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Scheduling Meetings with Meeting Maker

Creating a Meeting

To create an entry on your calendar, click and drag your mouse within the calendar area in Meeting Maker. Type in a name for the meeting.

For example, to create an entry from 10am to 11am, click at the line representing 10am and, while holding the mouse button down, drag down to 11am.

To set additional information about the meeting, double-click the meeting in your calendar.

Alternatively, you can manually create a calendar entry by clicking the Create Activity/Meeting button in the main Meeting Maker window.

Creating a Banner

1. In the Daily View, drag in the banner area on the desired banner start date. A shaded rectangle appears.
2. Drag the rectangle until it spans the days you want to mark with your banner.
3. The banner appears in the banner area with a blinking cursor.
4. Type a title for the banner and press Enter/Return.

The banner appears with the title you entered.

Modifying an existing Meeting

You can manually create a calendar entry by clicking the Create Activity/Meeting button in the main Meeting Maker window.

Deleting a Meeting

Click on the meeting and press the Delete key on your keyboard. Alternatively, you can double-click on the meeting and click the Delete Activity button.

A confirmation message will appear; click Yes to delete the meeting.

Inviting Guests to Meetings

When you create a meeting you can invite guests by clicking the blue Invite Guests link in the meeting entry. Alternatively, you can double-click on the meeting to get the details and click the Guests tab.

The window displays the availability of users that you have invited to your meeting:

• The blue-shaded area represents time outside of normal working hours
• The red-shaded area represents busy time
• The white area is time that is available for scheduling meetings/activities

The blue outlined area represents the time of the proposed meeting.

The Required Guests line shows the combined availability of all required guests.

To invite guests to the meeting, click the Edit List button:

1. Locate the user in the list and
   • click Required to invite them to the meeting. Their busy time will appear in the Required Guests line
   • click Optional to invite them to the meeting. Their busy time will not appear in the Required Gusts line
2. Based on guest availability, you can change the time of the meeting by dragging the blue box.
3. You can click to Autopick button to automatically pick the first available time for all guests.
4. When the list is complete click OK.
5. Click Notify Guests to add the meeting to your calendar and notify guests of the meeting.

Inviting External Guests

You can invite guests who are not users in your Meeting Maker environment to a meeting. External guests must be in your Address Book as contacts. If you have set your email preferences and entered a valid email address for an external guest, they automatically receive an email invitation to the meeting containing an iCalendar attachment. External guests with valid email addresses also receive email notifications of any changes you make to the meeting.

You can invite external guests to a meeting just like any other guests. You can filter your user list in the Add Guests to Meeting dialog box to only display Contacts to help you find external guests faster.

If you invite an external guest without a valid email address to a meeting, a message appears when you send the meeting invitation warning you that not all guests to the meeting will receive a meeting invitation. You must inform such guests about the meeting yourself.

Adding Additional Information to a Meeting

Double-click on the meeting to display detailed information about the event:

On the Details tab you can change the title of the meeting, set a location, change the date and time, change the duration, add an agenda, or set the meeting to recur at a regular interval (for example, a weekly staff meeting). See Creating Recurring Events for more details.

On the Options tab, there are additional settings for the meeting that can be changed:

By default Meeting Maker sets a reminder for 15 minutes before the start time of the meeting. To change the reminder for a meeting:

• To remove the reminder, uncheck the reminder box. Meeting Maker will not remind you about this meeting.
• To change when the reminder occurs, use the other two fields. You can select a number of minutes, hours or days before the meeting, or select a specific date for the reminder.

Check the Private box to mark the meeting private. Other users viewing your calendar cannot see the title or details of any event marked Private. Normally, users with whom you share your calendar can view all details of events on your Meeting Maker calendar. If you mark an event as Private, the event appears to other users with the title "Private <Banner, Activity, or Meeting>".

Check the Flexible box to mark the meeting flexible. Flexible events do not show up as busy time when other Meeting Maker users view your availability. Meetings and activities are not flexible by default. Banners are flexible by default. In the Daily View, flexible meetings and activities appear with an open lock mini icon, and inflexible banners appear with a lock mini icon.

Creating Recurring Events

You can create recurring meetings, banners, or activities. A recurring event is an event that happens regularly at intervals. You can create events that recur daily, weekly, or monthly.

1. On the Details tab of the event window, select the Occurs once dropdown menu. A menu of frequency options appears.
2. Select the desired frequency. Detailed options appear based on the frequency you selected. (For example, to create a quarterly meeting, select Occurs Monthly and set the recurrence to every 3 months.)
3. Set the desired frequency options and a start and end date for the event. To create a recurring meeting with no end date, select Ongoing.
4. Click Create.

The event occurs on each day that matches the recurrence pattern you created.

