Outlook Initiations - Allow invitees to accept as hybrid or in-person

Question

Given the hybrid work environment and different schedules, where is Microsoft and the Outlook/ Teams teams on adding this functionality to the meeting invites? It seems so straight forward to provide a way to Accept a meeting with this extra tag / awareness both for meeting organizers and participants to have. I've seen it as being under consideration and on a backlog though what will it take to add this very important feature to the suite?

Answer 1

Given we have employees on any given day can be in the office or working hybrid (from home or another office location), a meeting organizer is often asked for participant status. Current status of Accept, Decline or Tentative good for participation though often we also need to consider meeting rooms (have in multiple locations or size in any given location) or general expectation (important decision meeting where you encourage folks to meet in person). Getting this answer requires an offline polling of users which is tedious and not productive.

The ask is on the "Accept" option is for a user to indicate in person or hybrid as well. This way a meeting organizer or any participant "tracking" invite status can see which invitees have not only declined or are tentative but also see if they plan to join in person or plan to connect remotely.

Hope that provides some additional color though more importantly a benefit hypothesis to Microsoft. I'm sure if you poll user of Outlook and Teams there would be many users that would seek this enhancement as it's often discussed as a hybrid work environment problem.

Answer 2

Hi @Jason Kozlowski

To get this feature more quickly, you can send a feedback directly to Microsoft Feedback to add it in future updates.

Many features of our current products are designed and upgraded based on customers’ feedback. With requirements like this increase, the problem may well be released in the future.

Thanks for your understanding and support.

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