I just ran across a killer new feature in Outlook 2007 and it doesn’t require Exchange 2007. Ever wish you could see one view that contains the free/busy of all the meeting rooms? Or even a group of people you work with? I always hated creating a new meeting request, adding all the users and meeting rooms, figuring out what time is open, and then deleting the extraneous meeting rooms or people. I also find that opening more than 2 calendars at once in the Outlook Calendar view takes up too much real estate. It’s just too hard to read. Now meeting overlay in Outlook 2007 is cool but Group Scheduling is ideal for viewing 3 or more users.
Beware! 10 screenshots.
Group Scheduling allows you to create groups of users/resources and save them for later viewing. You dont have to keep recreating the situation. I’m going to show two common examples: a group containing meeting rooms and a group for a PointBridge team I commonly meet with.
First step is to click on Calendar in Outlook 2007. A nice little button will take you to the Group Scheduling dialog. Or select Actions | View Group Schedules from the menus.
Then you add a new group.
You can add users or resources by typing in the display name or email address. You can also add people using the Address Book by selecting Add Others.
Now you have your free/busy. You can select Options to modify the view. To create a meeting, just highlight a timeframe in an open area next to a conference room.
Select the Make Meeting drop down and select New Meeting as Resource.
Notice how the meeting room is booked as a resource and the timeframe corresponds to what you highlighted.
Another method of using Group Schedule is to create a group for people you commonly meet with. I create a new group called PS. I add several users. Notice how you can see the presence gumdrop next to their names. Select the presence drop down and you can see ways to contact them.
As with the meeting room reservation, highlight an open timeframe next to one of the resources and select Make a Meeting. Select New Meeting with All.
A new meeting request is created.
As you can see this will be very powerful for bigger customers that have large teams or several meeting rooms. It is a big step forward in competing with Notes in this space.
