How to send Out of Office Meeting Invite

If you are planning to go on a vacation, this is what most of us do in outlook to enable out of office.

1. Open Outlook


2. Click on File>> Info>> Automatic Replies.

This is a must. But the catch here is people will come to know that you are out of office only if they send you an email. Now, you might think that sending out of office meeting invite to all. Well, this is a good idea but there are few things which you need to enable and disable before sending out of office meeting invite to all.

Also check: How to add MS outlook Preview Pane to your Gmail

Here are the things to follow:

1. Open up a new meeting invite in Outlook.


2. Enter all details like Subject (OOO: Ravindra Joisa), Location (Mangalore), To and the content of the email. [OOO - Out of Office]
   
   [caption id="attachment_50" align="alignright" width="336"] Image Source: Outlook[/caption]


3. Check "All day event".


4. Uncheck "Response Options".


5. "Show As" field should be set to "Free".


6. Select "Reminder" as "None".

"Show As" should be set to "Free", else person A's calendar who has accepted your out of office meeting will show as Busy the whole day (if "All Day Event" is enabled) and others can't schedule/ might think that person A is busy with the person who is out of office and may not schedule a meeting with person A.

Uncheck "Allow New Time Proposals" - Well, if your leave is already approved then there is no point in keeping this option enabled.

Uncheck "Request Responses" - This is not needed as it's not a high importance meeting and you are just going on leave.

Set "Reminder" to "None" - This is very important. If this is not set then all the people to whom you send the meeting invite (the entire distribution list) will get pop-up alerts every day, 30 minutes and 5 minutes before meeting with snooze option that you are out of office and that is very irritating.

Follow the same steps if you are working from home (WFH, Sick/Paid Leave, Late to office etc). Hope this was helpful, let me know if you have more points to add or any other way you guys follow.