You may already know how easily it is to mark time as "busy" or "out of office" in your Outlook calendar. 

But what if you want to make your time away from the office more prominent and visible to coworkers?


This solution article demonstrates steps on how you can add customized all-day meeting requests to a coworkers' calendars, without affecting their available free time on their own calendars.


Scheduling time away from the office, such as for vacation time, using a meeting request is a two-step process:

  1. One Meeting: Block Out your PTO time on your Outlook calendar
  2. Second Meeting: Informs your managers and coworkers that you will be away by adding a similar vacation Time meeting to their calendars


As a result you create two meetings - one for you and your personal "out-of-office" time management, and a second meeting ("free" time) just for those you proactivity need to inform about your time out.



Step 1: Block Out your Vacation on your Outlook calendar


Similar to scheduling any meeting in Outlook you only need to create an appointment for yourself, so that others who try to schedule your time for meetings or events can see that you are not available during the time you plan to be away.  New appointments, meetings, and events have a default Show As setting of "Busy".  To be more informative, you can change the Show As setting to "Out of Office". Most people regard time set to Out of Office as similar to those set to Busy — a.k.a. someone should NOT expect you to be available at that time.  Outlook displays the two settings visually different - Out of Office time appears in a purple color, while Busy time is in a blue color theme. This difference in appearance helps emphasize why you are not available at a time. For example, you might be able to move a conflicting "Busy" item, but you're likely unable to change an "Out of Office" item such as a pre-planned vacation or a medical appointment.


How to add a Time Away Appointment

  • In Outlook Calendar, on the Home tab, click New Appointment
  • In the Subject box, type a name for your time away (e.g. Vacation to the Islands)
  • In Start time and End time, click the dates when your time away starts and ends (use the All day event check box when appropriate)
  • Change the Show As setting to Out of Office
  • Click Save and then Close


An appointment is now in your calendar which informs you by blocking out (reserving) this time, and now if anyone else attempts to schedule an appointment with you they shall be aware of your availability at that time. 


RECOMMENDATION: Create this personal meeting when you start considering your plans and arrangements for your time away.  You'll want to block your availability as soon as possible so others do not see or book your time that you are planning to be away. You can always cancel or reschedule.



Step 2: Inform Coworkers that you will be away by adding your Vacation Time to their calendars


Although it is very informative to show time as "Out of Office" on your own calendar for your coworkers to see your availability when attempting to schedule a meeting, it may be even more informative to alert certain coworkers (managers and supervisors) in advance of your time away without affecting their own free/busy time or cluttering up their calendars. 


You can do this by:

  • Creating an calendar appointment set as an "All-Day Event" - this minimizes the visual appearance of your time on the calendars of others
  • Using the Show as Setting to "Free" - this is critical avoid affecting your coworkers' free/busy availability


How to add an "All-Day Event" Appointment

  • In Outlook Calendar, on the Home tab, click New Meeting
  • In the Subject box, type a name for your time away (e.g. John Smith, Out on Vacation)

  • In Start time and End time, click the dates when your time away starts and ends.
    Select an appropriate start and end time for your time away.  For Vacations, this usually means full days off.
    If this is the case for your time away, select the All day event check box.

    Visually, All Day Events appear in Outlook calendars at the top of each day- these events then serve as a quick visual reminder on a day, but it not cover up the times on the schedule.  This can be important for uncluttering your time on your coworker's calendar.

  • Set the Reminder setting to None.
    Whenever using an All Day Events, the start time of the event is at midnight.
    You must set the Reminder setting to None, to avoid your coworkers receiving unwanted alerts at odd times.

  • In the Attendees group, for Response Options, Clear Request Responses in the drop-down button
    This disables the need for coworkers to respond to your appointment - which is only an informational item for them.

  • In the Options group, for Show As, Click Free in the drop-down list
    Earlier, if you specified that this is an All-Day Event the Show As setting may already be set to Free.

    It is Important to make sure the Show As setting is set to Free. This allows the meeting request recipients to accept the meeting request and add your vacation time to their calendar, but does not block out any time on their calendar. The recipient's calendar will still show free availability for scheduling their own meetings during your vacation time.

  • Add your coworkers' email addresses into the To line.
    Be respectful.  Consider limiting your intended recipients to those who you feel MUST/want know your future plans, such as your manager or project team members.  Most other coworkers will simply use their Outlook Meeting Scheduler to coordinate times with you.

  • In the body of the appointment request, Type any information that you want to share with the recipients.
    This can include instructions on how to reach you at your vacation location in cases of emergency, or the team members who shall cover your work responsibilities.

  • When ready, Click Send 


CAUTION: A common mistake is to open this Coworker informative meeting request on your calendar and change the Show As setting from Free to Out of Office after you have sent the original request - Avoid this! Beware that when make this change an update is sent to everyone you sent the meeting request to, changing "Free" to "Out of Office" for everyone and defeating the steps you took to avoid this - it would impact your coworker's availability schedules!

After completing both steps, you shall notice that your Outlook calendar shall reflect two overlapping appointments.  One personal AND one that you may have created to share with others. You can consider deleting, from your calendar only, the vacation meeting request that you sent to others in order to unclutter the appearance of your own schedule. However, it may be best to leave this appointment in your calendar, at least up to the time of the event, so that you can easily use it to send an update or a cancellation to coworkers should your plans change.