Scheduling a poll

Scheduling a poll

Use polling tool to schedule a meeting with multiple users.

Currently only available on New Outlook for Windows desktop application and Outlook on the web.

Setting up the poll

  1. Under Calendar, set up a potential meeting as usual: add title, date, time, and location.

  2. The polling tool is initially greyed out and becomes available once at least one participant is added. It is located next to the Scheduler tool.

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  3. Click the polling tool, and three possible meeting times will appear. You can delete them and add your own preferred times.

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The duration of your meeting is set when you first input your meeting information (Step 1). If you require a duration change, disable the polling tool, update the meeting time, and re-enable the polling tool.

  1. Ensure your times are correct. You cannot edit the times once you click Send to invite users to the poll.

  2. The meeting organizer must add all polling participants to the calendar event, though additional participants can be added later. Poll recipients cannot forward the poll to add other users. If a poll recipient wants another user to respond on their behalf, they will forward the email with the poll and send the generated a code.

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Voting and finalizing the poll

  1. Participants will receive the poll by email.

    1. Outlook users can vote directly in the email or online via the Voting page link.

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    2. External users must vote online via the Voting page link by selecting their email under Attendees:

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    3. If external users have a work or school M365 account, they can sign in or generate an email verification code to access the poll:

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  1. Participants will receive an email notification that their vote has been submitted. Before the poll closes, they can go back and update their votes if needed.

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  2. After every submission, the meeting organizer will receive an email notification. The meeting organizer is unable to update votes for participants.

  3. At the end of the poll’s deadline, the meeting organizer must go into one of the meeting holds to finalize the meeting and remove the holds in everyone’s calendar. A meeting organizer cannot close a poll early.

  1. At the end of the polling deadline, the meeting organizer can view the poll results under Voting page.

  2. To finalize the meeting, the organizer can open any of the calendar placeholders, select the desired timeslot, and click End poll with selected option. The meeting invitation is not sent immediately, allowing time to review and edit meeting details. If the wrong time was selected, simply close the meeting to discard the changes.

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