Schedule a Meeting within Teams

Outlook uses the Exchange calendar. That means that once you schedule a meeting via Outlook, it will automatically appear in Teams and the other way around. Here is how you can schedule a meeting in Microsoft Teams:

• In the Teams chat, click on the Schedule a meeting icon (under the box for the new message.)
• Then, select Calendar, which is on the left side panel, and then click on New meeting.
• A pop-up window will appear. You can select the time and date for the meeting.
• When done with scheduling, click Save. After that, the pop-up window will close, and you can send the meeting invitations using Outlook.

Scheduling Assistant

On the pop-up window, you can also use the function of Scheduling Assistant. This feature will help you find the right time for all the members of your team, including you.

When you select this option, you’ll be able to see when meeting participants are free and when they are busy. Dark blue represents the time slots when they’re unavailable. The light blue slots are the available times, and the grey time slots are the participant’s non-working hours.

Inviting People Outside Your Team

One of the great things about Microsoft Teams is that you can invite people outside your organization to join the meeting.

They don’t even need to have a Microsoft Teams license. All you need is their name and email address, and you can send the invite. Here’s what you need to do:

• Open the Add required attendees option in the New Meeting pop-up form.
• Click on Optional.
• Enter the person’s email address.
• Click on Invite, an email invitation will soon land in their inbox.

You can also schedule a meeting that will take place inside a specific Teams channel. On the New Meeting form, select Add channel. Once you’ve set it up and sent the invitations, you can’t change the channel.

If you do need to make a change, you’ll have to create new invitations. Also, if a meeting is to take place on a channel, everyone who is a part of that team will be able to join the meeting, even if they didn’t get the invitation.