Has anyone been successful with setting up and using “Internet Free/Busy” in Microsoft Outlook 2010 to help with scheduling meetings? I sure haven’t. I’ve been pretty excited about Microsoft Outlook 2010 since the Outlook Team announced it on there blog. However, I’m not sure this feature is working.
Every day, I am working more and more with other organizations. This week alone, there were at least five times where I went though this time wasting exchange:
Email From Customer: We need to have a meeting / have you attend a meeting. When is good for you?
Email From Me: Well, my Monday and Tuesday are shot. Wednesday or Thursday are open for now.
Email From Customer, the next day: How about Wednesday Morning?
Email From Me: That got booked up. Thursday afternoon?
… And you get the gist …
I said to myself, there has to be a better way to do this. There has to be a technology solution. I have heard about “Free/Busy Server” for years, but have never been successful at setting it up. So, I tried again, and the instruction (as shown here, especially the part about the FTP setup), don’t work. Plus, if the Free/Busy (FreeBusy?) file is behind a protected FTP site, how will someone be able to use it??
Has anyone else conquered these dilemmas – both the “Let’s Try To Schedule A Meeting Two Step” as well as Free/Busy?
(Side Note: As some may suggest / think of, yes, Exchange does this – supposedly great – inside an organization – however, I’m talking about “Inter-organization” scheduling.)
why not use http://www.timebridge.com you can get your own meetwith.me page where people can see if you are busy or not.
Thanks, Ian – I’ll have to look deeper into these!