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Manage Meetings Online

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Organizing a meeting over the phone can be quite cumbersome. Person not on the seat, not free on the day of the meeting, or not agreeing with the agenda are just a few problems you may face. Here's a quick way of managing your meetings by using a SharePoint server and Outlook 2003 e-mail client for users. SharePoint is available in two versions, SharePoint Portal Server and SharePoint Services, where latter is a part of Windows Server 2003 and can be downloaded from Microsoft's website. 

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Direct Hit!
Applies to:

Workgroups and teams
USP:

Send meeting requests via Outlook 2003 and share meeting agenda, objectives, critical decisions and attendees list on a SharePoint server
Links:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011204871033.aspx 

It's also available with some versions of MS Office 2003. We've covered the installation procedure for SharePoint in our December 2003 (Basic Groupware, page 33) issue. Alternately, you can check

https://www.pcquest.com/content/topstories/smes/103120216.asp.

Here we explain how to use them. 

Open Outlook 2003 calendar and go to the date on which you plan to fix a meeting. Right click and select 'New Meeting Request'

On the new meeting window, select people you want to invite. Give the subject, location and time for the meeting and click on 'Meeting Workspace'

A 'Meeting Workspace' side bar opens up. Click on the Create button here Select 'Other...' and give the server name or IP of the SharePoint server and click on OK
An authentication dialog box will open up. Give your username and password for the SharePoint server and click on OK After successful authentication, you will get an option 'Create a New Workspace'. Click on OK to create it. This will take some time
After the creation of workspace the sidebar will show 'Meeting is linked to workspace' and you'll get a link to the workspace in the text box. Click on the Send button to send meeting invitation to users The users will get a meeting invitation in their inbox, which they can accept, decline, tentatively agree or propose a new time, using the toolbar buttons in Outlook 2003
Once you have sent the invitation and the invitees have replied back, the invitees' responses to your meeting invitation come in your inbox as an e-mail message All information regarding the meeting gets automatically updated on the SharePoint site. There you can add more information such as the Objectives, Agenda, and Decisions

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