Sorry for the long read. It’s worth it if you are trying to respond to meeting invites with your Droid.
As with others who have posted, the inability to respond to meeting invites with my Droid was very close to being a dealbreaker for me until I discovered that the ability to respond is actually there, it just handles it differently than Outlook or a Blackberry, which allow you to respond from the meeting invitation email. With the Droid, you respond to those invitations from your Calendar, in my case my corporate (Exchange) calendar. You are given the same options as in Outlook or in your Blackberry…..Accept, Tentative, & Decline. You can even either send the response, edit the response, or not send a response, just like in Outlook.
The key is that if your invites are not being tentatively placed in your Outlook Calendar, as they are supposed to be, then they will not show up in your Droid Calendar and since you cannot respond from the invite email, you won’t be able to respond. My initial problem was that these invites were not making it into my Outlook Calendar, so I couldn’t do anything. Once I did the following fix, my invites started showing up in Outlook and also my Droid Calendar. If your invites aren’t being scheduled tentatively in your Outlook Calendar, then they aren’t making it to your Droid to be able to respond.
1. First, download any and all available updates for the version of Outlook/Microsoft Office you are using. If you are at work, get your I.T. Department to download,
2. Next (and this is probably what actually fixed the problem) read the following article from Microsoft support. Add the rules described making sure that they run first.
Rules designed to move messages from the Inbox to other folders, particularly those that move messages directed specifically to the recipient (as opposed to messages to an alias), can cause meeting requests not to be automatically added to the Calendar.
Typically, if a meeting request is received in the Inbox, a tentative meeting will be placed on the calendar until the meeting request is dealt with by selecting Accept, Tentative, or Decline. Even with this setting on, the meeting request will move to another folder before Outlook can process this request and place it tentatively on the Calendar.
By creating rules that process these meeting requests first, keeping them in the Inbox, you give background processing time to act on the messages from the Inbox.
Create five rules to cover all of the types of forms that are associated with appointments changes and cancellations. To work properly, the rules must be the first ones that run. Rules run from top to bottom in the order they are listed in the Rules Wizard dialog box.
Use the following steps to create the five exception rules:
1. Start Outlook and open your Inbox.
2. In Microsoft Outlook 2000 and in Microsoft Outlook 2002, click Rules Wizard on the Tools menu.
In Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, click Rules and Alerts on the Tools menu.
3. In Outlook 2000 and in Outlook 2002, click New. Then, under Which type of rule do you want to create?, click Check messages when they arrive, and then click Next.
In Outlook 2003, click New. Then, click Start from a blank rule, click Check messages when they arrive, and then click Next.
4. Under Which condition(s) do you want to check?, click to select Uses the form name form, click the form name link in the lower pane, and in Choose Form, click Application Forms in the list. Click to select the following appointment associated forms, using one form for each of your five rules:
Accept Meeting Response
Decline Meeting Response
Meeting Cancellation
Meeting Request
Tentative Meeting Response
5. Click Add, click Close, and then click Next.
6. Under What do you want to do with the message?, click to select move it to the specified folder, and stop processing more rules. Select the Inbox as the folder, and then click OK and Next.
7. Under Add any exceptions (if necessary), do not make a selection and then click Finish to complete the rule. Repeat these steps using a different form type for each rule, until all five rules are completed. Make sure these rules are at the top of your Rules Wizard List, so that they run first.
By updating my Outlook and Microsoft Office at work and adding the five rules as described above, I am now able to immediately respond to meeting invitations from my Droid’s Corporate Calendar. Good Luck!
As with others who have posted, the inability to respond to meeting invites with my Droid was very close to being a dealbreaker for me until I discovered that the ability to respond is actually there, it just handles it differently than Outlook or a Blackberry, which allow you to respond from the meeting invitation email. With the Droid, you respond to those invitations from your Calendar, in my case my corporate (Exchange) calendar. You are given the same options as in Outlook or in your Blackberry…..Accept, Tentative, & Decline. You can even either send the response, edit the response, or not send a response, just like in Outlook.
The key is that if your invites are not being tentatively placed in your Outlook Calendar, as they are supposed to be, then they will not show up in your Droid Calendar and since you cannot respond from the invite email, you won’t be able to respond. My initial problem was that these invites were not making it into my Outlook Calendar, so I couldn’t do anything. Once I did the following fix, my invites started showing up in Outlook and also my Droid Calendar. If your invites aren’t being scheduled tentatively in your Outlook Calendar, then they aren’t making it to your Droid to be able to respond.
1. First, download any and all available updates for the version of Outlook/Microsoft Office you are using. If you are at work, get your I.T. Department to download,
2. Next (and this is probably what actually fixed the problem) read the following article from Microsoft support. Add the rules described making sure that they run first.
Rules designed to move messages from the Inbox to other folders, particularly those that move messages directed specifically to the recipient (as opposed to messages to an alias), can cause meeting requests not to be automatically added to the Calendar.
Typically, if a meeting request is received in the Inbox, a tentative meeting will be placed on the calendar until the meeting request is dealt with by selecting Accept, Tentative, or Decline. Even with this setting on, the meeting request will move to another folder before Outlook can process this request and place it tentatively on the Calendar.
By creating rules that process these meeting requests first, keeping them in the Inbox, you give background processing time to act on the messages from the Inbox.
Create five rules to cover all of the types of forms that are associated with appointments changes and cancellations. To work properly, the rules must be the first ones that run. Rules run from top to bottom in the order they are listed in the Rules Wizard dialog box.
Use the following steps to create the five exception rules:
1. Start Outlook and open your Inbox.
2. In Microsoft Outlook 2000 and in Microsoft Outlook 2002, click Rules Wizard on the Tools menu.
In Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, click Rules and Alerts on the Tools menu.
3. In Outlook 2000 and in Outlook 2002, click New. Then, under Which type of rule do you want to create?, click Check messages when they arrive, and then click Next.
In Outlook 2003, click New. Then, click Start from a blank rule, click Check messages when they arrive, and then click Next.
4. Under Which condition(s) do you want to check?, click to select Uses the form name form, click the form name link in the lower pane, and in Choose Form, click Application Forms in the list. Click to select the following appointment associated forms, using one form for each of your five rules:
Accept Meeting Response
Decline Meeting Response
Meeting Cancellation
Meeting Request
Tentative Meeting Response
5. Click Add, click Close, and then click Next.
6. Under What do you want to do with the message?, click to select move it to the specified folder, and stop processing more rules. Select the Inbox as the folder, and then click OK and Next.
7. Under Add any exceptions (if necessary), do not make a selection and then click Finish to complete the rule. Repeat these steps using a different form type for each rule, until all five rules are completed. Make sure these rules are at the top of your Rules Wizard List, so that they run first.
By updating my Outlook and Microsoft Office at work and adding the five rules as described above, I am now able to immediately respond to meeting invitations from my Droid’s Corporate Calendar. Good Luck!
