Invite who you want in group calendars

Microsoft

Good news!

 

We've heard your feedback here on Tech Community as well as UserVoice that you really just want to: 

  1. Put something on a shared group calendar
  2. 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!

Annotation 2019-05-07 163245.jpg

 

 

Cheers,

Ethan

53 Replies

@marissambp:

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.

HI@Ethan 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 , One user of my company report me the same problem, sometimes he create an event group, no one get the invitation and the event is visible in the group calendar just to himself, the other people in this group cannot see it (in the group calendar). :(

EDIT: When I create an event group, at first I am the organizer of the event, after few seconds the Group become the organizer. But sometimes the group doesnt become the organizer and in this case no one receive the invitation and the event is visible (in the group calendar) only by me.
/!\ Seems that event in that case disapear after few days, we just lost some important data... This functionality seems really bugged, shouldnt been released in this state.

@Ethan Li 

 

Ethan,

Is there a way that we can have specifically invited people of a group see all meetings in this calendar and then any other contributors see only the meetings they set up and all other meetings scheduled by others show as "busy"

Here is a scenario.

We have a global publishing calendar that around 50 people post events that are happening around the world. We only want selected individuals (senior executives) to see all events and we want the contributor who posted an event to the calendar to see the event they posted but not any other contributors post and vise a versa. Is this possible?

Thanks,

Kyle

@Ethan Li 

Thanks for the update. It seems the fix has not rolled out to our O365 tenant (uob.sharepoint.com) yet. Any idea when it's likely to happen?

 

@Ethan Li "Across Outlook, not much is changing:"

 

You missed Outlook for the Mac.

@Ethan Li  It doesn't appear to have been updated in our version of Outlook for Windows (desktop application). When a member of our group adds a calendar item to the group calendar, it sends a meeting invitation to everyone in the group. There isn't an option to create a simple appointment. When you create a new calendar item, it automatically opens a meeting request, with the To: line auto-populated with the group email address. If you remove the email address, the calendar item won't save. The version of Outlook on my computer is Microsoft Outlook 2016 MSO 16.0.4849.1000

 

I was able to add an all day event from OWA without sending a notification or meeting invitation to the group so I am assuming this is related to the desktop app.

 

If it makes a difference at all, our Group was created as a by-product of creating a Team, which I had made visible so that we could use the shared calendar. 

@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 Li The group still receives an invite even after removing them from the TO field when creating the meeting. I'm using the Outlook 365 desktop (version 1907; build 11901.20218). 

@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.

@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.

Just look at this thread. This option seems like the one we want as the Event calendar on Sharepoint is incredibly limited. It's a pity it doesn't seem to be working as intended though. Will try it out on my tenant.

@Ethan LiIt appears through our testing that the Group Calendars are not consistent. In addition to the above functionality, how does this relate to the following:

  • Group settings in Outlook--subscribe new members so they receive group email in their inbox--checked
  • Group settings in Group Admin--Send copies of group conversations and events to group members--checked

I understand three scenarios explained--invite no one, brownbag-style, invite group but what are the recommended settings within the Group?

@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? 

That's exactly what we want @klineberry 

I assume the current situation is that its just not possible?

@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 So here we are in 2020 and it still isn't working.  It tells me it won't invite everyone (good!) but then sticks the Group in the To: field and I can't remove it from the scheduling assistant ... cmon!

@Ethan Li  - I'm with @David Low on this one.  It sounded so promising back in May 2019 when you submitted the original post, but it's STILL not working.  This is a constant frustration when we're unable to encourage use of what would be such great functionality.  Please can you provide an update or let us know who can.  Thanks.