How to use Microsoft FindTime to schedule meetings faster

This is a tough question. How do you find the best time to meet with your colleagues when there are so many different schedules to consider? You have to ask them about their convenient time and then match the same with your schedule to arrive at the best-suited time for all. The job of deciding when to meet is relatively simple if there are fewer people as attendees, however, what if the meeting requires more people? The task just gets really tough with some not available or people dropping off due to varied reasons. All this process makes you invest lots of your productive time, doesn’t it?

An application that can help you schedule meetings faster, FindTime is an add-in for Microsoft Outlook that suggests what days and times work best for people required to attend the meeting, helping you arrive at the consensus time pretty easily.

How to use Microsoft FindTime on Outlook

As an organizer, FindTime saves you time by proposing your selected times to all attendees and allowing everyone to vote. Once there is a consensus done through voting, FindTime sends out the meeting invite on your behalf and thus eliminating the time that you usually have to invest in coordinating with people and arriving at the best time for all.

The first step is to install FindTime. You are required to login into Office 365 accounts to do this. Once you are logged in, you can install FindTime from the Office store. Once installed, restart Outlook and you can see the FindTime icon located at the top right corner of the Outlook screen. Note the difference in appearance on Outlook and Outlook on the Web below.

I’ve been clicking on the “Reply with Meeting Poll” button to set up a meeting with the people listed in the email.

You can set the meeting duration time using the panel. The middle and lower portion of the panel lets you see the schedule of the people you want to invite to the meeting. Here you can select multiple time slots and send them to people involved to vote.

The status of people is represented by different colors, and you can use this to decide what time slot is best for everyone to meet.

After creating an invite, you can click “send” on your message inbox to allow people to start voting on the time slots you have selected. Everyone invited can see the online poll about who is voting for which time. You can even know others know about your favorite slot.

On the recipients’ side, they just need an email address to receive your invite and internet access to vote at the FindTime website. Also, they can vote from any device they wish. Recipients do not need to have FindTime installed on their PC or handphone, or for the matter an Office 365 account.