How do I hide meeting attendees in Outlook 2010?

Question

Background

I'm an IT Service Manager of sorts in my current position. We use Outlook 2010 and Exchange at the company.

For server outages, etc. I prefer to send calendar events so it can help users coordinate, send an alert before the event happens, and more.

However, when I invite a list of people, the list is expanded to include all the recipients. This isn't an issue by itself, but when it's a whole building full of people, I'd prefer that the invitees not be able to see and message each other.

Question

How do I, using MS Outlook 2010 / Exchange, prevent meeting attendees from seeing who else is attending or doing a "reply all"? Is this possible?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I would think that the best way to achieve this is to create a LIST (distribution list).

I don't believe that the list is expanded but instead appears as a single name.

Answer 2

If you have a listserv available, you could create a list that includes everyone but only you have send permissions. I don't believe there is any built-in way with Outlook and Exchange to do what you're asking.

Answer 3

If you could BCC the meeting invites it would work great, but Outlook doesn't support that. There is a roundabout way to do it, however.

Create a meeting on your calendar with all the necessary details, but don't add any attendees to it. When you click the Send button, Outlook will warn you there are no attendees and will ask if you just want to save it to your calendar. Once you do this, create a new email and drag the calendar item to it as an attachment.

Sending it as an attachment will allow you to use the BCC field of the email (so no one can see each other in the address list) but they will be able to open and accept the meeting invitation (click the Copy to my calendar button). It will send the normal "accepted" emails back to you as organizer, but in the meeting details each person should see only you and him or herself. One potential downside is that I'm not sure you can cancel the meeting and have it remove from everyone's calendar automatically. Maybe it will, I haven't tried it.

Answer 4

You can bcc. You have to add users as Resources.

Answer 5

i have been using the resource field, and it does work as a BCC. major downside: i am not receiving accept/decline responses from attendees.