Overview

Most ILR meeting rooms reservations in Ithaca are requested, approved, and scheduled in Microsoft Outlook.  ILR employees can check room availability and make reservations on a first come, first served basis by adding the room resource as the location for meetings.  Conflicts will be resolved by meeting room delegates based on priorities of School leadership. 

Items to Note Before Scheduling Meetings

Privacy and Sensitive Information

1. All ILR employees can see the details of meetings scheduled in shared ILR meeting rooms (Ives 181, 198, 199, 289, 348, 356, 381)
2. Consider the content you share in the meeting in Outlook (i.e. subject, notes, and attachments).
3. Other Cornell employees will see limited meeting details including subject and organizer.
4. Making room calendar meetings “Private” is not supported by Microsoft at this time.
5. Recommendations:
   • When meeting on sensitive or confidential topics use generic meeting titles and limit meeting details
   • Send separate email message(s) to attendees with meeting details that should not be visible to others.
   • Share confidential documents in Cornell Box (https://cornell.box.com) or Cornell Secure File Transfer (https://sft.cornell.edu).

Scheduling a Meeting Room in Outlook on Windows and Mac

Creating a New Meeting in Outlook

1. In Outlook, switch to the calendar view.
2. If you are scheduling a meeting on behalf of someone else, be sure to open their calendar and click anywhere in their calendar to make it active.
3. If you know the date and time you want to meet, select that block of time on the calendar.
4. Click on the New Meeting button in the upper-left of the window.
5. In the “To:” field, add the attendees you wish to invite to your meeting in the new Meeting window. If you know the name of the meeting room you want, you can enter it here too.Most room names in Ithaca start with “ILR Ives” (I.E “ILR Ives 181”).
6. Add a title to your meeting by typing it into the “Subject:” field.

Use “Scheduling Assistant” to Select the Meeting Room and Best Time for Attendees

1. After you’ve added all the attendees to your new Meeting in the “To:” field, click on Scheduling (on Mac) or Scheduling Assistant (on Windows).
2. In the new Scheduling Assistant view (see image below), you’ll see the list of attendees in the left panel and their daily availability in the middle of the window. The top of the middle section will state both the date and time. Scrolling horizontally in the middle section will allow you to see if the attendees already have meetings on certain days at specific times.
3. In the panel to the far right of the window, you will see the Room List dropdown. On the Mac, you will need to click on the “Room Finder” icon at the top of the window to see the Room List dropdown.
4. In Room List dropdown, select “ILR-Ithaca Meeting Rooms”.
5. You should now see the list of rooms in the left of the window, below the list of attendees.
6. Scroll horizontally through the dates and times in the middle section of the window to see when all the attendees have open/free times slots. Then look to see which room is also available during the time your attendees are available. Select the date and time by clicking on the time slot in the middle section. You can drag the right border of the bounding box that appears to increase or decrease the duration of the meeting. Note that standard meetings can be a maximum of 180 minutes long.
7. In the left panel, check the box next to the meeting room that is available.

Completing the Process

1. Switch back to the original view by clicking on the Appointment icon in the upper-left of the window.
2. You should now see that the room you selected is also in the “To:” field as well as the “Location:” field.
3. Add meeting agenda or notes in the lower section of the window.
4. Select when attendees should be reminded of the meeting in the field at the top of the window labeled “Reminder:”
5. Select how attendees should respond to meeting invitations in the “Response options” button on the Attendees section of the Meeting ribbon
6. Optionally add a Zoom meeting to the meeting (see instructions below)
7. When you’ve double-checked all the information, click the “Send” icon in the upper-left corner to send your meeting invitation to your attendees and reserve your room.
8. Within a few seconds, you should receive an email confirming that your room reservation has been “Accepted”.

Scheduling a Meeting Room in Outlook Web Access

NOTE:  more detailed instructions are available at https://it.cornell.edu/outlook-web/propose-meetings-outlook-web

1. Sign into https://outlook.cornell.edu
2. Open your calendar or the calendar of the person you are scheduling on behalf of
3. Click New event
4. Add a title and attendees to the meeting
5. Click Scheduling Assistant at the top of the window to find an available time for your attendees to meet
6. Click add a room to the meeting
   • If you know the room you want, enter the room name.Most room names in Ithaca start with “ILR Ives” (I.E “ILR Ives 181”).
   • Or, you can click “Browse with room finder” to select the “ILR-Ithaca Meeting Rooms” room list from the “buildings” in Ithaca.Then select an available meeting room
7. Close the Scheduling assistant by clicking “Done” in the upper left corner
8. Set response options and any other meeting options desired
9. Send the invite by clicking Send in the upper left corner

Meeting Rooms

Troubleshooting

1. Your proposed meeting room reservation is rejected.
   • If you receive an email indicating your meeting room request was denied, review the reason for denial.
   • If the scheduled meeting is too long, send an email the room delegates stating the business need for the meeting.If you frequently have a need to schedule meetings longer than 180 minutes, explain that business need also.
   • If the meeting conflicts with a previously scheduled meeting, delete the room from the meeting and use Scheduling Assistant to find another room, adjust your meeting time, or contact the meeting organizer and ask if their meeting time is flexible.If you are unable to resolve meeting conflicts send an email to the room delegates explaining the situation.
2. When adding invitees on the Scheduling assistant, Outlook does not look up or autocomplete names
   • This behavior is as-designed.Click the Appointment button in the Show section of the Meeting ribbon bar to return to Meeting appointment screen and add attendees there.
3. How to add Optional attendees to a meeting
   • By default, all attendees are “Required”, to add optional attendees, click the “To:” button on the Appointment screen to add optional attendees.More details are available here.
4. How to track meeting attendee responses to meeting invitations
   • The meeting organizer can review whether attendees have accepted meeting requests by opening an existing meeting and clicking the Tracking button in the Show section of the Meeting ribbon bar
5. If you need further assistance
   • Email details to ilrtsrequests@cornell.edu to submit a Service Request