How to Respond with a Meeting Request in Outlook

Most of us know how to send an email in Microsoft Outlook. But do you really know how to use those other features and functions that Outlook provides? Responding to a meeting request in Outlook is a useful tool to have in your arsenal, it can be more efficient, and it allows that personal touch to a potentially otherwise dry email.

Keep reading to learn how to respond to a meeting request in Outlook.

Microsoft Outlook Tutorial: How To Respond to an Email Message With a Meeting Request in Outlook

Let’s say a co-worker sends you and the other management staff an email about the sales team, and you would like to set a meeting about it. Microsoft Outlook allows you to reply to the email message with a meeting request, without forcing you to leave your inbox and open your Calendar. When you respond to a message with Meeting Reply, a meeting request is created with everyone who was on the To line in the original message invited as Required Attendees, and everyone on the Cc line is invited as an “optional attendee”.

Microsoft Outlook gives you a few different options for replying to an email message with a meeting request. Check them out below, try them out yourself, and choose your favorite! Let us know in the comments!

Option 1: Reading Pane View

The Reading Pane can be found on the gray status bar on the bottom at the right hand side, next to the zoom function and is represented by an icon that looks like an open book. The Reading Pane is the window in Microsoft Outlook where you can preview a message/item without opening it. To display the message in the reading pane, simply click on the message. When the message is in the reading pane, open the Home tab, in the Respond group, click Meeting.

Option 2: Navigation Pane View

The Navigation Pane is the column that provides access to folders used to organize your information, it can be found on the left hand side of your inbox. Click a folder to show the items it contains. It also includes the Favorite Folders section and buttons to switch between Mail, Calendar, Tasks and other views. In the Reading Pane, click the message that you would like to create a meeting reply to and drag it to the Calendar tab in the, or to the calendar on the To-do Bar.

Option 3: Opened Message

In an open (double clicked) message, on the Message tab, in the Respond group, click Meeting. Enter the location and start and end times as you do in any meeting request. You can also add or remove attendees, use Scheduling Assistant to find the best meeting time, or add attachments.

Tips & Good-to-know:

• Never fear losing the original email message, it will always be included in the body of the meeting request.
• A message list is the middle part of the main Outlook window that displays the contents of the selected folder. If your message list is arranged by conversation, the meeting request created by using Meeting Reply is associated with the original conversation.

The Meeting Reply feature is also available to respond to an assigned task, as the feature has many of the same behaviors as Reply All, it can also be applied to sent messages.

Did you find our tutorial on responding to a meeting request in Outlook useful? Go try it out! Let us know if you used any of these to respond to an email message with a meeting request in Outlook, and which one might be your favorite! Drop a line to us in the comments below, or contact us for any further questions! If you want more help regarding Microsoft Outlook, check out Microsoft’s Outlook page.