When you create a meeting request in a secondary calendar, you'll get a message that responses to the meeting request won't tally because the meeting is not in your default calendar:
This meeting is not in the Calendar folder for this account. Responses to this meeting will not be tallied. Do you want to send anyway?
This is the standard warning message when the meeting is not on your default calendar. If you send it, the responses will not automatically update the tracking. Why? Because when Outlook processes the responses, it only looks for the event in your default calendar.
You will be able track the responses on the meeting request by changing the response in the response field on the tracking page.
In order for the responses to be automatically processed, you’ll need to add the meeting to your own calendar. If you want to use a non-default calendar, you can either send it from your calendar and copy the event to the other calendar as a placeholder or manually update the event on the shared calendar as you receive the responses. If the calendar is in a shared mailbox, Group, or Public folder (enabled for email), you can invite the mailbox or calendar to the meeting.
Tracking Responses
Open the meeting request and switch to the tracking page. right click in the response field and choose the desired response.
The attendance field is also editable on this page, if you need to change invitees between required and optional.
How to Change Tracking Video Tutorial
Drew Whitehead says
I don't care about the tracking. How do I just turn off the annoying message box warning me and asking "do you want to send anyway?". I create many, many schedule items and the answer is always yes and it's driving me nuts!
Elvi says
I just created a change suggestion titled "Enable tallying of responses to meetings in other calendars than the default calendar" at Micorsoft's. You might want to vote for it.
https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/322590-outlook-2016-for-windows/suggestions/37899109-enable-tallying-of-responses-to-meetings-in-other(Suggestion was deleted.)
Diane Poremsky says
It looks like its not approved yet. :( I'll check it again in a couple of days.
C Sacharkiewicz says
That idea has been deleted on the forum...
J. Minshall says
I have a client who has this issue. I want to change her child calendar to be the default calendar, but have not been able to determine how to do that. The only profile and data file I see on the PC are already set as the defaults. Any ideas on how to find a way to do this?
Diane Poremsky says
You can't change which folder is used for the default calendar - it's the one outlook creates in the mailbox. If you use a POP or IMAP account, it's the one outlook creates/users when the data file is set as default.
Lisa S says
I created an Outlook calendar which is not my default calendar. I tried to schedule students with professors for academic advising and want to send them an email invite to confirm their day and time. However, because it is not my default calendar I read something about not being able to automatically tally responses. I did find your link that mentions the ability to manually turn on tracking, but I cannot figure it out for the life of me. I don't even see the "Tracking Responses" tab as an option. I added it as a tool on my toolbar (from the commands list) but its faded out where it looks like it is not option to use.
The crazy thing is I also tried to do a test from my default calendar thinking that was the issue, but wasn't able to access Tracking Changes there either. Any suggestions?
Diane Poremsky says
Which version of Outlook do you use? There is either a button on the ribbon or a tab called Tracking.
JBH says
My biggest question is this: WHY (why? why?) can't Outlook tally responses for meetings on a secondary calendar? I mean that in two ways: Is it an intentional design decision, i.e., Outlook *shouldn't* tally those responses; or is it a technical problem, i.e., Outlook *can't* tally them due to some technical limitation?
Regarding the first point: Does Microsoft think nobody would want that feature? I certainly would. I use my personal/primary calendar for my own appointments, but I use a separate calendar to schedule about 20 student workers. At the start of each semester, I set weekly recurring appointments for each of their shifts and send an invitation to each student for each shift. If a student accepts an invitation, why is it so hard for Outlook to simply note *on that calendar* that s/he accepted it? (Google Calendar could, with absolutely no problem.) I'm the one who created the calendar, so what's the big deal? It seems to be such a basic, intrinsic function of a calendar; why would anyone not want it to be an option?
Regarding the second point: Is there some technical reason Outlook simply cannot tally people's responses? If so, what prevents it?
Diane Poremsky says
It's intentional/design limitation. This dates back to the initial Outlook calendar 20 years ago, when it was more typical to have one account and one calendar in the profile - the calendar sniffing service only works with the default calendar.