You can schedule events to recur daily, weekly, monthly, annually, on selected days, or on selected weeks. You can also customize recurring events with greater precision. For example, you can schedule an event to occur every other week, or you can schedule a monthly event to move to the nearest weekday if the selected date falls on a weekend.

If you want your event to recur indefinitely, select Ongoing. If you want your event to recur for a limited period of time, select an end date.

The table below describes each frequency setting.

Occurs Once	The event occurs once, on the date you select.	Event occurs on 6/21/2004
Occurs Daily	The event occurs every X days. You select X.	Event occurs every 3 days
Occurs Weekly	The event occurs every X weeks. You select X.	Event occurs every 3 weeks
Occurs Monthly	The event occurs every X months on a date that you select. You choose what to do if the date falls on a weekend.	Event occurs every 3 months on the 21st
Occurs on Days…	The event occurs on a specific day or days of each week.	Event occurs every Monday and Wednesday
Occurs on Weeks…	The event occurs on the selected day a specific week or weeks of every month.	Event occurs on Monday of the first and last weeks of every month
Occurs Annually	The event occurs every year on the date you select. You choose what to do if the date falls on a weekend.	Event occurs on 6/21 of every year

 

Deleting a Recurring Event

When you cancel a recurring event, you must first decide whether you want to cancel a single instance of the event, all instances of the event, or all events on and after the selected date. Cancelling a recurring event therefore works differently than cancelling a single instance event.

1. In your calendar, select the event you want to cancel.
2. Press Backspace or Delete.
3. A confirmation dialog appears. Click Yes. The Delete Recurring Event dialog box appears.
4. Select whether to delete one occurrence, all occurrences, or all occurrences on and after the selected date. Click OK.

Note:    You cannot delete a single instance of a recurring banner.

Meeting Maker deletes the event according to the option you selected. If the event is a meeting, Meeting Maker notifies your guests that the meeting is cancelled.

Note:    When you change a single instance of a recurring event or all events on and after a certain date, Meeting Maker breaks off the changed instances of the event from the original chain of recurring events, making them into a new and separate event. If you later cancel the original chain of recurring events, any instances which you have broken off with previous changes are not cancelled.

Working with Proposals

When you propose a meeting or a group To Do, you create a proposal. Your guests receive this proposal as an invitation, and you keep a copy of the proposal that you can edit if you decide to make changes to the meeting or To Do later. You can manage both proposals you create and proposals you receive from the Proposals window. Meeting Maker notifies you of incoming proposals according to your notification settings.

By default, incoming meeting invitations also appear in your calendar as penciled in meetings. You can accept or decline penciled in meetings directly from your calendar.

You can set your preferences to automatically accept any meeting invitations during free time.

You can respond to a proposed meeting by accepting the invitation, declining the invitation, or deferring your decision. You can accept a meeting you previously declined or decline a meeting you previously accepted. You can decline a single instance of a recurring meeting that you have accepted.

You can respond to a meeting invitation using any one of three methods:

• From the Daily View, by clicking Accept or Decline in a penciled in meeting.
  This is the quickest way to respond to a meeting invitation if you work primarily from your calendar. The Accept and Decline links do not appear in meetings too short to display them. Recurring meetings have a link to open the meeting invitation rather than Accept and Decline links. You can reply to a penciled in recurring meeting by opening the invitation.
• From the Proposals window, by selecting a proposal and clicking Accept or Decline.
  With this option, you can accept or decline multiple proposals at once using system standard multi-select methods.

Note:    When you decline an invitation from the Proposals window, a message appears asking if you want to include comments for the meeting proposer or suggest a new time. Any comments you enter here are visible only to the meeting proposer, exactly as if you entered the comments from the Options tab of the invitation.

• From the Proposals window or your calendar, by double-clicking the proposal to open it and selecting a response from the invitation. Use this method if you want to add comments to your response, or if you want to view more details about the meeting before you accept or decline the invitation.

Once you reply to a meeting proposal, Meeting Maker removes it from the Received folder in your Proposals window. If you accepted the invitation, Meeting Maker places the meeting on your calendar. If you declined the invitation, Meeting Maker moves the invitation to the Declined folder in your Proposals window. Meeting Maker automatically deletes declined proposals after a latency period you can set in your preferences.

You can set your preferences to automatically accept meetings during free time. Auto-accepted meeting invitations appear in the Auto-accepted folder in your Proposals window.

Creating a To Do List Item

You can access the To Do List from the Window menu. You can also create a To Do item by clicking Create To Do Item in the Task Bar. To create a To Do:

1. In the To Do List, click New. The To Do window appears.
2. Enter a title for the To Do.
3. Enter any other desired information about the To Do. You can set a due date for the To Do, assign a category or priority to the To Do, or enter notes on the To Do from the Details tab. You can set a reminder or mark the To Do as private on the Options tab.
4. Click Create. Meeting Maker adds the To Do item to your To Do List.