Scheduling Meetings with FindTime

The easiest way to schedule across companies

Install FindTime

works on: Outlook for Microsoft 365, Outlook for Microsoft 365 for Mac, Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016, Office for business, Outlook 2013, Microsoft 365 admin, Outlook 2016 for Mac, Outlook on the web

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.
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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.
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4.   Select Add.

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

To use the app, click the "Reply with Meeting Poll" Icon in FindTime on the outlook ribbon when viewing your Inbox, or when creating a new meeting click "New Meeting Poll"

Using FindTime

Creating a meeting and suggesting meeting times

You can create a meeting both with people from the company Office 365 platform as well as external companies and people even if they do not have an Office 365 account (no need to login to respond to meeting requests)

From a message in the Inbox

You can reply to the recipients on any email message selected in your inbox by selecting the email and pressing the "Reply with Meeting Poll" option in the outlook ribbon

From a new meeting request window

You can start the meeting poll from clicking on "New Meeting Poll" option in the outlook ribbon

*Note: You need to have at least one attendee in the required or optional field in the new meeting request for FindTime to pick up their availability

You then get a side window open up titled FindTime and it allows you to see the following...

  1. The duration choice for the meeting
  2. The date for selection (you can choose multiple dates as required)
  3. The Times and Availability of each meeting attendee along with options to see the time by group/calendar

Hover over the person icons to see details of who they are and their availability

  1. Green means Available
  2. Purple means have a tentative meeting already scheduled
  3. Red means they are Unavailable
  4. Grey means that the person is outside your organization and availability isn't known

 

It groups the times shown by whats mostly available and then groups below other times that generally aren't suitable for yourself.

Select the 1. times to suggest and click 2. next

Next you have options to select for the following...

1. Location - Where the meeting is scheduled for: e.g. Online, a meeting room or meeting space, external location

2. Whether or not it is a Microsoft Teams meeting

3. Various poll settings (although I would tend to leave these as the default)

When you are satisfied with your choices click "Add to email" to generate an email to send out to the attendees

Responding to suggested meeting times

If someone sends you a meeting poll then you will receive an email asking you to select options

Choose "Select Options" and you will be shown the following options....

  1. Meeting overview
  2. Organizer and attendee list
  3. Poll of available times
  4. Your options to vote on each date and time
  5. How other attendees have voted already
  6. Option to suggest an alternative not on the list

Once you are satisfied that your selection is correct then click "Vote"

The organiser will finalise the meeting request or if a consensus was reached then the meeting will be auto scheduled.

As the organiser, finalise your meeting time and response

When meeting attendees respond to your poll, as the poll organizer, you will receive an email showing that the attendee has entered in their choices on the poll.

The email will show you theirs and any other choices that have already been received.

  1. Green ticks means they are ok with that scheduled date and time
  2. Red crosses means they are not available for that date and time
  3. Hearts on the Green ticks mean that they prefer that date and time

From here, you can either 4. schedule a particular date and time that looks agreeable to all or 5. view your Poll

Once the poll has reached a consensus the you will receive another email

You can review the voting from this button.

If "Schedule when attendees reach a consensus" was enabled for the meeting poll (which it is by default) then at this point the most agreeable date and time is automatically scheduled for everyone at this point.

Managing all your FindTime meetings

Go to https://outlook.office.com/findtime/dashboard to manage all your existing or cancelled and expired meetings