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 · Accepted solution]

@Nick Nigro @Sullivan910 @ph_ly 
Yes, this is a known issue, i.e. when a user tries to use FindTime add-in to schedule a poll, they may run into this error/issue. FindTime engineering team is looking into it for resolution. A service incident (EX521435) has been published for impacted tenants, see below for details, if you haven't seen it yet in your M365 Admin center. Workaround is to use Scheduling poll feature in OWA.

Update: This issue has been fixed.

EX521435: Exchange Online - Users can't schedule events in the Outlook desktop app using the FindTime add-in

Impacted users get an error that states, "Sorry! FindTime could not load due to an unexpected error. Please try again." or "Sorry, we can't load the add-in". While we're working to remediate impact, affected users with access to Outlook on the web can use the Scheduling Poll feature to schedule meetings. See: Scheduling Poll articles - Microsoft Support for more info and share these with your users.

Current status: We're reviewing additional information, including the status of authentication components which facilitate user access to the add-in, conditional access policies related to FindTime add-in subscriptions and collecting additional service logs for further insight into how impact manifests to assist our investigation.

[#3]

Thank you so much for posting this Amir, I have not seen this posted in the service incident feed yet.

Please keep us updated if you see any reference incident # or solution published?
My ticket is still pending a response from the engineer :(

[#4]

@AmirHaque-MSFT 

I created a support ticket but they are stumped too. It looks like the errors I am getting are very similar to the others that people are reporting here.

[#5]

For what it's worth heres some additional information.

Findtime.microsoft.com use to redirect to https://outlook.office365.com/findtime/dashboard
Now internally / externally it gives an error "Too many redirects"

When this issue first started yesterday, I was getting a metric boatload of different errors after multiple attempts of retrying (During this time the outlook web access for scheduling polls still worked.)

"Sorry! - Findtime could not load due to an unexpected error. Please try again if this error persist please see our help page (hyperlink to a uservoice website: This uservoice instance is no longer available.)" Also included a reference ID

Another error was: "We couldn't retrieve your Findtime settings. Please close the add-in and try again. Please contact us (Same uservoice website) if the issue persist"

another error: "We couldn't retrieve time zone information. Press 'Ok' to try again. Please Contact us (Same uservoice website) if the issue persist"

Constantly mashing ok/retry actually would cycle through all three errors - eventually leading up to the final error (Or it working) - But refreshing / retesting on the same machine would give all of those experiences randomly.

We now all collectively get the add-in error "Sorry, we can't load the add-in. Please make sure you have network and/or internet connectivity, Click "Retry" once you are back online".

Since the Scheduling polls coming to outlook original message indicated Q2 2023 - my assumption is they are changing something on the back end to support moving to scheduling polls?

[#6]

The issue has been fixed.

[#7]

The issue has been fixed.

[#8]

Scheduling poll feature is now available in the following builds of Outlook for Windows. FindTime add-in being old technology will be removed by the date that has been mentioned in the post above. It'd be hard to keep it functioning beyond that date. Please try to move to latest builds of Outlook for Windows to start using Scheduling poll experience.

Jan - Feb 2023 - Office Insiders
Mar - Apr 2023 - Outlook Current Channel in Production and Monthly Enterprise Channel (try to move your users to these versions/builds to ensure they can use Scheduling poll feature)

[#9]

Are there plans to extend the functionality so that colleagues to whom I have made my calendar available with editing permission can also send scheduling polls on my behalf?

[#10]

I still cannot find any service health advisory regarding this issue -
EX521435: Exchange Online - Users can't schedule events in the Outlook desktop app using the FindTime add-in

Can you please post the current status and/or post incident report?

[#11]

@Chickos Even I cannot see the incident in my SHD.

[#12]

I responded to other posts here last night, this issue has been resolved. I had also updated my main post above putting an update saying this issue has been fixed (in green bold fonts) ... Service Incident was not published to all M365 tenants as its impact was isolated.

[#13]

Service Incident was not published to all M365 tenants as its impact was isolated - the issue has been resolved as of 5PM PT yesterday. Please test (make sure to restart Outlook, log off & log back in to test) and let me know here if you still see the issue.

[#14]

That would fall into 'delegation' feature bucket. There have been requests for that in the past for FindTime/Scheduling poll, we are tracking it in our backlog, but there are no plans to work on it at this moment. Generally, when a feature in a product is being developed, rolled out or released, we list it at M365 Roadmap site (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap), so you'll see it there.

[#15]

@AmirHaque-MSFT 

The issue doesn't seem fixed. The error message still shows when clicking the Scheduling Poll option in Outlook for the Web.

[#16]

@Sally_Richardson 

How do I remove the "Reply with Scheduling Poll" item from the Ribbon in the main email interface?  I tried to remove it by customizing the ribbon, but the Remove function was inactivated when I tried.

I don't want this item on my Ribbon.  It makes other, more frequently used items smaller and I don't need this clutter.

[#17]

@BPaulConsulting 

You can follow the steps below to remove FindTime from Outlook Windows Ribbon. 

File | Options |

1. Select Customize Ribbon
2. In the third column, Customized the Classic Ribbon, make sure "Main Tabs is selected.
3. Under Main Tabs, expand Home (Mail).
4. Click on FindTime.
5. Click on the Remove button.  
   
6. Press Ok.

 

• You are not deleting the app but removing it from the ribbon.  You can add it back anytime. 

If you find this information helpful, please mark it as the best answer to assist others with the same question.

/Teresa

#traccreations. 

[#18]

@Teresa_Cyrus 

Yes, I knew the steps to remove it from the ribbon.  When I attempted to remove it using that method, the "Remove" button was greyed out, so I couldn't actually remove it.

A few days later, I tried again, and was able to remove it.  Don't know why or how things were different.  But they were.

[#19]

Hi @AmirHaque-MSFT 
Yesterday, Microsoft released the first build of Semi Annual Preview 2302, and it doesn't appear to activate the new Scheduling Poll versus older FindTime.  Do you know what our expectation should be for this? (especially as we anticipate the release of Semi Annual 2302 coming in July). 

Thank you

[#20]

AaronCouch,
At this moment the tentative plan is to make Scheduling poll feature available thru SAC Preview channel/build sometime in Sep 2023, then it will show up in SAC in Jan 2024 and then in SAEC in June 2024 (usual disclaimer: these dates may change without any notice, see this article for release channels info: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/updates/overview-update-channels) .. Hope this helps!

[#21]

Hi @Sally_Richardson, thanks for the information.

I was wondering if you could help me - according to this information from Microsoft, Scheduling Poll is integrated into Teams, but I can't see it when I try to set up a meeting in Teams. I can access it in Outlook.

My organisation has the full business version, etc, (as far as I know - it's a large university).

Thanks for your time,

Julian