FindTime Outlook Add-in for Meeting Scheduling

INSTALL FINDTIME

FindTime is an Outlook add-in for scheduling meetings. The organizer can send multiple time options through FindTime and minimize the back-and-forth emails in scheduling.

ATTENDEE ACCESS TO FINDTIME

Recipients of a FindTime meeting are not required to have the add-in installed to vote on meeting times. Invitations can be sent to any email address including Gmail, Yahoo!, and similar providers.

There are a number of ways to install FindTime.

 

INSTALLING FINDTIME IN OUTLOOK FOR THE WEB 

1. Open Outlook for the web in your browser.

2. Select New message to open a new email.

3. To the right of the Send and Discard buttons, select the ellipses button (…) and then select Get Add-ins.

4. Search for the FindTime add-in. 

Note: If you can't access Add-ins or FindTime, your administrator may have turned off your access. Contact your administrator for more information.

5. To use the app, click the ellipses button (…) again from a message and select FindTime.

 

INSTALLING FINDTIME IN OUTLOOK DESKTOP

1. Open Outlook.

2. Go to Home > Get Add-ins. 

3. Search for the FindTime add-in. 

 

Note: If you can't access Add-ins or FindTime, your administrator may have turned off your access. Contact your administrator for more information.

4. Select Add, Continue, Get Started (read as much as you like,then click X to close it).

5. You will now see the FindTime Reply with Meeting Poll in the Home tab.

 

 

 

HOW TO CREATE A FINDTIME POLL

FindTime is an Outlook add-in for scheduling meetings. The organizer can send multiple time options through FindTime and minimize the back and forth emails in scheduling.

To schedule a meeting in Outlook with FindTime:

1. Create a new email or select an email to reply to.

2. List people required for the meeting in To and optional participants in Cc. 

3. In the Home tab select Reply with meeting poll. (New Meeting?)

4. Select the meeting settings:

     Duration: Select a duration from the list.

• Select 8 hours for a full-day meeting.
• Select Custom in the time dropdown menu to set your own time. The maximum duration is 23 hours 59 minutes.
• Work Hours: Check to limit suggested meeting times to work days and hours only.

     Note: The working hours used by default are retrieved from your organizer settings, and failing these your Exchange settings. They default to 8 am to 5 pm if no settings are found.

• Time zone: Select the time zone dropdown menu to change the time zone for the meeting.

     Notes: 

• The time zone used is retrieved from your organizer settings, but you can select a new one from the list.
• Daylight savings time is taken into account and meetings after the yearly switch show the correct time

5. FindTime looks through the attendees' schedules (if available) and suggests suitable meeting times.

     Note: FindTime 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 a       Microsoft 365 account are not supported.

     Use the links to sort the meeting options.

 

• Availability: Lists the best options (times when all required meeting participants are free) first. Factors used to determine the best options include how many attendees are free, how many required vs. optional attendees are free, whether conflicted attendees have tentative or busy commitments on their calendar.
• Time: Lists the options chronologically.
  
  Note: You can scroll through the days and months using the arrows. Available days are underlined in green. Darker green indicates days with the most options and lighter green and red indicates the most conflicts. Weekend days are marked available if Work Hours is not selected.
• The people icons show whether meeting participants are required, and their availability.

 

• Underlined: Required
• Green: Available
• Yellow: May be busy
• Red: Busy
• Gray: Unknown

• You can use the icons to access more information.
  • Select to open the attendee's status tray.
  • Hover over each person icon or to view their availability information.
  • Select to view your calendar.

6. Select a few suitable meeting times.

• The time box changes to blue when selected.

Note: Polls that have 20 suggestions or fewer are more likely to reach consensus. 

7. Select Next.

8. Enter the meeting location.

• Online meetings are enabled by default. Select the Online Meeting check box to disable it. 
  
  
  
  When Online Meeting is selected, FindTime will schedule a Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams meeting. FindTime will use whichever has been set by your organization as the default online meeting channel. 

Note: If you saved a Skype for Business setting in your dashboard, FindTime will use that instead of Microsoft Teams. If you want to use Microsoft Teams, delete the Skype for Business setting in your dashboard.

9. Select Poll settings and toggle the ON/OFF

Note: You can still delete selected meeting times at this point by selecting X in the Selected times list.

• 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.
• 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.
• Lock poll for attendees: Attendees will not be able to suggest new times or edit other attendees.
• Require attendees to verify their identity: To help prevent anonymous voting, attendees will be required to authenticate before voting.
• Email notifications in FindTime language: The language that you use FindTime in will be used to send related email notifications. Otherwise these notifications will be sent in English.

