How To Send A Calendar Invite In Outlook

While working on a project in Outlook, it’s essential for all the team members to be on the same page. This not only helps to manage time efficiently but makes collaboration much easier.

Fortunately, Outlook lets you share your Outlook calendar. Also, you can create different events in your Outlook calendar and invite other members to join in. Once they accept your invitation message, they can view all the events in the calendar and get notified whenever the meeting is about to begin.

So, without further ado, let’s get into the article to learn more about sending a calendar invite in Outlook on different platforms.

How to Send a Calendar Invite in Outlook?

There are basically two ways to send a calendar invite on Outlook. One is to send an invitation message, and the other is to attach an iCalendar file.

Continue reading further to know more about both methods in detail.

Sending an Invitation Message

This method is the default way of sending a calendar invite message on Outlook. Here, you create an event in the Outlook calendar and adjust various settings before sending the invite message.

For instance, you can choose to get notified whenever a member has accepted the invite. Likewise, you can allow or prevent others from forwarding the invite outside of your organization.

Furthermore, you can hide the attendee list to maintain the privacy of the attendees.

On the Web App

1. Open a browser and log in to your Outlook account.
2. Select the Calendar icon in the top left corner.
3. Click the New event button.
   
4. Fill in the necessary details according to your preferences. These include the following:
   
   • Add a title: Provide an appropriate title for your meeting.
   • Date: Select the date and time to start the meeting. Toggle on the All day button if you want to conduct the meeting for a whole day (24 hours).
   • Don’t repeat: Select an option inside it if you want the meeting to take place daily, weekly, monthly or yearly.
   • Alarm: Choose to get notifications before the meeting starts on Outlook.
5. Additionally, click the More options button to reveal additional options.
6. Enter the email address of the people you want to invite to your Outlook calendar on the Invite attendees placeholder. Click Optional next to it and add people who can join in the meeting if they wish but not mandatory.
7. Select Response options on the top bar.
   
   • Allow forwarding: Enable it to let your attendees forward the invite to others outside your organization.
   • Hide the attendee list: Enable it to prevent the attendees from viewing each other’s email addresses. It simply works similarly to BCC (Blind Carbon Copy).
   • Request responses: Check this option to get a notification whenever any attendee has accepted your invite.
8. When done, click Send.

On Desktop app

1. Under the Home tab, click New Items and select Meeting. Or click the New Meeting button.
   
2. Click the To button.
3. Then, add the email address of the people you want to invite from your Outlook contacts/ Address Book. Then, fill in the following fields.
   
   • Required: Email address of the person for whom joining the meeting is mandatory.
   • Optional: Email address of the person who can accept the invite but not necessarily attend it.
4. Enter the other details (Subject, Location, Meeting start and end time) as per your requirements.
5. Click Scheduling Assistant. Then, you can view a list of all your attendees and check if they are available for the specified time period. This feature may not appear if you aren’t using Office 365 or connected to Microsoft Exchange.
   
6. Click Add Attendees to include attendees from your Address book.
7. Customize other details under the Meeting tab, such as response, reminder, and recurrence options.
8. Click Send.
   

On Android/iPhone

1. Open the Outlook app and tap Calendar at the bottom bar.
2. Tap the plus icon to create a new calendar event.
   
3. Enter the required meeting details.
   
4. Tap the tick icon in the top right corner. 

Using the iCalendar attachment

This method forwards an iCalendar file (.ics format) as an attachment to the attendees. Once they open the link, they can import your calendar details to their own. However, you don’t receive any notifications about the attendees accepting your calendar invite.

1. Click New Items and select Appointment.
   
2. To add the attendee’s emails, click Invite Attendees.
   
3. Enter the emails next to the To field. Also, specify the Start, End time, and other details like Subject and Location.
   
4. Under the Appointment tab, click Forward and select Forward as iCalendar.