Rounding up participants for meetings can often be a complicated process that takes up as much time as 
the meetings. Whether you are scheduling or attending a meeting, you can help it run smoothly and on 
time by following these steps from Microsoft Office Online.

• Keep your calendar up to date so that people are aware of your schedule as well as when you 
will be away from the office. 

• Always accept, accept as tentative, or decline each meeting request you receive, 
especially if it is an update to a meeting request that you previously accepted. By 
making a choice, you keep the meeting organizer apprised of your decision and you prevent the 
meetings that you want to attend from being accidently deleted. If you need to attend a meeting 
but can’t at the time it is schedule, you can proposes a new time for the meeting.

• Try not to delete a meeting request outright because this is one way that meetings 
get “lost”.

• Send updates: After modifying one of your own meeting requests, remember to click Send 
Update to send the updated request for all recipients. 

• Cancel a meeting: If you need to cancel a meeting, it is considerate to notify the people you 
invited. Delete the meeting from your calendar, click Send cancellation and delete meeting, 
and then send the cancellation to everyone you invited. 

• If you receive a meeting cancellation, click Remove from Calendar to remove the meeting 
from your calendar. Deleting the cancellation from you Inbox won’t remove the meeting from 
your calendar. 

• Always accept or decline a meeting request from your Inbox. Although you can accept or decline 
a meeting from its time slot on your calendar, leaving the meeting request in your inbox may 
confuse you later. 

• If you receive an invitation for a meeting and believe someone else should also attend it, instead 
of forwarding the meeting request to that person, ask the meeting organizer to add that person 
to the attendee list, and then to send everyone an updated meeting request. This avoids 
surprising the organizer with an unexpected attendee helps prevent lost meeting requests. 

• If you are the meeting organizer and you want to invite another person after sending the original 
meeting request, add the person to the attendee list (the To line) of the original meeting series 
or occurrence, and then send an update to all attendees. 

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