Decline pending calendar change

[Guest]

Suggestion: Allow a "decline" response with the option to keep it on your
calendar. Purpose in doing this is in case the invitiees calendar opens up
and the invitee can then participate, it is still showing on the calendar and
the invitiee can go back and accept it and show up.


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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...72f86&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.calendaring

 

[Brian Tillman]

Suggestion: Allow a "decline" response with the option to keep it on
your calendar. Purpose in doing this is in case the invitiees
calendar opens up and the invitee can then participate, it is still
showing on the calendar and the invitiee can go back and accept it
and show up.

Accept it as "Tentative" then. That's what "tentative": means: "I'll come
if I can." "Decline" means "I'm not showing up, period."

 

[Guest]

The problem with Brian's answer is that it is coming from a developer's point
of view and not a business point of view.

Our company has just switched to exchange server using Outlook 2003 with
calendaring. It is not practical to tentatively accept all meetings just in
case your calendar opens up. 1) the calendar gets extremely messy and 2) the
host of the meeting really doesn't know whose attending until the meeting
starts - not a good thing if the host is providing a meal or if handouts are
prepared for the maximum and half of the attendees show up (killing too many
trees).

It may not be necessary to show the declined meeting, but at least have a
task that shows all meetings declined (that have not passed) in case your
calendar clears. We are all struggling with this at my work. Our prior
calendaring tool kept the refusals in a list and we were able to accept them
after refusing them. Unfortunately, it is our IT department making the
application decisions and not the Business here or we would have kept our
previous calendar application.

I have searched this newsgroup for declined messages and see that there are
many who would like to be able to accept a previously declined meeting. The
MS responses are quite condescending - just like the one Brian has submitted
below. He should have just added the word "idiot" after the sentence 'That's
what "tentative": means: "I'll come if I can."' The tone of his response
suggests it; although Brian could use a lesson in punctuation.

The only way that I have been able to efficiently track my declined meetings
in case I need to later accept is through rules. The problem with it is that
I can only capture my "Decline" response - which has no option to accept it
later. I can call the host and request a reinvite, however. This work around
is not as nearly efficient as being able to just accept a previously declined
meeting. Other software developers are able to add this feature in their
products, it shouldn't be that difficult for a MS developer to do the same.
As long as we can get past their vast knowledge of knowing everything and
reminding the customer just how stupid they are.

Priscilla

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You should be able to keep prior invitations in a list in Outlook, too: Turn off Outlook's feature that automatically deletes meeting invitations that you've responded to. After you respond with a Decline, move that invitation into a separate folder. (Or mark it read and rely on your Unread Items search folder until you want to look for it again.)

FWIW, there are virtually no "MS responses" in this group. It is a peer-to-peer group where users share their insights.

Microsoft adds new features to its products based on demand from its customers and feasibility, weighed against the potential other programming tasks that would soak up the same resources. Between Outlook 2003's release and Outlook 2007's release, they will have dealt with at least a dozen and a half major calendar-scheduling issues that (based on my reading of Outlook discussion forums for the past 9 years) will have a much bigger impact than providing the functionality you're looking for. Maybe your idea will make it into the next pass.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers