Outlook: Create a Scheduling Poll in Outlook

Tags Outlook

Scheduling meetings can often involve a lot of back-and-forth emails to find a suitable time for everyone. With Outlook’s Scheduling Poll feature, you can simplify this process by sending multiple time options to participants. This guide will help you understand how to create and manage Scheduling Polls in Outlook for Windows.

Accessing the Scheduling Poll in Outlook on a Mac Computer

Scheduling poll can be used in Outlook for Mac. You can access it through Mail.

  1. Create a new email or select an email to reply to. List required attendees for the meeting in the To field and optional attendees in the Cc field.

  2. Select Scheduling Poll from the compose toolbar.

    Mac Entrypoint

  3. Drag and drop Scheduling Poll into the toolbar.

Accessing the Scheduling Poll in Outlook on a Windows Computer

Below are some of the different ways in which you can access Scheduling Poll in Outlook for Windows.

  1. In Mail, you can access Scheduling Poll as follows:

    1. Select Reply with Scheduling Poll on the Home tab when an email is open in the reading pane.

      Reply with Scheduling Poll in Mail's reading pane.

    2. Launch the compose pane by either creating a new message or hitting reply/forward for an existing message. List required recipients in the To field and optional recipients in the Cc field. Then, on the Message tab, select New Scheduling Poll.

      Create a Scheduling Poll through Mail's compose form.

  2. In Calendar, you can access Scheduling Poll by either launching the compose form to create a new meeting event or opening an existing event in the edit form. List required attendees in the Required field and optional attendees in the Optional field. Select New Scheduling Poll under the Meeting tab.

    Create a Scheduling Poll in Calendar event compose form.

Steps for Creating a Scheduling Poll in Outlook 

  1. Select the meeting settings.

    1. View all your polls: Click this link to view and manage all the polls created by you.

    2. Time zone: Select the time zone dropdown menu to change the time zone for the meeting.

      Note: The time zone used is retrieved from your organizer settings, but you can select a new one from the list. Daylight savings time is considered and meetings after the yearly switch show the correct time. 

    3. Duration: Select a meeting duration from the list.

    4. Meeting hours: Check to limit suggested meeting times to workdays and working hours only.

      Note: The default working hours are either retrieved from your organizer settings (if available), or else your Exchange settings are used. They default to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. if no settings are found.

    5. Date Picker: The date picker will allow you to pick different dates to see time availability. You can add times from different dates to a poll. Alternatively, you can use the left and right arrow buttons to go to the previous or next day and use the calendar icon (between the arrow buttons) to jump back to today.

  2. Scheduling Poll looks through the attendees' schedules (if available) and suggests a list of suitable meeting times. Factors used to determine the best options include how many attendees are free, how many required vs. optional attendees are free, whether conflicted attendees have tentative or busy commitments on their calendar.

    Note: Scheduling Poll uses can access the calendars of attendees in Villanova University to determine availability. However, calendars that are not associated with a Villanova Account will show an attendee's availability as unknown.

    1. People Icons: Hovering over the person icon will show participants’ availability and whether they are required or optional. 

      1. Underlined: Organizer

      2. Green: Available

      3. Red: Busy

      4. Purple: Out of Office

      5. Gray: Unknown

    2. Expand/Collapse button: Will allow you to see a detailed list of participants’ availability and whether they are required or optional for a given time suggestion.

  3. Select a few suitable meeting times. The Next button will be enabled if you select one or more options.

  4. Select Next. You will be presented with the list of selected times and poll settings before you can finish creating the poll.

    List of selected times and poll settings before available before finishing creating the poll.

  5. You can now delete any selected meeting times by clicking the delete icon in the Selected times list.

  6. You have the option to add a meeting location.

  7. Online meetings are enabled by default. Select the Online Meeting check box to disable it. The name of the setting will be updated depending on the default meeting provider selected by your organization. You can change the meeting provider in your Outlook settings.

  8. Use the expand/collapse button to view options under Manage poll settings.

    1. Schedule when attendees reach consensus: A calendar event is automatically scheduled if all required attendees have voted in favor of a specific time option. If multiple options are available, the earliest option will be scheduled.

    2. Hold selected times on my calendar: A tentative event is placed on your calendar for each time option you propose. All holds are removed when the meeting is scheduled, or the poll is canceled.

    3. Notify me about poll updates: You’ll receive an email each time an attendee votes. The message includes the current poll status and an option to schedule.

    4. Require attendees to verify their identity: To help prevent anonymous voting, attendees will be required to authenticate before voting.

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