A better, organized way to accept meetings.

Hi, I’m Nix. So, Reinhart asked me to provide a tutorial on how to accept a meeting, ’cause he said that most of his friends never used this simple-yet-useful feature which is available on many modern calendar apps today. So here we are…

1. How do I know if I’m invited into a meeting?

First thing first, of course, I will notify you if there will be a new meeting, perhaps in that other WhatsApp or LINE or Telegram group.

I will schedule events from two different places, one straight from my Google account and another one from a Microsoft 365-managed work or school account. Now, if I’m scheduling it from my Google account, you might encounter these kind of emails, especially if you haven’t created a Google account yet:

Or else, if I’m scheduling it from my other account (@binus.ac.id), it would be as plain as this:

Now, it might be tiresome to re-check your Inbox folder, clear some junk and read other emails before this, important one. However, many calendar apps today automatically adds these events right into your calendar:

2. How do I approve or decline meetings?

Okay, now, what’s the next step? See the ✅ Accept/Yes, ❓ Tentative/Maybe, and 🚫 Decline/No buttons? Now, it’s time for you to act up. If you’re okay with that, press the ✅ Accept/Yes, but if not, it’s okay to press 🚫 Decline/No. If asked, make sure that you clicked on Send the response now, like this:

And done! Finally I know whether you’re able to attend the meeting without needing to spam on our group chats. For example, in my iPhone (let’s assume that you’ve accepted my request, okay?):

Important Notes

• GNOME Calendar currently doesn’t support sending event responses (Yes/No/Maybe), and the issue is being tracked at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/698. However, it’s available on the good ole’ Evolution, though.
• Based on our test experiment on December 18, 2021, calendar invites from Microsoft 365 and Exchange accounts doesn’t seem to be automatically added into the Android’s default calendar, including Google Calendar for Android. So, make sure that you have checked the emails for backup 😉
• If you see “Join online meeting” meeting links pointing to https://meet.lync.com/, please ignore that. This is because some Microsoft 365 for Enterprise accounts have the options to add Microsoft Lync (Skype for Business) links, but I’m not using that. Ironically enough, Microsoft tried to kill and replace Lync with Microsoft Teams.