Could they change it? Most likely, if there is enough interest. I recommend submitting a suggestion at https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/322590-outlook-2016-for-windows - i did a quick search and didn't find any previous requests.
Sharon says
As the organizer of a meeting, an attendee gave me a verbal response. I want to change the response to Accepted, but it won't save it unless I send an update. How can I get around that?
Diane Poremsky says
Click the Save button in the Quick Access Toolbar or use Ctrl+S, then close it using the X.
Patricia Branco says
Hello everyone!
I have a problem with tracking responses. I sent an invitation for about 100 people, some accepted but did not send the receipt. How can I track this? Know who accepted it without having their acceptance receipts?
Thank you!!
Chrissie says
Hi Diane - As an owner of a secondary calendar I am able to send appointments in the shared calendar, and responses are automatically sent to my personal email so I can determine accept/decline/etc. Though I cannot see their tracking status through the appointment itself. I've never received the above messaging saying it won't be tracked...? It's not practical to track the individual responses manually due to volume...suggestions?
Diane Poremsky says
The calendar is a shared calendar or a second calendar in your profile? If a shared calendar, the responses should go back to it and update the event.
Rob Sarkell says
Hi Diane - some following information - even by logging into google Gmail, I cannot see any meeting responses. However, if I use the main calendar from either outlook or from Google, then accept notification emails do come through...hope this doesn't confuse you more....thanks!
Rob Sarkell says
Hi Diane, my problem is not with the topic per say, but with the use of sub-calendars and tracking responses - I have set up a number of gmail accounts with calendars and use one master account calendar with a sub-calendar for each employee. I create meeting appointments in these sub-calendars and invite as an attendee the employee's gmail account email address. When I send the appointment, I get the "this meeting is not in the calendar folder for this account. Responses to this meeting will not be tallied" message (which is fine). When the employee receives the appointment invite and accepts it, I would get a email response telling me they have accepted the meeting invite (or declined or tentative). That was how it worked until last week. Starting on Thursday last week, no responses are coming into my mailbox.
I know that the responses are not tallied in the sub-cal, but at least I was getting the emailed responses. Now I am not.
Any idea what changed?
Diane Poremsky says
I don't know what changed, but I noticed that I'm not receiving responses from gmail or yahoo addresses, unless they reply with comments (and not always then), when they respond using the wen interface.
Templar Services says
there has to be a simple patch to tally responses when using icloud this is absurd!!
Diane Poremsky says
Sorry, I'm not aware of any patches to make it work. Outlook can only tally items that are in the default data file. With some builds of Outlook and iCloud, you can set the iCloud data file as default, but it usually doesn't work with IMAP accounts in the profile because you can't send mail through the imap account if a pst is not set as default.
KevB says
Diane, this is a good read and almost answers my question. In the tracking tool on the meeting organizer's calendar the response for Attendee A is marked as "None". Attendee A did accept the meeting however she chose not to send a response. Is this working as intended? I assume that since the meeting organizer is not receiving a response that it is not being tracked.
Diane Poremsky says
Yes, it's working correctly. Outlook only knows if someone responded if they send a response.
Mindy says
so how do I know if they accepted the invite?
Diane Poremsky says
You can tally the responses yourself as they arrive.
Ruban says
Hi, i am getting same error while user schedule a meeting calendar in Public folder- User is owner of that calendar :
This meeting is not in the Calendar folder for this account. Responses to this meeting will not be tallied. Do you want to send anyway?
how to avoid this error message ...
Please Help
Thanks
Diane Poremsky says
That is normal when the meeting is not in the default mailbox calendar - meeting responses aren't tallied automatically when the meeting is not in the default calendar. The only way to avoid the message is to create the meeting in the user's calendar and invite the public folder calendar. If you want to keep it in the public folder, you need to tally responses on the meeting yourself.
Sara says
This was exactly the answer I was looking for today. Thank you!
Sara Macintyre says
Has anyone tried using MFCMapi to review the calendar item to fix this issue?
- https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2215547
Guillermo Salazar says
Okay, thanks!
Guillermo Salazar says
She has Editor permission.