10. Select Insert to email. (Add to email?)

11. FindTime inserts the suggested meeting times into your email. Select Edit Options to change the meeting settings, if necessary.

Note: If you make changes and reinsert the meeting times, you need to manually delete the original invite.

12. Select Send to send the meeting invites and start the voting process.

13. You will receive a direct link to the voting page for your meeting.

 

HOW FINDTIME AUTO SCHEDULING WORKS

If you're using a third-party online meeting provider such as Zoom or Webex through the use of an Outlook add-in, you can still schedule a meeting through FindTime, but you cannot use the auto schedule option. 

If meeting organizer has enabled auto scheduling in their organier dashboard, FindTime will schedule meetings automatically as soon as consensus is reached.

FindTime continuously checks for consensus on the poll, and when it is reached:

• The meeting is scheduled.
• The organizer is notified.
• Polls are sent to the attendees.

Auto scheduling rules

These rules are applied to determine the time that the meeting is auto scheduled for:

• Only the votes of required attendees are considered in determining consensus: votes of optional attendees are discarded.
• If required attendees reach consensus on multiple times, the votes of optional attendees are then taken into account. The meeting is scheduled for the best available time for both required and optional attendees.
• If more than one time qualifies, the earliest time takes precedence and is auto scheduled.

The organizer can schedule the meeting before auto scheduling is triggered on the voting page. See Scheduling meetings manually section in Using the FindTime voting page topic for more details.

If the organizer has not enabled auto scheduling, they can schedule the meeting manually on the voting page by selecting Schedule for any suitable time.

Calendar holds

If the organizer has enabled calendar holds in their organizer dashboard, the holds will be removed for all unscheduled meeting times when the meeting is auto scheduled.

 

FINDTIME ORGANIZER DASHBOARD

The FindTime organizer dashboard allows organizers to view all the polls they have created in one place, manage their polls, and change default settings for new polls.

Accessing the organizer dashboard

Here is how to access your organizer dashboard:

• If you have created polls after 3/11/2020, please access your dashboard at https://outlook.office365.com/findtime/dashboard.

Managing polls in the organizer dashboard

All your FindTime polls display in the dashboard.

Open polls polls display by default. Go to Completed or Cancelled to access prior polls.

Polls have 4 possible states:

• Open polls :A current poll that is still available for voting.
• Completed :A poll that has been scheduled.
• Cancelled :A poll that you have cancelled.
• Deleted:Deleted polls are not available in the dashboard. These are polls that either you have deleted or FindTime has deleted because they were not sent. 

Editing polls in the organizer dashboard

To edit an open poll:

1. Select Edit details.

2. Change the details.

Note: If you select a duration that is longer than previously, attendees may not be available for the extended duration and existing votes may no longer be reliable.

Cancelling polls in the organizer dashboard

To cancel an open poll:

• Select Cancel poll next to the corresponding poll in the Open tab, and select Yes when it asks to confirm if you want to cancel it.

When you cancel a poll activity is suspended:

• The meeting can no longer be scheduled, either manually or by auto scheduling.
• Voting is no longer available, but the voting page can still be viewed. Actions are grayed out and unavailable.

If you don't want your attendees to access the voting page, delete the poll in the Cancelled tab.

Deleting polls in the organizer dashboard

To delete a completed or canceled poll:

1. Go to the Completed or Canceled

2. Select Delete.

 

ORGANIZER SETTINGS

Your organizer settings are applied by default to all polls you create. Changes to your settings only apply to future polls. Current polls are not affected.

To access your organizer settings:

• Select Default Poll Settings to the upper right corner of the table.

To edit your settings:

• Enter new value or make different selections in Settings.  These settings are used by default when scheduling meetings.
  
  
  • Notify me about poll updates: You will receive an email each time an attendee votes.  The message includes the current poll status and an option to schedule.
  • 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 schedule: This will add a tentative appointment to your calendar for each  option suggested in the poll. Holds are removed when the meeting is scheduled or the poll is cancelled.
  • Lock poll for attendees: Attendees won't be able to suggest new times or edit other attendees.
  • Require attendees to verify their identity: To help prevent anonymous voting, attendees will be required to authenticate before voting.
  • Default meeting duration: Select the default length of the meeting.
  • Limit suggestions to meeting hours: Only allow time suggestions within standard business hours.

 

This material is copied from the Microsoft online documentation and compiled into a single document. Links to the separate articles about FindTime are located at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/findtime-articles-ec8304aa-e2a2-4cca-ae4c-5d4d0b4b7dc5.

 

 

Here is a link to a video on how to use FindTime:

https://kaltura.clemson.edu/media/t/1_cttw1qnv