The Outlook Web App, part of Office 365, now has a new “Propose New Time” feature. This does exactly what it sounds like – it enables users to respond to meeting invites by suggesting a different time if they are not available. You will no longer have to decline, and send emails back and forth until you have a time that fits everyone.
This feature also makes the organizer’s life a lot easier. He no longer has to worry about each attendee and contact them. The organizer can see the proposals of each attendee and knows when each is available. This makes finding a time that will make everyone happy a lot easier.
As an attendee you will see a button next to Accept, Tentative, and Decline that reads “Propose New Time” which you can click to do so. If your calendar already has something at the meeting time, Outlook shows a “show conflicts” button under these options. Clicking this will give you a preview of the meeting in your calendar, and conflicting events. This enables you to quickly propose a new time that suits you.
When you click “Propose New Time” it sends an email with the information, and anything you want to add, to the organizer. So why is this better? The organizer can edit the event from a reply. Also when the organizer is editing the event, he or she can see all the proposed times by the attendees .
Propose New Time is available in the web app today for most users, and will be reach all users by the end of the month. It will also be part of the mobile apps in their next update. It is already present in the Outlook Windows application.
Further reading: Microsoft, Office 365, Outlook