Diane Poremsky says
Unless she is a delegate or owner, she won't see the tracking. Sorry.
Guillermo Salazar says
I am trying to help a user with the same issue, she is working on a co-worker's calendar. I was able to add the Tracking button but is grayed out. Is this something related to the calendar permissions?
Diane Poremsky says
It is permissions - does she have delegate permissions to the calendar? Only the owner and delegates can see tracking.
Edline Peter says
i m not able to see tracking in outlook 2010
Diane Poremsky says
Is the meeting stored in your default calendar?
Brenda Dryburgh says
I have users who are getting this message (which is fine since I see it's normal), but also the people they are inviting to the request are not getting the invitation in their inbox at all. The user is sending the meeting invitation from a secondary calendar, using Outlook 2010 over Exchange 2010. Is there some setting that needs to be changed for the other people to get the meeting requests, or do you think there might be something else wrong?
Diane Poremsky says
That message only affects him - it won't prevent the meetings from being received. Have you checked the Exchange tracking logs to find out where the invites went?
Darryl Gittins says
Related to this, I installed the iCloud Windows Control Panel app on my wife’s computer so that her Outlook calendar would synch with her iPad. It mostly works, except now, when she creates a calendar apt and invite’s someone to the apt, she gets this message in Outlook:
"Responses to the meeting request will not be tallied because this meeting is not in your main calendar folder. Is this OK?"
According to the Mac help files:
“When enabling Calendars in the iCloud Control Panel, part of the setup process is to copy your Calendars data from the default Outlook ".pst" file to iCloud, and then remove the Calendars from the ".pst" file by placing them in the Deleted Items folder in Outlook. The Calendars data is then stored in the iCloud data set within Outlook so that changes can be pushed to and from Outlook by iCloud. Be sure you are looking for your data within the iCloud dataset within Outlook after enabling Calendars in the iCloud Control Panel.”
That’s all well and good, but this means that all your calendar data is no longer in the “main calendar folder”, which seriously screws up the calendar functionality in Outlook.
And AFAIK, you cannot change the “main calendar folder” in Outlook, so the only way to get the calendar functionality back in Outlook is to move all the calendar items out of the iCloud calendar folder and into the main calendar folder in the Outlook PST. Of course this would break the icloud synch.
Am I missing something? Surely iCloud couldn’t be this lame.
Diane Poremsky says
Never underestimate the ability or either Apple or Microsoft to do really lame things. :) No you can't change the default calendar.
Your choices are use outlook's calendar and sync to the icloud using CodeTwo's icloud sync tool or use icloud and manually set the responses as they arrive. See icloud and outlook calendar for more information about this and other calendar issues.
Doug says
Thanks for the informative article. I'm wondering if there is a way to disable the message? I'm aware that the meeting responses won't be tallied (since I've received this message 5 times a day for the last 5 years!!!). I'm ok with the lack of responses, just tired of being reminded.
Thanks again!!!
Diane Poremsky says
I don't think it can be disabled but i will look into it.
Alex says
Hi Diane,
Have you come across a way to disable this message, since this last response?
Thank you,
Alex
Aaron says
As above: any way to disable this message? I am an executive assistant and use my boss's calendar (as a secondary calendar) all the time to send mtg invites.
Tim R says
Diane is right (as usual) ... I have not found a way to disable "notification of non-notification", but it does not happen when meeting is archived. It is helpful when moving old meetings to archive files, but maybe there's some creative way for (auto) archiving to serve your needs in more like real time.
bodwyn says
I guess there's no way to disable it?
We have to move items out of our mailbox to an archive, so I'm moving out recurrences which ended pre 2013 (so far), and I have to click OK fort every one - I have a lot of occurences!
Diane Poremsky says
No, there is not a way to disable it. I think if you'd use archive, it wouldn't trigger it, but I haven't tested that in a very long time. The ClickYes script would be handy at times like this.
bodwyn says
Actually, I just went ahead - I was moving 388 recurring appointments, all of which the recurrence range ended before 2012-12-31. Thankfully the pop-up only made me hit the space bar 60 times.
Diane Poremsky says
Your finger needed the workout. :)