Scheduling Assistant is a tool in Outlook that helps you find the best time to schedule a meeting or room usage by displaying times when a person or room is busy or free.
To use the Scheduling Assistant tool in Outlook for scheduling meetings or room usage, follow these steps:
1. Open Outlook
2. Click on the Meeting option under the Home tab in the Respond group
3. Click the Scheduling Assistant button under the Meeting tab in the Show group
Key features of Scheduling Assistant:
- View your current obligations and meetings/appointments on the Scheduling Assistant screen, listed as Busy, Tentative, Out of Office, No Information, or Outside of working hours.
- Use the "Add Attendees..." button to include more people or entities to the meeting(s).
- Use the "Add Rooms..." button to check room availability and claim a time frame for room usage.
- Use the "Options" button to configure Scheduling Assistant settings, such as Show Only My Working Hours, Show Calendar Details, and Refresh Free/Busy.
- The Room Finder pane on the right-hand side displays room availability as Good, Fair, or Poor, along with available rooms and Suggested times for optimal usage.
- When a schedule is set, the starting time is denoted by a green vertical line, and the ending time is denoted by a red vertical line.