To avoid confusion for participants, include the following information in meeting invitations. Try to avoid sending out the meeting invitation until the needed information is known.

Obviously, all of this information isn't needed for every meeting.  However, the subject, location and technology used, and the agenda at the minimum should always be included.

• clear subject line
• agenda (at least the purpose of the meeting)
• meeting space information: conference room (if needed), Skype meeting link, call-in number (if needed)
• name of the meeting liaison and preferred communication channel (for meetings with 10 people or more)
• a contingency communication channel if things go wrong (for meetings with 10 people or more)
• attendee mic status (muted/optional/required)
• attendee webcam status (will webcams be required/optional/not used)
• attendee chat status (will there be a chat pod/Q&A pod/something else)
• if the meeting is recorded and where to access the recording, if known
• required resources (documents to be reviewed, special software needs, etc.)
• if the meeting takes place over the standard lunch hour in any attendee's time zone, acknowledge this and include best practice for attendees

See how to make a default meeting invitation that includes placeholders for all of the above information.

Meeting participant list:

If you are using a distribution list for the meeting invite, verify it is accurate before using it.  Remove unneeded attendees/former staff and add new attendees/staff.

(Coming soon!  The ability to create and share custom groups in Office 365 that you can use in Outlook, Yammer, OneDrive, SharePoint, and any other Office 365 program!)

Meeting invite updates:

If you update the meeting invite, remove any outdated information before sending the update, and try to follow these suggestions to make your participants inboxes a little less confusing.

• Send updates only to those who need them.
• Do not "update" a meeting by creating a new invite; update the existing invite.
• Do not “update” a meeting by sending the new information in an email; update the meeting invite instead.
• If it is a recurring meeting and the update applies to the entire series, update the recurrence permanently.

Meeting agendas can be a pain.  In this day of non-stop meetings, you often need to send out the meeting invitation well before you can think about the agenda just so you can get a space on everyone's calendar. 

These tips may help you manage this challenge, as well as others you may encounter in creating the agenda.

(We'll discuss actually developing a good agenda in the upcoming weeks.)

Create a shared agenda OneDrive document that is easy to update later.

With our new Office 365 tools, it is easy to create a OneDrive document that you can share with all of your meeting participants.  Include the link to the document in the initial meeting invite, then update the document with the meeting agenda when you have time to think about it.  This way the invite is complete when you send it out, but you don't have to figure out the agenda long before the meeting. 

Bonus!  You can use the same shared document for the meeting notes.  This way the agenda becomes the meeting notes, and everyone can easily find them through the meeting invitation.

A few things to consider when creating a shared meeting document:

• Where should the document live?  If the meeting is for an ongoing group or project, consider creating the shared document in a departmental OneDrive account rather than your personal one.  This way if the group or project leadership changes, the meeting agenda and notes aren't tied to one person.
• Will there be a lot of documents?  You may want to create a shared folder to house all of your group or projects documents. Link the folder in the meeting invitation, and then all participants can easily find everything.
• Don't forget to actually share the document with your participants.
• In the actual meeting, consider opening the shared documents with Word rather than using the OneDrive Word Online program.  Word Online doesn't have all of the features as full Word.  If you do open the document with Word, remember to share your screen so your participants can see the agenda and the meeting notes.

Learn about creating and sharing documents in OneDrive.

Create a Walden University Network Yammer group for your recurring meetings or projects:

Yammer is another Office 365 tool available to us.  Anyone can create a private group in Yammer and use it to share documents and hold discussions. Yammer has a lot of potential as a great collaborative space.

A few things to consider when creating a Yammer group:

• Pay attention to the permissions in Yammer.  Be sure to set the group to Private if you don't want anyone else to see or find it, or view the contents in the group.
• If you are manually adding people to the group (rather than having them join the group) be sure to let them know.  You don't have to do it before you add them to the group, but do it as soon as you can.  It can be disconcerting to find out you've been randomly added to a group you've never heard of!

