Ithaca College

Scheduling Assistant in Outlook Web App

When creating meetings on your calendar in the Outlook Web Application, you have access to a "Scheduling Assistant." Like the feature found in the Windows and Macintosh Outlook applications, the scheduling assistant in OWA allows you to add multiple people to a meeting and helps you quickly find an available time for everyone involved.

What sets OWA apart is the way it displays the availability of your invitees.  When looking at the week view, the calendar will display a color overlay to give you a quick glance at what dates and times are available for your meeting.

Each day is divided into 30-minute blocks.  Your schedule will be represented by a blue bar on the left side of each 30-minute block. The remaining space within the block may be grey (unavailable), white (available), or a mixture of both, to represent the availability of the attendees.  

You can view additional details of the availability of your attendees by hovering your cursor over the calendar.  A box will appear around the block of time you are hovering over and a popup window will show the date and time selected, the number of attendees required, the number of conflicts, and the details of any conflicts during that time.  

Once you have found an acceptable meeting time, simply click to select the time you are hovering over.  Your meeting invitation will now use the selected meeting time.

Every week, ITS provides a tip or trick for using the Outlook Calendar.  Training on Outlook Calendar is available in the Technology Learning Center (Friends Hall 101).  

• If your department or group is interested in a closed-session workshop on Outlook Calendar, please complete and submit this form.
• To request one-to-one training with a TLC Training Specialist, please complete and submit this form.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Tony Tabone at atabone@ithaca.edu or (607) 274-1045. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.