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Setting Free/Busy Status On Calendar Events

A few weeks ago I showed how to use Outlook's Scheduling Assistant feature. That feature is especially powerful when you need to schedule a meeting with multiple people, because it allows you to quickly find a time when everyone has a free spot on their calendar. But that system only really works if:

1. Everyone keeps their schedule on their calendar (i.e. blocking out time when they aren't available)
2. Everyone sets their free/busy status appropriately for events on their calendar (i.e. not blocking out time they really are available)

#1 is simple, but I wanted to quickly show explain #2 and show how to set the free/busy status for events on your calendar. You may sometimes have events on your calendar that aren't really meetings or even events you will personally attend. They might be personal reminders, or I know some managers keep track of their team's vacation schedule by getting them to send a calendar invite for the times they will be out so the manager has it on their calendar as a reminder. If you have events like this on your calendar, you need to ensure their free/busy status is set to Free. That will still keep it on your calendar, but it won't make it appear like you are blocked off during that time when other people are trying to look at when you would be free using Outlook's Scheduling Assistant.

Here is where you would set the free/busy status when you have a calendar event open in Outlook. They call that event setting Show As:

You can also set the free/busy status for a calendar event from your iPhone. They call that event setting Availability:

When you accept an invite from someone, by default the event will be set to busy when it is added to your calendar. So just remember to change it to Free if it really shouldn't block off your calendar.

How To Use Scheduling Assistant to Reserve Rooms

If you plan to have a meeting or event in one of our shared meeting spaces like the Main Conference Room or Garden Room, you need to reserve it on the calendar. This is especially important now that we are making those more available to outside organizations during business hours. Here are tips on how you can check the availability of one of those rooms, and how to properly reserve the space in a way that others would see it was in use during that time.

This is very important, because unless everyone schedules these shared resources in the way I about to explain we will inevitably have scheduling conflicts. So, if there are multiple people needing the same space … the new rule is, whoever had it properly reserved on the calendar gets the room. This will also ensure if an outside organization reserves the space, it will actually be available for them to use when they get here (I’m guess it might be awkward if it isn’t).

I am going to explain how to do this using Outlook Web Access, although the steps would be very similar in the Outlook desktop client.

1. Open Outlook Web Access by going to mail.betenbough.com
2. Click on the Calendar tab in the left navigation menu, then click the New link at the top.
   
3. That should open a new window where you can enter the event details (shown below). Click on the Scheduling Assistant tab at the top.
   
   Important: You can’t just type in the room in the “Location” textbox for the event (shown above). That won’t add it on the shared calendar for that room, which means nobody else will be able to see that you plan to use that space during that time.
4. In this window you can add both meeting attendees (at least for Betenbough Employees) and specify the Rooms you want to reserve. Just click on the line under Select Rooms, and you can start typing in the name of the room you want to reserve. It will auto-complete possible choices as you type. For this to work, you must type in one of these room names:
   • Main Conference Room - The big room where we have ownership meetings
   • Small Conference Room - The small room behind Peggy’s desk where we do closings
   • Garden Room - Yep … exactly what you think it is.
   • Break Room - This is the redesigned space for kids, but if you want to reserve it for a party or for something like worship team practice … you might pick this room.
   
   Ensure there is a check by the room you want to reserve. In the center on the window you can see the free/busy schedule for all attendees as well as any rooms you selected. Just click on an open timeslot on the schedule and it will automatically adjust the start & end times of the meeting:
   
5. You can now switch back to the Appointment tab at that top and finish entering the rest of the details for the meeting/event (i.e. subject, when the reminder should go off, etc).
   
6. Click the Send button in the top left corner, and you’re done. That will send an invite to the attendees and also send the calendar event to the shared calendar for the room.

Tips for Good Email Subjects

Your email's subject line is, next to your name, the first thing the recipient sees. It is important. A good subject should make it easy for your recipient to immediately understand why you've sent them an email and to quickly determine what kind of response or action it requires. Compose a great “Subject:” line that hits the high points or summarizes the thrust of the message. Avoid “Hi,” “One more thing...,” or “FYI,” in favor of typing a short summary of the most important points in the message. A well crafted subject is especially helpful when you have to go back and search for an old email, because they allow you to get a general idea of the content within an email without having to inspect the detials of each one.

So now that we agree email subjects are important, here are some tips on how to create effective subjects.

What Not To Do

• Never leave the subject blank
• Don’t be vague or general
  (Ex: “Hi”, “Phone Call”, “Friday”, “Home Page”, “Tom”, “Did you get it?”)
• Don’t try to stuff everything into the subject
  (Ex: “Important Information Regarding A Keynote Presentation You Should Attend Dec 1st”)
• Don’t try to arouse interest or curiosity to tease someone into opening the email to see what it is really about
  (Ex: “Exciting News” or “Special Guest”)

What To Do

A good subject should give the message’s bottom line, similar to the headline for a newspaper article. Here are some tips to help you compose a good subject:

• Summarize the message. This might be why you are writing and what you want to be different after the recipient has read your email — instead of describing it.
• Be Precise. Include detail that allows the recipient to identify what you are talking about quickly and unambiguously. For example, if you are sending an email to the marketing team, a subject of “Event” or “Ad” is probably not specific enough to be of any benefit to them. Try to put yourself in the recipient’s shoes, and craft a subject that will allow the reader to have a general idea of what the email contains before they open it.
• If your message requires the recipient's action, say so; preferably with the first word. The subject of these types of emails should be actionable.
• Omit unnecessary words. Email subjects need to be concise. Skip articles, adjectives and adverbs.

How To Set Up Your Out Of Office Reply In Outlook Web Access

Anytime you are going to be out of the office for more than a day and won't be regularly checking your email, you should set up your email to automatically reply to people that send you a message during that time period so they know you are out and also tells them who they should contact in your absence if the request is urgent. To configure these automatic reply emails, we will use a feature called Out of Office Assistant.
Although you can do all this stuff in the Outlook desktop client, I will show how you can do it using Outlook Web Access. Everyone can access that, so we simply suggest doing it this way even if you typically use the Outlook desktop client.

1. Open a web browser and go to mail.betenbough.com
2. In the top-right corner of the page, click the link for Options
3. In the menu on the left side of the page, click on Out of Office Assistant
   
4. Configure the page like the example below, then click Save

How To Email Multiple Photos From iPhone

Most people know how to share a single photo by attaching it to an email, but there are times when you might need to attach a few photos to an email. Instead of sending multiple emails with one photo each, this walks you through how to attach those to a single email.

1. First, go to the Photos app and click on the album that contains the pictures you want to send (this is likely the Camera Roll album).  After you have selected the album, you should see something like what is shown below. Click the arrow button in the top-right corner.
   
   
   After you clicked the arrow button, the screen should have changed to look something like this:
   
2. Click on each of the photos you want to email.  As you do that it will check off the ones you have clicked. You can attach up to 5 photos in a single email.
   
3. Click the Share button, and it will ask you if you want to send the photos via Email or MMS (i.e. text message). Select Email.
   

That’s it.  After you clicked Email, it will open up a new email and each of the photos you selected will be attached.