SOLVED

Accept & Do Not Send a Response

Microsoft

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:Responses requested.png

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? 
299 Replies

Yes to both.  I believe both changes would be very welcome.  Usually, when an organizer does not request a response, it is because it is sent to a large audience, so makes sense for no email reply.

Hi all, Thank you for your patience and your responses on this feature. We really value your feedback, and we've made very good progress on changing the way that responses work. As you can imagine, it's quite a large undertaking given the number of clients, protocols, and configurations that can exist across Exchange, Outlook, and 3rd party services.

 

We're excited to let you know that the first release is out! When you respond to a meeting using Outlook the web, iOS, or Android, the organizer's tracking list will be updated even if you choose not to send an email response.

 

 

There are a few notes to this initial release:

  1. This only works today if you and the organizer are in the same organization, and both of you are hosted in Office 365. It does not yet work for meeting invitations across organizations.
  2. If you respond to the meeting (or change your existing response) using Outlook on Windows or Mac, the organizer's tracking list will not be updated.
  3. This only applies to meetings where responses were requested. If the organizer chose NOT to request responses, their tracking list will not be updated regardless of which client you use to respond.

 

Please feel free to direct message me if you have any questions. I'll continue to keep this forum updated as we release subsequent updates.

 

Thanks,

--Julia

Is there any ETA on phase 2 (or 3 or whatever) as to when it will work in the Outlook 365 desktop clients?

Hi Mike,
The next client will be Outlook for Mac, but we do not have an exact timeline yet.
1. yes
2. yes
Yes and yes. Please! It is sooooo logical.

Did you use the control ID's to accomplish this?  Or a different route?  If so which controlID's did you use?

Yes no matter what the user chooses to respond with, if they are accepting or declining the meeting, the expecting result would be that the senders tracking would reflect that response email or no email

This is absolutely weird and illogical. Irrespective of Organizer getting email or not for the response, responses should be tracked in tracking system. How would Organizer know if he needs to continue with the meeting or not in absence of recorded responses on tracking system.

Yes this is definitely needed.   And if the user selects the 'Do Not Send a Response' option when accepting the invite, they will not be notified if there are updates to the calendar invite (ie location change, content change, etc.).  When you make a change to the event and click 'Send Update', that user will not get notice of the updates on their calendar.  Hopefully this change will also fix this issue.

Hi everybody, and Happy Monday!

 

We're excited to announce that this now works for Outlook Mac as well!!

 

Summary of status/feature:

When you respond to a meeting using Outlook the Web, iOS, Android, or Mac, the organizer's tracking list will be updated even if you choose not to send an email response.

 

 

Notes:

  1. This now works regardless of whether you and the organizer are in the same organization, as long as you are both hosted in Office 365.
  2. If you response to the meeting (or change your existing response) without sending a response using Outlook on the Windows, the organizer's tracking list will not be updated. The Outlook client on Windows needs to make a change to support this feature, but we do not yet have an ETA.
  3. This only applies to meetings where responses were requested. If the organizer chose NOT to request responses, their tracking list will not be updated regardless of which client you use to respond.

 

So what about Windows?  The biggest userbase....

Ah, I see you say no ETA.  Still hoping you might have a guess...

@Julia Foran any timeline for Windows users? I would love this function, too...

Yes to both. I'm surprised that accepting doesn't show as I've accepted. @Julia Foran 

yes to both questions, I'm eager to see this change implement on Outlook for Windows!

Which versions of Office/Outlook will receive the update?
When the change comes to the Outlook for Windows client, it will only be for the ProPlus Subscription customers whose mailbox is hosted in Office365.

@Julia Foran  We have Office 365 Premium licenses.  Will that be covered? I'm unfamiliar with the license you mentioned...

 

Thanks!

 

David

@David Riberi @MarcoDST @Julia Foran 

 

When this update comes to Outlook for Windows, this will be available to all O365 subscription customers, including Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal, Office 365 Business (including Business Premium), and Office 365 ProPlus products.

 

Thanks everyone for your feedback and interest.

@Jennifer Lu are you saying that this is NOT going to be supported on on-premise office installations?  Are organizations that don't have Office365 not going to have this feature?

@drullo Yes, that is correct. This will be an Office 365 only improvement.

 

If you look at the first note in @Julia Foran's most recent update, she summarizes this succinctly:

This now works regardless of whether you and the organizer are in the same organization, as long as you are both hosted in Office 365.