Outlook booking resources
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Booking a Resource
Step 1
Go to your calendar. To successfully book a resource, highlight the desired time and select New and Meeting Request from the toolbar (Ctrl+Shift+Q). This will bring up the Meeting Request form. Type the subject and appropriate information for the meeting into the body of the message.
Step 2
Select the To button and add the people that you're inviting to the meeting. At this point you have two choices for adding a conference room. You can add a specific conference room or your can add a group of conference rooms that have been collected in a distribution list (DL) as described in Step 2a. Each company will have its own way of designating or grouping resources. In the example given here, all conference rooms are prefixed with Conf Room. You can pick one or more resources by highlighting the entry in the left pane and pressing the Resources button to move it to the appropriate area.
If you want to select a group of resources to view so you can narrow them down later based on availability, in the Type Name or Select from List text boxes, type box. Add that resource by clicking the Resources button. Select OK. Go to Step 3. If your browser does not support inline frames, click here to view in a separate page.)
Step 2a
If you have a number of resources that are available for your use, your e-mail Administrator may have grouped all of the resources by a particular location (e.g., fourth floor, West Wing). That group will be designated by this icon:
After selecting the To button and adding the people that you're inviting, select the DL and click the Resources button.
Step 3
Click on the Scheduling tab. You should see the people and resources you've selected marked with blue (busy), light blue (tentative appointments), purple (out of office), slashes (no data) or nothing (free for an appointment). If you selected multiple resources you need to pick the one that is available. If you used a DL, expand it by clicking the + sign to the left of the entry. That will update the free/busy time for each individual room. You can either click the envelope next to the
conference rooms you don't want to reserve and select Don't send meeting to this attendee, or you can click the AutoPick button and select All people and One Resource (which effectively does exactly what you would have done had you picked "Don't send meeting to this attendee").
Step 4
Click Send if the date and time for the conference room is not already reserved. One of the most common ways resources can be configured is to decline invitations when the resource has been scheduled, to prevent double-booking. Another setting can prevent you from setting up a How to Successfully Book a Resource reoccurring appointment. Those settings are solely up to the discretion of the person who configured the resource's settings in Outlook. If you meet the non-conflict criteria in the paragraph above you should receive the notification "The resources for the meeting were booked successfully", unless you previously had checked Please do not show me this dialog again.
My recommendation is that you do not check that dismiss box, as the dialog box is the simplest way to determine that your resource was successfully booked. Otherwise, you need to open up the appointment, go to the Attendee Availability tab, and see if the resource accepted your invitation.
Canceling a meeting
If you decide to cancel the meeting, simply delete the meeting. You should receive the prompt detailing options for "send cancellation and delete meeting" or "delete without sending a cancellation".
Select the default, Send cancellation and delete meeting. That will open the Meeting Request form.
Select Send. That will remove the appointment from your calendar, send notifications to all of the required and optional attendees you designated, and mark the appointment as "free" time on the conference room calendar. It does not remove it, but there are no consequences because others will be able to reserve the room as they normally would (time marked as "free" doesn't prevent a meeting from being booked).
Step 1
Go to your calendar. To successfully book a resource, highlight the desired time and select New and Meeting Request from the toolbar (Ctrl+Shift+Q). This will bring up the Meeting Request form. Type the subject and appropriate information for the meeting into the body of the message.
Step 2
Select the To button and add the people that you're inviting to the meeting. At this point you have two choices for adding a conference room. You can add a specific conference room or your can add a group of conference rooms that have been collected in a distribution list (DL) as described in Step 2a. Each company will have its own way of designating or grouping resources. In the example given here, all conference rooms are prefixed with Conf Room. You can pick one or more resources by highlighting the entry in the left pane and pressing the Resources button to move it to the appropriate area.
If you want to select a group of resources to view so you can narrow them down later based on availability, in the Type Name or Select from List text boxes, type box. Add that resource by clicking the Resources button. Select OK. Go to Step 3. If your browser does not support inline frames, click here to view in a separate page.)
Step 2a
If you have a number of resources that are available for your use, your e-mail Administrator may have grouped all of the resources by a particular location (e.g., fourth floor, West Wing). That group will be designated by this icon:
After selecting the To button and adding the people that you're inviting, select the DL and click the Resources button.
Step 3
Click on the Scheduling tab. You should see the people and resources you've selected marked with blue (busy), light blue (tentative appointments), purple (out of office), slashes (no data) or nothing (free for an appointment). If you selected multiple resources you need to pick the one that is available. If you used a DL, expand it by clicking the + sign to the left of the entry. That will update the free/busy time for each individual room. You can either click the envelope next to the
conference rooms you don't want to reserve and select Don't send meeting to this attendee, or you can click the AutoPick button and select All people and One Resource (which effectively does exactly what you would have done had you picked "Don't send meeting to this attendee").
Step 4
Click Send if the date and time for the conference room is not already reserved. One of the most common ways resources can be configured is to decline invitations when the resource has been scheduled, to prevent double-booking. Another setting can prevent you from setting up a How to Successfully Book a Resource reoccurring appointment. Those settings are solely up to the discretion of the person who configured the resource's settings in Outlook. If you meet the non-conflict criteria in the paragraph above you should receive the notification "The resources for the meeting were booked successfully", unless you previously had checked Please do not show me this dialog again.
My recommendation is that you do not check that dismiss box, as the dialog box is the simplest way to determine that your resource was successfully booked. Otherwise, you need to open up the appointment, go to the Attendee Availability tab, and see if the resource accepted your invitation.
Canceling a meeting
If you decide to cancel the meeting, simply delete the meeting. You should receive the prompt detailing options for "send cancellation and delete meeting" or "delete without sending a cancellation".
Select the default, Send cancellation and delete meeting. That will open the Meeting Request form.
Select Send. That will remove the appointment from your calendar, send notifications to all of the required and optional attendees you designated, and mark the appointment as "free" time on the conference room calendar. It does not remove it, but there are no consequences because others will be able to reserve the room as they normally would (time marked as "free" doesn't prevent a meeting from being booked).
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