Introducing Scheduling poll in Outlook!

[Sally_Richardson]

Announcing FindTime as a native feature in Outlook!

We are excited to introduce Scheduling poll, bringing the capabilities of FindTime as a native feature in Outlook. Scheduling poll is currently available to all users of Outlook on the Web and Mac. It is available to Classic Outlook for Windows users in Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel, and Semi-Annual Enterprise Preview. It is now available to Classic Outlook users on the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Version 2308) as of January 2024, and will be available to the Semi-Annual Extended Channel later in June 2024.

Users who do not have access to Scheduling Poll yet can either switch to the Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel, or Semi-Annual Enterprise Preview in Classic Outlook for Windows; or they can use Outlook on the Web to create polls. Please go here for more details on 'Scheduling poll' feature.

What’s the same

As we bring Scheduling poll directly to Outlook, users can expect to have a similar set of features and workflow as the existing FindTime add-in.

What’s different

Scheduling poll uses the same modern design and framework we use in the updated Outlook on the web and the new Outlook for Windows, making it easier to maintain and enhance for the future.

Important: What is happening to the FindTime add-in?

The FindTime add-in will stop working and be removed from Outlook for Windows, Web and Mac. Scheduling Poll is the replacement feature, which is built directly into Outlook clients for all users as a native feature.

When this will happen:

You can expect the FindTime add-in to stop working as early as December 11, 2023. We will start making the change on December 11, 2023, and expect to complete it by the end of that week.

How this will affect your organization:

Once the change has rolled out users will need to utilize Scheduling Poll as a replacement of the FindTime add-in.

When will the new Scheduling Poll feature be available?

Currently, Scheduling Poll is available to all customers worldwide for Outlook on the web and the new Mac Outlook, except for those in GCC High. It is also available to Classic Outlook for Windows users in Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel, and Semi-Annual Enterprise Preview. It will become available to Classic Outlook users on the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel in January 2024, and to the Semi-Annual Extended Channel in June 2024.

What will happen to my current user experience?

When your tenant gets the update, the native feature will be added to their Outlook ribbon replacing FindTime (see more details to access Scheduling Poll here). Users do not need to do anything, this change will happen automatically, and users will be able to keep creating scheduling polls as easily as before.

FindTime Deprecation FAQs

1.  What does the deletion of https://findtime.microsoft.com/ mean?

A. This webpage provides information about how to use the FindTime add-in and given that we are replacing it with Scheduling Poll, we are deleting this page. When users try to access this page post 12/12/2022, they will be redirected to the polls dashboard - https://outlook.office.com/findtime/dashboard. The add-in itself should still function as is. It will not be deprecated until Scheduling Poll is released to all supported Outlook apps - in Outlook web, Mac and Win32.

2.  What do I need to do to transition from FindTime to Scheduling Poll?

A. Nothing! When Scheduling poll is rolled out to your tenant, the entry point to the FindTime Add-in will be hidden and you should see a button to open the Scheduling poll pane in the Outlook compose ribbon instead (more details here). We have made UX updates to help improve the experience. The functionality should remain the same and you should be able to create new polls just like before.

3.  What happens to my existing polls?

A. All the polls you created through the FindTime add-in should remain active and actionable through the voting page and the polls dashboard even if the add-in is deprecated and replaced by the Scheduling poll UI. The only thing that has changed is the way you create a poll.

[#2]

Has anyone else experienced this week an issue where email notifications are not being sent to organizers when polls are responded to?
I've confirmed "Notify me about poll updates" is selected.

Any suggestions on troubleshooting before I open a case?

[#3]

Hi Chickos - We're not aware of any such issue at this moment. If you can still reproduce this issue with a new poll, then please feel free to open a support case as FT/SP team will need to take a look at it. Thank you.

[#4]

Acknowledged and thank you for the reply.
A case has been opened to investigate further.

[#5]

Perfect. I also got a chance to talk to our Lead Dev, latest update is that a fix for. this has been pushed for deployment, and will start rolling out on Monday for all customers worldwide, hope this helps and sorry for the time it may take to get fixed for you.

[#6]

Even better! I will inform my case engineer and customers - Thank you so much for the support as always :)

[#7]

Follow up confirmation - this is now resolved / working as expected.

Thank you again for everything!

[#8]

I much the same as the OP in this instance use Schedule Poll for internal team members because not everyone maintains their calendars in a useful way. They may show as available when in reality they've earmarked that time for other work related activities that aren't meetings.

I find it to be much more clunky than the FindTime Poll. I'm not receiving any emails or notifications that people have responded to my poll and I cannot log into the dashboard and see all the results. I can only see x number of people have voted.

[#9]

Having an issue where people outside of the organization are getting error messages when trying to vote on the poll. My understanding was this was available for people inside or outside an organization. Is there a requirement that people outside the organization need? I like the idea of the app, and would love to use it more in our workspace.

[#10]

@Sally_Richardson 

Hi Sally

Will this be available to use when haven opened another person's mailbox/calendar (ie. for PA's etc) please?

Thanks

Jo

[#11]

@JuOrm - We have heard about this feature request from customers, but it's not available currently in our product and there is no plan/not on our roadmap at this moment.

[#12]

@AmirHaque-MSFT 

Hi Amir-Haque

Many thanks for letting me know.

Kind regards

JuOrm

[#13]

@Sally_Richardson It seems like find time for me crashed and is no longer available in outlook online and scheduling poll is impossible to find...so now I have no options at all.

[#14]

I have the same problem since yesterday. The scheduling poll button is not available anymore in any of my Outlook versions: on the web and on the desktop. What is going on? @bfindeis 

[#15]

@JCWessels I atually got it back. You have to look for scheduling poll. When you go in messages and click the Tree dots "..." you should see it there in the online version. CF my screenshot. Take care

[#16]

@AmirHaque-MSFT 

Good Morning,
I wanted to ask if there was an update on delegate support for scheduling polls on behalf of someone else? Thank you.

[#17]

@bfindeis I also have it back. But I don't know what has changed. I actually installed Doodle already, but I really liked the New Scheduling Poll feature.

Thanks, Microsoft!

[#18]

Hi @jaymal417, Sorry, no update at this moment, it's been in our backlog.

[#19]

We have the same issue. Have you been able to solve it?

[#20]

@jhlmb I had it back, but it is gone again. So back to Doodle. The other option is to use the webversion of Outlook.

[#21]

And another option is to add the old FindTime add-in again.