Learn about using Yammer as a collaborative space.

Learn how to join the Walden University Yammer network.

Copy and paste the template below into your meeting invitation. Or better yet, create a default meeting invitation that includes all of this information!  Learn how to create a default meeting invitation template.

You don't need all of these fields every time.  Delete any fields you don't need for any given meeting.

Meeting Space: (include Skype link)

Audio: muted/not muted for presenters/attendees

Chat: available/unavailable

Webcams: required/not required for presenters/attendees

Recorded: yes/no (include link to where recording will be hosted, if known)

Meeting Liaison: (name of contact for technology and other issues)

This meeting is over the lunch hour for some of you, as is sometimes unavoidable. Please accept our apologies and feel free to eat your lunch during the meeting. (Delete this section as needed.)

Please monitor your email for updates in case of technology issues before or during the meeting.

Agenda:

Large Staff Meeting:

Subject:  CSS Quarterly All-Staff Meeting

Location: Skype Meeting

Invitation Body:

Meeting Space: Skype Join Skype Meeting

Audio: attendees muted

Chat: available

Webcams: required for presenters; unavailable for all others

Recorded: yes, link to recording sent out after meeting

Meeting Liaison: Lisa Raymond, contact via Skype chat if you have any issues

Please monitor your email for updates in case of technology issues before or during the meeting.

This meeting is over the lunch hour for some of you, as is sometimes unavoidable. Please accept our apologies and feel free to eat your lunch during the meeting.

Agenda:

Greetings/troubleshooting tech issues

New staff introductions

Awards

Technology training update

Working group updates

(A more detailed agenda to follow.)

Recurring working meeting with a small group:

Subject:  Remote Experience Working Group

Location: Skype Meeting

Invitation Body:

Meeting Space: Skype Join Skype Meeting

Audio: required for all participants

Chat: available

Webcams: required for all participants

Please monitor your email for updates in case of technology issues before or during the meeting.

This meeting is over the lunch hour for some of you, as is sometimes unavoidable. Please accept our apologies and feel free to eat your lunch during the meeting.

Agenda: (link to OneDrive shared document)

You can save the CSS Meeting Invite Outlook Form to your computer and set it as your default Outlook Meeting template.  This way, every time you make a meeting invite, the recommended information is already in the meeting invite.  You can delete whatever information you don't need for that meeting, add the Skype link, and you are good to go.

The steps may look long and intimidating, but they will take only 5-10 minutes.  And once they are done, you won't have to think about what information to include in a meeting invite again!

To download and install the meeting template on your computer:

1. Save the CSS Meeting Invite Outlook Form file to your computer.
2. Open Outlook.
3. Go to File/Options. (You need to add the Developer tools to your ribbon.  This is worth it, so hang in there.)

4. Now click on Customize Ribbon.
5. In the right column, scroll down the list until you see Developer.  Check the box next to Developer, and click OK. You now have a tab for Developer in your Outlook ribbon. If you don't see the tab, restart your computer and check again.

6. Now locate the CSS Meeting Invite Outlook Form on your computer and open it by double-clicking it.
7. In the Appointment/Meeting form, click on the Developer tab.
8. Click on Publish, then Publish Form.
9. From the Look In drop-down menu, select Calendar. You may need to click the Browse button and select Calendar from the list of items.
10. Name the template in the Display Name field.
11. Click Publish.

Once you have the form published to your calendar, you can now make it the default meeting invite template.

To make the form the default meeting template:

1. In Outlook, go to your Calendar.
2. In the right column, in the My Calendars section, right-click on the calendar with your email address after it.  It is usually the first one listed.
3. From the menu, click on Properties.

4. On the Calendar Properties, click the drop-down arrow in the When Posting to this folder, use: field.
5. You should see your published form in the drop-down list.  Select it.

6. Click OK.
7. Done!

Added bonus.  Now that you have the Developer tab in your ribbon, you can use it to create your own custom templates for emails, meetings, or any other Outlook feature.