Adaptive Reaction Enhances the Calendar Art's State
It's really challenging to find creativity in calendaring. It's rare that a new feature emerges that gets people to pay attention after so many years of working on features to make user and shared calendars as productive as possible. For people with busy schedules, I believe the Following alternative (MC786325, 26 April 2024, Microsoft 365 roadmap item 154557) falls into that group. Targeted release renters began to have access to the option in late April 2024. It is anticipated that general availability will begin in the middle of June 2024 and terminate by the end of July 2024.
When replying to meeting requests in Teams, the Monarch client, and OWA, you have the option to follow. Outlook mobile and Outlook classic (Windows or Mac) do not presently support the feature. The organizers of the meeting who are using Outlook Classic view the Follow responses as provisional. When Microsoft updates Outlook classic to include Follow responses—which I hope they do soon—this issue will be resolved.
Essentially, a meeting attendee can signal that they are interested in the meeting content and want to be informed, even if they are unable to attend in person or virtually, in lieu of accepting or declining a meeting.
Meeting Artifacts: The Fundamental Basis for Subsequent Reactions
The ability to follow a meeting is made feasible by the retention of meeting records, including chat, transcripts, meeting summaries, and shared files. Although it's excellent that these materials record conference proceedings and may be reviewed later, meeting attendees have been the only ones with access to them up until this point. You lose all access and become a non-participant if you decline a meeting.
With Follow, you are unable to reply to every calendar meeting request. Following a one-on-one meeting would be counterproductive as it would imply that you are letting the other person know that the meeting can proceed but that you will not be present. To put it briefly, a meeting needs enough people to go forward even if you aren't present.
If you use Follow in response to a meeting request, two significant things take place. The meeting is still scheduled on your calendar, to start. You can still accept another, more important meeting because a following meeting does not block out time, therefore your availability is unaffected. Second, meeting artifacts are still accessible to you.
Meeting Coordinators' Accountabilities
It goes without saying that meeting organizers should take careful steps to ensure that the meeting is recorded and transcribed if they receive any Follow responses. Even if a meeting organizer uses Outlook classic and views a Follow answer as tentative, the text displayed in the meeting response is a part of the meeting body and appears in all versions of Outlook.
An Actual Advance
Another area where Microsoft is making improvements to the calendar app is the addition of an onsite status for meetings. Although it's a commendable adjustment, its significance isn't as great as the Follow answer's. Individuals who utilize their calendars often should be aware of this function.
