Adding Participants to Activities

When you add an activity to your calendar, you might also want to have a record of the persons who will be attending or participating in the activity. You do this by adding participants to the activity on your calendar and verifying their availability. Participants can include contacts and employees, and resources, such as a projector or a conference room. Figure 12-2, "Participant Availability Subview" shows an example of the Calendar Detail form and Participant Availability subview.

To add contacts to an activity

1. Navigate to the Calendar screen.

2. In the Daily, Weekly, or Monthly view, click the Description hyperlink to access the activity.

   The Calendar Detail form appears with the Participant Availability view beneath it.

3. In the Participant Availability subview, click Add Contact.

   The Add Contacts dialog box appears.

4. Add a contact by selecting the contact's record.

   To select more than one contact at a time, hold down CTRL as you click each record or, if the records are consecutive, click the first record, hold down SHIFT, and click the last record.

5. When you have selected the contacts you want to add, click OK.

   The selected contacts appear in the Participant Availability subview and are now part of the activity.

You can add employees to an activity.

To add employees to an activity

1. Navigate to the Calendar screen.

2. In the Daily, Weekly, or Monthly view, click the Description hyperlink to access the activity.

   The Calendar Detail form appears with the Participant Availability view beneath it.

3. In the Participant Availability subview, click Add Employee.

   The Add Employees dialog box appears. You can use the Query button in the Employees list to find an employee when there is a large number of employees in the organization.

4. Add an employee by selecting the employee's record.

   To select more than one employee at a time, hold down CTRL as you click each record or, if the records are consecutive, click the first record, hold down SHIFT, and click the last record.

   
   

   Note: If an alarm is set for this activity, it will go off for all participants on the participant list.

   
   

5. When you have selected all the employees you want to add, click OK.

   The selected employees now appear in the Participant Availability subview and are part of the activity.

   If you have custom Outlook form that contains the Accept and Reject buttons, a status of [Not Responded] appears after the employee name on the Participant Availability subview. As soon as the employee clicks Accept on the email Outlook form, the corresponding Calendar item is updated and the status after the employee name is set to [Accepted]. Alternatively, if the employee clicks Reject, the status of the employee is set to [Rejected] on the Participant Availability subview.

6. (Optional) Check the Participant Availability subview to verify an employee's availability.

You can add resources to an activity.

To add resources to an activity

1. Navigate to the Calendar screen.

2. In the Daily, Weekly, or Monthly view, click the Description hyperlink to access the activity.

   The Calendar Detail form appears with the Participant Availability view beneath it.

3. In the Participant Availability subview, click Add Resource.

   The Pick Resource dialog box appears.

4. Query for the type of resource you are looking for.

5. Select one or more records and click Check Availability.

   The records refresh to display only the records that you selected in Step 4. A check mark appears in the Availability column for any resource that is available during the time of your appointment.

6. Select the records, available or unavailable, that you want to add to your appointment and then click OK.

   The resources appear in the Participant Availability subview. A projection screen icon will appear next to each resource to distinguish resources from employees and contacts.

Note: You can only add resources to a recurring appointment when you first create it. After you create a recurring calendar activity, you can no longer add resources because the Gantt chart does not appear in conjunction with recurring calendar activities.