Working Elsewhere: available or not?

Question

Working Elsewhere: available or not?

Clémentine Lorotte de Banes 6

Hello there,

Is "Working Elsewhere" event type intended to show as available while using the Scheduling Assistant?

There seems to be different behaviours depending on the client:

OWA: Working Elsewhere is considered available
Windows Outlook: Working Elsewhere is considered available
macOS Outlook: Working Elsewhere is considered NOT available

Which one is "right"? Are the others getting fixed any time soon?

Clémentine Lorotte de Banes 6 Reputation points

2022-03-31T08:13:27+00:00

@Andy David - MVP it's Office 365

@Faery Fu-MSFT

On the latest Outlook for Mac (version 16.59), I can choose "Working Elsewhere":

It seems normal to me that "Working Elsewhere" will show up as available, as it's just an additional information about my location.
We have multiple offices in different cities and we use it to specify which one we will be working from.

But I am not sure if that's how it is intended or not as we experience different behaviors.

3 answers

Your answer

Clémentine Lorotte de Banes 6 Reputation points

2022-03-31T08:13:27+00:00

@Andy David - MVP it's Office 365

@Faery Fu-MSFT

On the latest Outlook for Mac (version 16.59), I can choose "Working Elsewhere":

It seems normal to me that "Working Elsewhere" will show up as available, as it's just an additional information about my location.
We have multiple offices in different cities and we use it to specify which one we will be working from.

But I am not sure if that's how it is intended or not as we experience different behaviors.

Answer 1

Andy David - MVP 157.8K MVP Volunteer Moderator

Yea, this is an issue I have seen discussed before.
What version of Exchange is this?
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/522623/working-elsewhere-calendar-status-shows-as-free-in.html

Answer 2

Hi @Clémentine Lorotte de Banes ,

Welcome to our forum!

According to my test, when using Outlook for Windows or Outlook Web App (OWA) to access your calendar, you can set the status of your calendar items to one of five options:

When using Outlook for Mac or any other client, you will see only four:

Besides, based on my search, the status Working Elsewhere is only supported and recognized by Outlook for Windows and OWA. If you sync your calendar with another client/app, including any mobile apps, all items marked with that status will show as Free. This means that anyone looking at your calendar's availability from another client will not know that you are unavailable if your items are marked with Working Elsewhere.

To work around it, it is recommended use another status.
Hope this can help you!

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Answer 3

Faery Fu-MSFT 19,751 Moderator

Hi @Clémentine Lorotte de Banes ,

Thanks for your reply!

Indeed, this option appeared when I switched outlook to the new version.

So if some one doesn't have this option in outlook for mac, it is suggested to turn on "New Outlook".

If you think my answer is helpful to you, please click "Accept Answer" to help other people with similar problem.

Faery Fu-MSFT 19,751 Reputation points Moderator

2022-04-04T06:57:29.357+00:00

Hi @Clémentine Lorotte de Banes ,
Do you think my answer is helpful? If so, please mark the helpful replies as answers, this will make answer searching in the forum easier and be beneficial to other community members as well. Thanks for your understanding.
Fleckenstein, Udo (HR OT SYS 1) 6 Reputation points

2022-06-03T08:44:26.143+00:00

Dear FaeryFu-MSFT,

as far as I understood the question (which is identical to my problem), it's not HOW to set the option "Working Elsewhere" but when scheduling a meeting with some colleague who is USING the status "Working Elsewhere" on MacOS the availability information is considering this time (usually a full day) as "not available".

As ClementineLorrettedeBanes writes, this does not make much sense, as I'm still available even if working elsewhere and as the user wrote in the beginning, OWA and Windows versions are considering people AVAILABLE during the time the have items in the calendar set to "Working Elsewhere" (checked it myself using OWA).

Maybe this is an issue both of us have or this is meant that way, but at least I'm missing some logical reason of having different behaviours here.

Thanks for your time & cu,
-udo
Yorum Yapan 6 Reputation points

2022-09-24T15:13:51.743+00:00

Dear FaeryFu-MSFT,

FleckensteinUdoHROTSYS1-0211's reply on June 3, 2022, does a good job of summarizing why the original question still hasn't been answered. The issue is seeing different behavior on Macs vs PCs/OWA. On Macs, "Working elsewhere" marks the user's time as "unavailable" and meetings scheduled during that block will show as conflicts. On PCs/OWA, the user whose status is "Working elsewhere" is "available" and meetings can be schedule during those times without any conflict. In my mind, the PC/OWA behavior is correct, so I'm hoping we'll see an update on the Mac side soon.
chrisB 0 Reputation points

2024-12-10T11:11:55.54+00:00

If I setup my mail account as an Exchange account I only have 4 options ("Working Elsewhere" is missing).

If I setup my mail account as "Microsoft 365" I got all 5 options for "Show as".
Fleckenstein, Udo (HR OT SYS 1) 6 Reputation points

2024-12-10T17:15:23.76+00:00

Dear chrisB, the original issue is a different one (not setting it but the behavior of MacOS' outlook to interpret this for other users when scheduling meetings).

Also this behavior is solved in the meantime (I think it's about one year now - thank you for everyone participating!).

You might want to find a different thread that covers your issue or start a new one for better visibility.

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Working Elsewhere: available or not?

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