Creating an appointment or meeting in Outlook - Windows

Additional tools that are useful when creating an appointment or meeting in Outlook desktop:

• Add a recurrence - If an appointment or meeting is repeated on a regular schedule, you can add a recurrence instead of creating an event for each instance.

• Inviting people to a meeting - To include someone in a meeting that you are creating, you can send an invite to attendees.

• Booking a room - To book a room, you can invite the room when creating the meeting.

• Scheduling assistant - The scheduling assistant is a useful tool for determining common availability for meeting times. It allows you to simultaneously view the calendars of all invited people (if they have a UWaterloo email account) and rooms, and it will suggest meetings times with the fewest conflicts.

Step-by-step guide to create an appointment or meeting

1. After you’ve opened Outlook, choose your calendar (in the bottom left corner).
   
   

   Open

   

2. In the Home ribbon, click New Appointment or New Meeting. This will open a new window.
   
   

   Open

   

    

3. In the Subject field, enter a title for the appointment/meeting.

4. In the Location field, enter the location, or if you're scheduling a meeting click Rooms... to book a room.

5. In the Start time and End time fields:

   1. Select the start date from the first dropdown calendar.

   2. Select the end date from the second dropdown calendar.

   3. Enter the start and end times of the event or select the All day check box.

   4. Or use the scheduling assistant to find a time people and rooms are available.

6. If applicable, click the Private button.

7. If the event is recurring on a regular schedule, click the Recurrence button to add a recurrence.

8. In the Show As dropdown box, select how the event will appear in your calendar: Free, Working Elsewhere, Tentative, Busy, or Out of Office.

9. In the Reminder dropdown box, select the amount of time before the event, or None, you'd like to receive a pop-up reminder.
   
   

    

10. In the WYSIWYG text box, add any additional event details.

11. To attach a file, select the Insert tab and click the Attach File button.

12. For an appointment, click Save & Close. For a meeting, invite people to the event and then click Send.

Adding a recurrence 

If an appointment or meeting is repeated on a regular schedule, you can add a recurrence instead of creating an event for each instance. Please see this article for instructions on how to set-up recurring meetings: Create Repeating Appointments and Meetings (recurrence) in Outlook - desktop

Inviting people to a meeting

To include someone in a meeting that you are creating, you can send an invite to attendees. Please see this article for instructions on how to invite attendees to a meeting: Inviting people to meeting in Outlook - desktop

Booking a room

To book a room, the room is added to a meeting invitation. Please see this article for instructions on how to book a room: Booking a room in Microsoft Outlook - Windows

Scheduling Assistant

The scheduling assistant is a useful tool for determining common availability for meeting times. It allows you to simultaneously view the calendars of all invited people (if they have a UWaterloo email account) and rooms, and it will suggest meetings times with the fewest conflicts. Please see this article for instructions to use the Scheduling Assistant: Scheduling Assistant in Outlook - desktop

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