Scheduling Poll - Outlook in Windows/Web/Mac

Overview

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Procedures

Outlook Desktop app and (OWA) Web - Scheduling Poll and Polls by Microsoft Forms add-in

An organizer can send several time options using the Scheduling Poll to reduce emails going back and forth about a meeting date/time. References: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/create-a-scheduling-poll-34176e59-c87a-4a19-85a4-bb35050ace02

Outlook - Desktop App

1. Open Outlook - Desktop App and start a new message.
2. Add attendees under To
3. Click in the body of the email and then click the New Scheduling Poll button from the message ribbon at the top.

Outlook - (OWA) Web

1. Open Outlook (OWA) and start a new message.
2. Add attendees under To
3. Click in the body of the email and then click the Insert tab from the ribbon at the top.
4. Click the Scheduling Poll button.

The Scheduling Poll pop-out appears on the right side of the new message showing available times for the attendees.  View all your polls - to view and manage all the polls you created in the past.

[View all your polls feature highlighted under Scheduling polls]

NOTE: Scheduling Poll uses your Microsoft 365 business account to access your calendar and the calendars of attendees in your organization to determine availability. Calendars that are not associated with a Microsoft 365 account will show attendee's availability as unknown.

5. Select the meeting settings: Time zone, Duration, Meeting hours and Date.

People icons and Expand/Collapse button

Hover over the person icon shows the participants that are available and whether they are required or optional.

People icons

[Table describing people icon colors and their description]

[List of participants names under the green people icon an one participant under the red people icon highlighted]

Expand/Collapse button

Allows you to see a detailed list of the participants’ availability. Click once to expand and then click again to collapse.

[Expand/Collapse button highlighted]

6. Select a few meeting times and then click the Next button located in the lower right corner of the scheduling poll window.

[Three meeting times and Next button highlighted]

7. Review the Scheduling polling information:

• • Selected times - Click the delete icon to remove any time.
  • Location – complete if you know the location of the meeting.

[Location showing building name VCC and room number 301]

• Online meeting vs in person – the default is an online meeting. Move the slider to the right if this will be an in-person meeting.

[Online meeting with Teams meeting slider to the right and in person meeting with Teams meeting slider to the left]

• • Manage poll settings
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • Require attendees to verify their identity: To help prevent anonymous voting, attendees will be required to authenticate before voting.
    • Lock poll for attendees: Attendees will not be able to suggest new times or edit other attendees.

8. Click Create poll.

The Scheduling poll is added to the email. On the right side the View poll details button is available to review the details.

[Scheduling Poll window added to an email]

9. Click Send.

Example of a voting email the Organizer received:

[Example of the email sent to the Organizer with responses for each participant]

Outlook - Mac

For Outlook for Mac, users will find Poll on the Message tab. After a user pins the add-in, it will appear under the contextual toolbar.

Reference: https://prod.support.services.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/access-scheduling-poll-a8742e97-0b59-45c4-9359-23b582c64a27#ID0EBD=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. Select Scheduling Poll from the compose toolbar.
2. Drag and drop Scheduling Poll into the toolbar.

NOTE: If the find time add-in was previously installed, scheduling poll will automatically show on the toolbar, if not then it needs to be manually added by customizing the toolbar when composing a new mail.

[Adding Polls to the mac toolbar]

References/Links 

Access Scheduling Poll - Outlook in Web/Mac/Windows

Last Reviewed:   27-Mar-2023