Creating a Scheduling Poll in Outlook

Use Outlook's Scheduling Poll to efficiently coordinate meetings with multiple participants, especially when attendees have varying availabilities or are outside your organization. This feature streamlines the scheduling process by allowing invitees to vote on proposed time slots, reducing back-and-forth communications. Once a consensus is reached, Outlook can automatically schedule the meeting, saving time and ensuring higher attendance rates.

A. Launch the poll

• Start a new email or calendar event and add your attendees.
• Click New Scheduling Poll in the ribbon (Mail or Meeting tab) or via the “Insert” menu in Outlook web.

B. Pick time slots

• A Scheduling Poll panel appears showing your availability (green = free, red = busy, gray = unknown).
• Choose a few slots that you’d like people to vote on

C. Configure and send

• Click Next, then adjust settings:
  • Auto‑schedule when consensus is reached
  • Hold selected times tentatively in your calendar
  • Get notifications when someone votes
  • Require sign‑in to verify attendees
  • Lock the poll to prevent changes

• Click Create Poll and send the email—it includes the poll link.

Tracking the Poll

• Visit the Scheduling Poll dashboard in Outlook on the web to manage polls (active, expired, etc.) via outlook.office365.com/findtime/dashboard)

• Meeting is automatically scheduled once a time gets consensus.