Blocking meeting requests?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michelle J.
  • Start date Start date
M

Michelle J.

Is there a way to block meetings from being placed
automatically on the calendar? I work in a legal office,
and several attorneys have complained about this. They
are also interested in blocking others from viewing their
free/busy options. I have tried setting the free/busy
option to publish 0 months, but this didn't work. Is
there a way to hide their availability?

Thanks in advance, on both questions.
 
To block meetings from appearing automatically on the calendar:
Tools>Options>Email Options>Tracking Options> and uncheck"Process receipts
and requests upon arrival"'
This will only prevent unread meetings in the inbox from appearing on the
calendar as tenative. Anytime a user opens a meeting request (preview pane
included), this will automatically place a tenative appointment on the
calendar.

A bit more involved solution would be to create a custom rule, which places
any meeting requests in a folder besides the inbox.

To block free/busy. First, users should make sure their calendar folder
does not have reviewer permissions as default. This can be checked by
right-clicking the calendar folder in the folder list view. Select
properties, permissions.

Next, the publish range will need to be set to "0" on the clients machines.
This will prevent new free/busy from being published, but existing data will
still display. To remove the old data,have the exchange admin delete the
public free/busy messages for the individual users. These messages are
located in the Public Folder store unsder "Schedule+ Free Busy information".

As note, any newly installed client will have the publish range set to "2",
which will cause the f/b message to be generated. I also believe, if OWA
(Outlook Web Access) users change their calendar, this will regenerate the
public free/busy message.

Hope that helps,
~Kasey
 
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