How to quickly make Attendees Optional in Microsoft Office Outlook 365

With the release of Microsoft Office 365 also known as Microsoft Office 2016, there comes many new features. Microsoft Office 365 comes with the pack of all Office components like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, OneDrive, Publisher and Access. Everything which you need for home, school, and work.

Microsoft Outlook can be configured to setup your office email account. Along with the primary usage of email exchange, it is majorly used for scheduling meeting with other people you work with.

You can send a meeting request to one or more people and Outlook tracks who ever accepts the request and reserves time on your calendar for the meeting. This feature is as available in the earlier Outlook release. When you create a meeting request, you can add multiple attendees, add attachments, set a location, and use the Scheduling Assistant to choose the best time for your meeting. You can also set the meeting as recurrent meeting.

Steps to Schedule a meeting:

1. Create a meeting request by either of below options 
• select New Items > Meeting 
• press Ctrl + Shift + Q
• from Calendar, select New Meeting
• select Reply with Meeting button from the Inbox email
2. Add attendees by either of the below options
• add the attendees to the To line of the meeting request
• use Scheduling Assistant to add or see attendees schedule
3. Attendees can also be added through Scheduling Assistant by either of the following:
• either clicking the box under your name and enter the name or email address 
• click Add Attendees button to lookup through the address book 
4. Add meeting subject, location, start and end time
• you can start typing the name of the location and outlook will look for the matches and provide the suggestions. e.g. New York Madison Avenue, 43rd Floor A Wing.
5. From Insert menu click Attach File if an attachment is required
6. Click Send button to send the invite to the attendees

Follow below steps to quickly make the attendees as optional:

In Scheduling Assistant, click the icon available next to the attendee's name to mark a specific attendee as a Required Attendee ,Optional Attendee, or a Resource.

Above steps applies To: Outlook for Office 365 Outlook 2016 Outlook 2013 Outlook 2010 Outlook 2007