I use Microsoft Outlook Calendar for scheduling at work, but people keep sending me meeting invites without checking my calendar to see if I'm free first.
I would like to create a system that does the following:
- Checks if anything is already scheduled at that time
- If nothing is scheduled, DOES NOT automatically accept the appointment (i.e. does nothing)
- If something is in my calendar but the "show as" is set to "free", also does nothing (I often block out periods of time marked as "free" to work on specific non-urgent projects).
- If something is scheduled and the "show as" is set as "busy", "away", "tentative" or "out of office", sends a "tentative" response with an accompanying email apologising that I may not be able to make it due to prior commitments but will review in-person later, and suggesting that the person might like to check my calendar to see alternative times when I'm available.
I know you can select "automatically accept or decline meeting requests" in the options menu but this forces me to accept meetings that don't clash, which I absolutely don't want to do, and I'm not sure if there's any way of sending an email response along with the rejection to explain that it's an auto response and I'll review it in-person later.
There's also a chance that the second invitation is much more important and I'd have to accept it and reschedule the first later instead, so I'd ideally not like to reject unless absolutely necessary.
Is there any functionality that allows you to do something like this? I know you can create quite complex auto-response rules in Outlook Mail but don't know if something similar is possible in Calendar.
This is a work PC so I'd need to get IS support for downloading any additional apps and addons, which is unlikely to be permitted.
