Accept & Do Not Send a Response

[Julia Foran]

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:

1. Do you like this change? Does this match what you & others are expecting?
2. 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? 

[#2]

@Julia Foran Brilliant! when's the roll out?

[#3]

@Julia Foran 

please update us on progress to implement on Windows

thanks

[#4]

@Julia Foran 

Thanks for the update, good luck with re-building the calendar.

Best wishes

Susie

[#5]

@Julia Foran 

1. Do you like this change . . .

Absolutely, and this is exactly me and my colleagues expect.  It's always helpful to know if participants have accepted an invite.   As it is today, there is no real way of knowing. 

2.  Yes, no email response should be sent, and the acceptance should be recorded.   My experience is that this type of request is often used for very large meetings.  

[#6]

@Outlook1958   Yes, exactly when it is absolutely required.... large meeting invites.  Hopefully the change is not too far away.

[#7]

Hi @Julia Foran, 

Any indications of when this might be available? 

Thanks,

Swade

[#8]

@Julia Foran it's been 2 months since we have had an update. Are you any closer to fixing it to how it is meant to be working? Can you give us a rough timeframe as to when it will be working as EVERYONE assumed it was already working only to find out the hard way. 

[#9]

I'm on board with this. It's how my other calendar app does it, and I use that feature all the time.

[#10]

@Julia Foran 

I'm not surprised that this thread doesn't have more responses. In my experience as a technical lead, every individual using the Accept &Do Not Send a Response button thinks that the meeting organizer can still see that they've accepted and are attending. Great that you've made headway with other clients, but it's critical that it is changed for the Windows client.

If your user experience team still feels like the average user needs a way to add the calendar invite to their calendar, without showing the organizer that they have done so, the description should change to something like "Accept but Do Not Notify the Meeting Organizer". Replacing the response with a different description like this would likely reduce confusion and eliminate the need to still send a response to the organizer (without the response showing up in their inbox), as individuals would revert to picking the right options "Accept & Send Response" instead.

[#11]

A weekly update on this would be appreciated as it is WAY overdue and clearly everyone wants it now. It should have been completed months ago. You always do the hard tasks first and not the easy ones first which is what you did.

[#12]

Yes, I actually thought this was how it worked until someone today asked me if I was intending to come to a meeting. Then I checked the tracking for my reply and saw "None" as my response. I 100% agree that if I "Accept" and "Do not send a response" - that the tracking tool should keep track that I "Accepted" and not send an email.

[#13]

Agreed - I thought this was how it worked for years. I was just about to explain to someone how it worked (or so I thought) - and I was taking screenshots when I realized that my response was not logged on the invitation. Call me dumbfounded. I don't know how I have gone years without realizing this.

[#14]

@jeanasansocie 

Don't feel bad.  Many of us were dumbfounded when we learned that's actually how Microsoft left it.  Completely opposite of what is expected for everyone.

[#15]

@Mark10485 

Yep...me too. I remember when I first discovered this last year...I couldn't believe it myself!

[#16]

@Julia Foran 

So when you do the Accept & Do Not Send a Response in outlook, you cant se the status on the web client either is just says "didn't respond" on the user in the meeting, is that accepted behavior? Because you wrote that you have already made the change on web? 

If you use the web client, you dont get the option "Accept & Do Not Send a Response" you just have Yes, No or purpose an new time as responses.

[#17]

@Julia ForanYes to both questions. As an organizer of meetings it is important to know who has accepted and plan to attend. The do not respond option should only be to avoid filling inboxes with unnecessary email. But I would want to know the actual status of invitees whether they chose to send a response or not.

[#18]

@Julia Foran 
I am another one who has misunderstood these options until just now, so I definitely agree that something needs to be done.

I think that there are legitimate cases where I don't want the organiser to know whether I have accepted or declined the meeting, so I would like this option to still be available. (Although the option could be implicit, in that if I don't click anything, no response will be set and the appointment appears as tentative in my calendar.)

[#19]

@chrisrapson430 yeah I agree it would be great to have both options. I doubt they will think of this and they should be very near to releasing but nothing they have said give me hope. 

The issue is that people only come to the post when they find out the hard way that it did not operate how they always expected it to work. That and most do not take the time to create an account and then post a comment or like the post. If they knew how many people actually wanted this to happen ASAP then they may fix it sooner.

@Julia Foran could we please have an update???

[#20]

I will absolutely update this thread when the client changes are released. They are still in development.

[#21]

@Julia Foran, I am looking forward to this change. I send a lot of group meeting requests. I want to know who's coming but I DO NOT need an email in my Inbox for every single response. I also don't want to set up a rule to delete them all because sometimes someone includes a comment. It should be automatic to update the meeting organizer's calendar but NOT automatic to send an email. We all get enough emails as it is. Implement this change ASAP, please and thank you!