We’ve all been there – you need to send an email to give someone your availability for a meeting with people outside of your organization or if you’re a freelancer. For me that usually entails looking at my calendar with my email app up, reviewing when I am available, and then typing this information out for the poor recipient. This is always a challenge for a couple of reasons:
- Formatting isn’t always consistent, and who knows if what I write down makes sense to the recipient.
- It’s time consuming to look at your calendar, write down availability and translate it to email.
Thankfully Microsoft Outlook for iOS has a great solution to this problem – you can send your availability in email. So how does it work? When you compose a new email, Outlook gives you the ability to sneak over to your calendar and tap on the times you are available; typically between appointments. For example, I might have a meeting from 9-10, 2-3 and 3-4. All I need to do is tap in the empty time slots on the calendar to send the recipient when I am available. Tapping the hour blocks of 8-9 and 10-2 copy the times to the email that is very easily readable to my requester.
This is a great way to share availability with clients and colleagues on iOS. Let’s see how to do it!
How to send your availability in Microsoft Outlook for iOS
- Compose an email
- Tap the + icon located in the lower right of the screen
- Choose Send Availability
- Tap the hour blocks you are available (this will be indicated with a blue color and an X at the end if you change your mind on that time)
- When done tap the check mark in the top right corner
How do you manage your availability in email?
If you use desktop Microsoft Outlook you have an easy out for your organization. How do you send availability requests to people outside of your organization if they don’t use Outlook? Let me know in the comments below!
