Tentative вЂ“ the same as Accept except the appointment is added but only with Tentative status.Дecline вЂ“ nothing is added to your appointment, you can choose to RSVP and explain your inability to attend or to do nothing in response. You get the option to send a response, not send a response or edit the response before replying. Note: these options are different for each version of Outlook вЂ“ the above list of buttons is from Outlook 2003, earlier versions might not have all these choices.ДЄccept вЂ“ the appointment will be added to your calendar and an RSVP sent back to the sender.

Above that are some buttons вЂ“ Accept, Tentative, Decline, Propose New Time and a link to your Calendar. In the Outlook preview pane youвЂ™ll see the date, time and location of the meeting. If youвЂ™re on the receiving end of one of these Outlook generated invitations youвЂ™ll see an email with some extra options. The appointment will appear in your calendar and messages will go out to the invitees. Once the appointment details and invitation list is ready, choose Send from the toolbar. ( You may get a prompt to join the Microsoft Office Internet Free/Busy service вЂ“ click the вЂDonвЂ™t show this againвЂ™ box then Cancel. You can enter an email address for anyone not in your Contacts list. Type in names just like you would for an email message, and they will be resolved to Contacts in the same way. Just enter the names of the attendees, one per line. We mere humans donвЂ™t want to worry about all that. This is the part that seems overwhelming in an integrated office with shared calendars for all you can list people or resources and check availability вЂ“ thereвЂ™s even an Autopick option to choose the first available time for all the people your list. You can also attach images (say a street map) in this area. ItвЂ™s a good place to put extra info like directions to the meeting place. Tip вЂ“ anything you put in the large text comments area will go with the invitation. Since other people will see these details you might put in more details than you might for something youвЂ™d just read yourself. Fill in the subject, location, times etc. To send an appointment you first create the appointment (not the email вЂ“ Outlook will do that for you). If there are changes to the appointment вЂ“ a change of time or venue then the change can be sent around to all concerned and their calendars will be updated. In effect the sender can track RSVPвЂ™s automatically.

the acknowledgement sent back to the sender automatically updates the senderвЂ™s calendar.

the receiver can add the appointment to their Outlook calendar automatically, just click on buttons on the top of the message to accept, decline or accept tentatively.

When they receive that message they can read the details but if they use Outlook thereвЂ™s bonuses. Outlook lets you create an appointment in your calendar then email the details to other people. But if the people you send appointments to donвЂ™t have Outlook theyвЂ™ll still see the message. Second вЂ“ these features work best with anyone who uses Outlook (any version but preferably Outlook 98 or above, but not Outlook Express) and uses the Calendar feature. Personally I use these features for much more important and vital arrangements like theatre and dinner dates with friends. But that doesnвЂ™t mean that you have to type in each appointment вЂ“ Outlook lets you send and receive proposed meetings without all the extra stuff and in this issue of OfMM weвЂ™ll tell you how.ДЇirstly вЂ“ IвЂ™ll talk about meetings and appointments, even though it sounds all business-like and formal. In the real world we donвЂ™t put all out lives in the Outlook calendar, and so each person needs to control what appointments get added and changed. Shared calendars are a nice idea but personally I donвЂ™t want people poking around in my appointments, even if itвЂ™s just to see what time is available. ThatвЂ™s all wonderful in companies which have all the back-end support for such things.

Microsoft has built some fancy appointment stuff into Outlook with shared calendars, resource allocation and all manner of gizmos.

ItвЂ™s easy to share appointment details with other people, whether they use Outlook or not.

How to share calendar in outlook 2010