Update: Organizations can remove the option for 'do not send response', forcing recipients to send responses. See Remove Do Not Send a Response option in Meeting Requests for more information.
I received a question from a user who wanted to force people to respond to meeting requests:
Is there a way to force people to send an accept message, when the appointment goes into their calendar? If I add an event (accept) or meeting from an invite won't the sender be notified that particular person has accepted?
The organizer can't force anyone to accept a meeting or send a response. If this is a problem, company-wide training on the appropriate way to use meeting requests and how to use the responses is called for.
When an invitee accepts or declines, they have the option of sending a response. If they choose not to send a response, there is nothing you can do using Outlook's native features. If a user chooses not to send a response, it won't be sent and tracking won't be updated in outlook. Admins or managers would need to compel the invitees to send responses and could do so using custom forms or VBA. If the organizer has permissions to free/busy, he can look in the scheduling assistant to see if the meeting was accepted (marked busy).
Joe schmo says
I would like a feature that only allows accept or decline, I have a coworker who refuses to do anything but hit tentative. I don't care if the send a response back, just make a commitment.
Diane Poremsky says
Make sure you vote for it here: https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/322590-outlook-2016-for-windows/suggestions/18410443-provide-an-option-to-disable-remove-tentative-butt
While you can't do anything, the admin could use group policy to remove the tentative option. See https://www.slipstick.com/how-to-outlook/group-policy-disable-commands/ - i thought the control id 1089 would do it, but ended up adding all of the controls to disable tentative:
MenuTentativeInvitation 19992
TentativeInvitationEditResponse 19993
TentativeInvitationSendResponse 19994
TentativeInvitationNoResponse 19995
TentativeAcceptInvitation 1089
TentativeProposeNewTime 6905
Sharon says
In all my searching on the internet, everyone said a response could not be forced. Will you please direct me to instructions on setting up a group policy to force a reply? I don't care about people outside my organization - I need to know how many employees will attend so food can be ordered. Thank you.
Diane Poremsky says
Responses can't be forced from within Outlook or using native outlook features. You could use VBA or create an add-in on users computers that could do something to make them accept or decline or you can make it company policy to accept or decline and use the threat of firing or poor reviews to force compliance. But I don't have any VBA handy that can do it... I'll see what i can put together.
Sharon says
This is SO USELESS. The tracking should show who accepted and who declined regardless of whether they chose to send a response.
Diane Poremsky says
Admins can use group policy to force users to send a response (and block responses to outside addresses), but you can't force people outside your network to send a response - it's a privacy and security issue. Sorry.
Shirley Maxie says
Diane, Can you please let me know how, me as an Admin to force a response so people will response with Accept or Decline and send a response now.
Thanks
Diane Poremsky says
Unfortunately, you can't force a response, other than by making it a company policy and threatening employees who don't respond.
Mark says
100% agree Sharon. We just moved to Outlook from Lotus Notes and this makes me want to go back to Lotus Notes it's so stupid. This option should not even be allowed. There are no privacy or security issues here. If someone says they're going to a meeting or declining and says Do Not Send a Response the organizer will end up e-mailing them later and asking them if they're coming or not. It causes duplicate effort than just to update the tracker. It is MIND BOGGLING this option was ever created by Microsoft. In the WORST case they should give an option to "not send a response but still update tracker". As you can tell this bothers me a little :).
Rob says
It is up to the end user to decide whether their machine should send something or not
Diane Poremsky says
That's fine in a home settings, but in a business environment, responding yes or no is being a good coworker. It should be governed by company policy, but most companies won't enforce it.