Responding to meeting invitations

When you receive a meeting invitation it displays in your Inbox and in the Meeting Notices view of your calendar.

About this task

A meeting invitation may or may not request a response (such as accept or decline) from you. A meeting invitation that does not request a response, a broadcast invitation, gives you the option to add the meeting to your calendar or not instead. After you respond to a meeting invitation, it no longer displays in your Inbox (unless a default calendar display preference is changed) or in the Meeting Notices view of your calendar. Depending on your response, an entry for the meeting is added to your calendar.

Note: The preference Display new (unprocessed) notices is enabled by default. This means that meeting invitations appear on your calendar (all views) before you have responded to them. To take action on the invitation, open it from the calendar.

You can also have your preview pane open from the Inbox and take action on a calendar invitation from the preview pane without actually having to open the meeting invitation.

Tip: Process invitations in the order you receive them because processing them out of order might result in missing or incorrect information.

Table 1. Options for responding to meeting invitations
Click	To
Accept	Accept the invitation and mark the corresponding time busy in your free time schedule.
Decline	Decline the invitation.
Respond > Tentatively Accept	Accept the invitation but leave the corresponding time free in your free time schedule if you want to remain available for other meetings, or if you are not sure if you can attend.
Respond > Propose New Time	Note: This option is displayed if the response is for a meeting that does not repeat. Propose a new date, time, or both to the meeting chair, and then specify the new time. If the meeting is a repeating meeting, you must first accept the invitation. You then open the meeting and propose the new time for an instance of the meeting occurrences.
Respond > Delegate	Forward the invitation to someone else.
Respond > `response` with Comments	Accept, decline or tentatively accept the invitation and send the meeting chair comments about the meeting or your response.
Add to Calendar	Add the meeting to your calendar and mark the corresponding time busy in your free time schedule. Note: This option is available for broadcast meeting invitations only.