The Organise Meeting form enables you to arrange a meeting by selecting a time when, according to their diaries, all delegates are free to attend. When you have chosen the date and time for the meeting, the system automatically places the appointment in their respective diaries and sends them all an email. The email includes an attachment that, when the delegate opens and saves it, enables him/her to set a Microsoft Outlook reminder.
Note: Although meeting rooms have their own diaries (see Another Person's Diary), there is no automatic way of including the room in the 'organise meeting' function, so you need to note down when an adequate room is free.
Tip: If the meeting is between only two or three individuals, it may be easier merely to place appointments in their diaries.
See also:
To organise a meeting:
On the Autoline master menu or other main menu, click the Administrator button.
The Administrator form is displayed.
On the Diary tab, click the Meeting... button.
The Organise Meeting form is displayed.
Tip: To view another person's diary, click the Another... button. To move a week ahead, press the PAGE DOWN key. To move a week back, press the PAGE UP key.
Enter into the Delegate field the first delegate and click the Add button.
Tip: Type into the Delegate field all or part of the name or user ID. If, when you click the Add button, the system cannot identify an individual, it displays a Select Item From List menu containing login identifiers.
The first delegate's user ID and name are displayed in the Organise Meeting form's grid.
Tip: If you include the wrong individual by mistake, to remove him/her from the list, select the appropriate line in the grid and click the Delete button.
Repeat the above step for all delegates.
Note: The system enables you to include only people who have at least one entry in a diary. Those who have never made a diary entry are not included in the search.
The delegates' user IDs and names are displayed in the grid.
Tip: You can enter a maximum of fourteen delegates, but by entering a group name you can include more.
When the list of delegates is complete, click the Organise button.
A day-date form displays a grid listing the delegates, one per line. The form represents one day, initially the first day that includes a time when all delegates are free, the date being shown in the form window's title bar. The grid's columns represent the day in half-hour slices: Available, unavailable, and booked-but-unconfirmed slices are shown in different colours.
Tip: To view in detail an individual's diary for the day, select his/her line in the grid. If the displayed day is undesirable, to move to the next available day, click the day-date form's Keep looking button.
Note: If the Organise Meeting form's Minimum attendees field is non-zero, indicating that not all of the delegates need to be present for the meeting, it shows the first date that the required number of people are free.
To arrange the meeting on the displayed day, click the day-date form's Make appointment... button.
The Diary Appointment form is displayed, its Time fields showing the first free hour.
Book the appointment in the same way that you would an entry in your own diary.
Tip: Beware that the Diary Appointment form does not prevent you accidentally changing the time to one when one or more delegates are not free. Refer to the delegates grid form, if necessary repositioning the Diary Appointment form to make the delegates grid form visible.
The Diary Appointment and day-date forms close, returning you to the Organise Meeting form. An email is automatically sent to all delegates.
This is displayed when you click the Meeting... button on the Administrator Diary tab.
Earliest date: The earliest date the meeting can take place. No diary dates before this are examined by the system when it attempts to find an acceptable date.
Latest date: The latest date the meeting can take place. This must be within sixty days of the date in the Earliest date field. Dates after the Latest date are not examined by the system when it attempts to find an acceptable date.
Earliest start: The earliest time that the meeting can start, to the nearest half hour
Latest finish: The latest finishing time for the meeting, to the nearest half hour
Duration: How long, to the nearest half hour, the meeting is to last
Minimum attendees: The number of people constituting a quorum
Tip: If all delegates must be present, Minimum attendees should be left zero.
Include weekends: A tick in the check box enables the meeting to be scheduled for a weekend
