[Chrissy Scivicque]

Scheduling for someone else can be a very difficult task. Many office professionals find themselves managing several calendars with very little direction. Here are some tips to help you handle this common task more effectively.

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[shaubold]

I manage two executives' calendars and it has started to amaze me how much of my work day is dedicated to keeping the calendars up to date so they stay on track. I like the idea of adding my initials to the appointments I schedule to differentiate what I am aware of vs. those "surprises". I also use Outlook. Just recently my boss and I have adopted the method of copying and pasting from emails the exact text regarding the appointment request so that we can quickly refer back to the who/what/when/where of its origination. I also post any updates or changes so I have the trail as things change.

[Chrissy Scivicque]

You hit the nail on the head shaubold - it's amazing how much time it takes to keep up with various calendars. I never would have thought that this was such an enormous task until I was doing it on a daily basis. The "surprises" are the worst. Inevitably, my previous boss would always assume it was my oversight or my poor planning. That's why I started the initial business. It made such a huge difference. At that point, he knew I was serious. After that, if he scheduled something that he later regretted, he just kept it to himself. Worked like a charm

[lectorlady]

Chrissy...Thanks much for this article. I started a new job in Aug and I think I'm covering everything you touched on. One additional thought: my boss is big into using the labels in Outlook...If an appointment is left "white" he probably won't attend. But you are right, some days it gets downright "rainbow" on his calendar! It's amazing how one cancelled meeting can so excite a busy exec!

[Jodith]

Thanks for the suggestion of the initials, Chrissy. I've had those arguments with bosses before. As a matter of fact, one previous boss was forbidden to schedule appointments *laughs*. He even made his dentist's assistant call me to make his appointments.

Another good tip: if there are notes or handouts for a meeting, you can attach them to an appointment in Outlook, so they are easy to find for the meeting.

And if you have a conference call, put all the information for the conference call in the notes: Number to call, who is calling whom, any codes needed.

[hunny_bunny246]

Shaubold - Instead of copying and pasting the text you might find it easier to just drag the email from the inbox to the appointment request (just make sure the appointment in the bottom toolbar). Thats what I do - makes it easier to keep track of where the appointment came from and includes those little details like date, to, copied to etc.

As for the appointments, I do what Chrissy does and use colour coding to tell the difference. Basically I colour code everything, so if its not colour coded I know my executive has put it in there (white tends to stand out against the colours)

[LisaOlsen]

Don't forget to take advantage of the Voting Button feature. I used this extensively and it came in handy when meeting attendees had to select a menu option. I just added the selections on the voting buttons feature and all they had to do was select chicken, fish, etc.

I also used it if I was trying to find the best date for a meeting. First,since we used the calendar permissions feature, I would pull up all the calendars in Outlook at once and find one or two open dates for everyone, then send an email with voting buttons for the two dates. Then once I heard back, I would then send out a meeting request and didn't have to worry about getting 10 different emails back and have to start over. Voting buttons is a great feature that often admins don't use enough.

[mzimmerm]

Using your initials can also be helpful when several people share the responsibility for scheduling conference rooms. At my office, four admins schedule meetings in the five conference rooms for the whole company. Because staff have varying levels of computer knowledge, the conference room schedules are maintained as public calendars that only the four admins have permission to edit. We include information like a short description of the meeting, who requested the conference room and the date they made the request, and our initials. That way, if there is any confusion it is easy to track down its origin and make necessary corrections.