Rules to Better Calendars

If you wish to organize a meeting that involves some of your colleagues and a client, instead of sending an email, send an appointment. Sending appointments is convenient because all the user has to do is click 'Accept' and it is in their calendar.

A lot of people talk about appointments and plan to do it later. E.g. you’re at the dentist and they give you a card with your next visit’s time written on it. People take the card and plan to enter it into their calendar later.

One of the least successful ways to get an appointment is to ask for one. The reason is that by asking for a meeting, you're creating hurdles. A hurdle for you to look at your calendar for available times, a hurdle for them to look at their calendar, a hurdle to reply to the email. And then there is the obstacle that arises when their proposed time conflicts with something you're doing, and the process begins again. Even for people who don't have busy calendars, these meetings often don't happen because they slip down the inbox.

Make sure appointments have address details unless it's obvious for all attendees.

When sending an appointment, choose a clear and informative subject, so key details are visible at a glance. This helps people quickly understand the purpose without needing to open the appointment.

Every change to an appointment is a hassle, and it's good to be explicit as to why the appointment had to change, so always give a reason.

Unlike an email, changing an appointment will not have the original content recorded, it is a good idea to make it visible by adding the version number to the history. This shows the timeline of the changes and how many changes they've asked for! When we have v7, people will start questioning how this has happened.

Whenever you have to modify the time, attendees, or subject of an appointment, always send the updated appointment with comments at the top to explain why you want to make these changes.

You should add to altered appointments to track this:

1. Your name - If the appointment is coming from a shared mailbox or Team, it can hide who actually made the change - so it is good practice to put your name next to your alteration comment
2. As per our conversation - If you are changing the appointment based on a conversation with someone, put this in the note so other people know who was involved in changing the appointment
3. Version number - Adding the v# to the notes can help people to track of all of the changes.
   E.g. "(Calum: V2 - As per my conversation with Bob, changing the time as he can't make it)"

✅ Figure: Good example - Explaining the change that has been made using the version number

Often your conversation flow with someone will go from a phone call to emails, to an appointment, and then back to emails.

It's nice to be able to look back and see the whole history in one thread, so you will need to be able to Reply All to an appointment to continue the email conversation after the meeting.

Outlook makes this easy:

One of the great things about email is that as a conversation progresses, you always have the thread history that you can refer to for context.

Calendar appointments, on the other hand, don’t have this. Therefore, if you make plans via email, and that email conversation includes details like times, agendas, locations, etc. It’s usually a good idea to copy the email text into the body of the calendar appointment. That way you’ve got the history and context right there, so the attendees don’t have to go searching for it in their inbox.

Avoid putting the date and time into the text field of a meeting since these are often overlooked when changing the meeting time/date metadata.

Clear, unambiguous dates and times prevent missed meetings, costly travel mistakes, and confusion across countries and time zones.

Think about this, is that 10th of May or 5th of October? Is it 6 am or 6 pm?

When you would like to propose a new time for an appointment that someone has sent to you, use the "Propose New Time" button in Outlook instead of simply declining the message. By using the this option, the requestor can easily accept your proposed time, rather than having to edit the previous appointment.

We've all been part of that email chain... "Let's meet to discuss this", "When are you free?", "I can do Friday", "Friday's no good, what about Monday?", "I'm free in the morning", "Penny can't make that, how about Tuesday afternoon after 3?", etc.

AI can make scheduling meetings with multiple attendees much easier.

By default, when you click the button to turn an appointment into a Teams Meeting, it adds the link to join the call to the bottom of the body content. It’s generally a good idea to move this up to the top, as It’s the 1st thing you’ll want people to do when they open the appointment on the day of the meeting.

Within a company, there are occasions that you are not able to access your computer to send sick emails, or you get a call from your client on the way to the office that you have to drive to a client site straight away; when such things happen, you need someone else to update your calendar when you call in, so others are aware of your availabilities.

If someone has shared their calendar permissions with you, you will be able to check their calendar directly without needing a conversation.

Imagine someone wants to book some time with you. Offer to look up the calendar and book in time straightaway.

If someone has shared their calendar permissions with you, you will be able to send appointments on their behalf.

If someone wants you to send an appointment for them, but you don't want it to appear in your own calendar, this is the way to go.

When sending an appointment from someone else's calendar, you should always include that person as an attendee so that they also receive the same appointment email that their guests do. It shows them that the invitation has been sent, and also allows them to check for any mistakes or additional information that needs to be added.

Sometimes your schedule is chockers and you want to be transparent!

Have you ever needed to send your calendar schedule to someone to figure out the best time to schedule a meeting with them? Figuring out when someone is available within your organization is usually easy, as Outlook can show you automatically using the Scheduling Assistant.

If you're trying to coordinate with someone outside of your organization, this can be more challenging. In Outlook you can easily include a copy of your calendar schedule to make this process easier.

While working in a team, there are three ways of seeing others' or team calendars.

When a developer joins a team, they need to find important meetings like the Daily Scrum and the Sprint Review. Unfortunately, these meetings are often organized by a team member and there is no way to find them.

Ideally, a new team member would jump into Microsoft Teams and find the team they are joining. Then they would see all the important meetings from within the team and join them as needed.

From then on, they would be able to see those appointments in Microsoft Outlook and edit them as needed.

Setting up an Outlook calendar can be highly beneficial not just for you, but also for others who need to see your availability. By sharing your calendar with your colleagues, they can easily see when you are free or busy and can schedule meetings or appointments with you.

This can avoid scheduling conflicts, especially when different people work different hours. For example, if the company has standard hours (9am to 6pm), when someone is working different hours (say 8am to 5pm) it is desirable to have this visible in Outlook for others making an appointment.