Using Scheduling Poll

Scheduling Poll is a scheduling tool that helps users find the best meeting time among a group of participants by analyzing their availability and preferences, streamlining the process of coordinating meetings, and reducing the need for back-and-forth communication.

Scheduling Poll is native feature in Outlook. The feature allows you to easily create polls to ask a group for their input for when to schedule meetings, avoiding long, back-and-forth email chains. Scheduling Poll can be used on both the desktop apps and web versions of Outlook.

Accessing Scheduling Poll

Outlook desktop app for Windows

1. Users can access Scheduling Poll in Mail as follows:

a. Select Reply with Scheduling Poll under the Home tab when an email is open in the reading pane.

b. Launch the compose pane by either creating a new email or hitting reply/forward for an existing email. List required recipients in the To field and optional recipients in the Cc field. Then select New Scheduling Poll under the Message tab.

2. Users can access Scheduling Poll in Calendar by either launching the compose screen to create a new meeting event or opening an existing event in the edit screen. List required attendees in the designated Required field and optional attendees in the designated Optional field. Select New Scheduling Poll under the Meeting tab.

Outlook desktop app for Mac

1. Create a new email or select an email to reply to. List required attendees for the meeting in the To field and optional attendees in the Cc field. Select Scheduling Poll from the compose toolbar**.
2. Drag and drop Scheduling Poll into the toolbar.

Note: **If the FindTime add-in was previously installed, Scheduling Poll will automatically show on the toolbar, if not then it needs to be manually added by customizing the toolbar when composing a new mail.

Outlook web (browser) app

1. Create a new email or select an email to reply to. From the three dots drop down on the right hand side, select Meeting. List required attendees for the meeting in the To field and optional attendees in the Cc field. Select Scheduling Poll in the Message tab.

2. Create a new meeting event or select an existing event to edit it. List required attendees in the Invite attendees field and click the optional button to add optional attendees. Select Scheduling poll in the Event tab.