Schedule a meeting for others without being included? (Outlook 2007/Exchange)

Question

We're using Outlook 2007 in an Exchange 2007 environment. Is there a way for someone to schedule a meeting for a group other people without that meeting appearing in the scheduler's calendar?

Example: Tom is out of the office. Tom calls Evan and asks him to schedule a meeting for Tom and Dick for this afternoon. Can Evan create a meeting request that includes Tom and Dick but does not include Evan? There's no requirement that the meeting appear to originate from Tom or be on the behalf of Tom, Evan just shouldn't be among the attendees and it should not appear on his calendar.

Does this require special privileges in Outlook/Exchange? Is it even possible?

My company is coming from a Novell GroupWise background and many people have apparently been utilizing this feature for some time and are looking for an analog in the new environment.

Answer 1

Our company also switched from GroupWise to Outlook and we used the 'send to others but don't include me' feature all the time. Outlook does not have that specific feature, but the functionality can be replicated (with 6 extra clicks).

Method one is to setup a delegate that can schedule meeting on your behalf. GroupWise did this too and it isn't quite the same.

Method two is to schedule the meeting as if you are attending and after it is sent, switch the status to 'free' on your own schedule. It accomplishes almost the same thing as the GroupWise feature but takes a few extra steps.

Answer 2

You can set someone up as a delegate, they can have access to your calendar and or email and send in your absence.

Tools, Options, Delegates

Delegates can send items on your behalf. To grant permission to others to access your folders without also giving them send-on-behalf-of privileges, go to the properties dialog box for each folder and change the options on the permissions tab.

That's in Outlook 2000, I'm sure it's a little different in 2007.

Answer 3

Ideally you want the person (Evan) to not have the meeting in their calendar, and for the other person (Tom) to be shown as the Organiser, which will also allow them to update the meeting, see the list of who accepted or declined etc.

Only way to do that is for Tom to allow Evan to have full access to his calendar by changing Calendar permissions. This means it requires setting up in advance, and is probably only appropriate for trusted team members not for everyone to do for anyone else (standard example would of course be an executive and their personal assistant).

There is also a bit of a trick to this: Evan should first set this up as a simple Appointment in Tom's calendar so Tom is the organiser and sole attendee. Then "invite attendees" to turn the appointment into a meeting. If you start out creating a meeting, Evan will be the organiser and an attendee and would have to change this round.