fix for this? We were hoping we could only invite specific members and possibly add a reminder for those specific members who were invited as attendees.
HIEthan Li ,
I think i identify a bug on Outlook Win10 64bit (o365 MSO 16.0.11.629.20.210).
I create a group event, remove the group and add user A and B. -> only A and B receive the event: OK
Open the group event, edit the date. -> The entire group receive the notif: NOT OK
After a little investigation, when i open the groupe event, on the first view i see only A and B BUT if i go the 'schedul assistant view' the group is in the attendee list.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.
