External Publication

How to check your co-workers’ schedules in Outlook and Teams

United States March 23, 2026

Finding the right time for everybody to meet is a big challenge in work life. Simply throwing out a suggested meeting time in email — “Is everyone free on Thursday at 11am EST?” — often leads to multiple rounds of “I can’t make it then. How about Wednesday at 2pm?” follow-ups.

There’s a better way. The Scheduling Assistant in Microsoft Outlook and Teams can scan your co-workers’ calendars and show you in a grid the days and times when each co-worker is busy or free. You just select a time slot when everybody’s schedule is open for your meeting.

Note that the Scheduling Assistant isn’t available with Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions. It requires a Microsoft 365 business or enterprise plan, and it works only for people in the same organization. If you invite external contacts to your meeting, you won’t see their schedule information in the Scheduling Assistant.

This guide shows you how to quickly set up a meeting in Outlook or Teams using the Scheduling Assistant to find time slots when your co-workers are available. We’ll cover how things typically work in most versions of Outlook and Teams, but not every feature is available in every environment.

In this article:

Set up a meeting and launch the Scheduling Assistant
How to use the Scheduling Assistant
Use the Scheduling Assistant in the Outlook mobile app
Create a scheduling poll to find the best meeting time for most
Have Copilot find a meeting time

Set up a meeting and launch the Scheduling Assistant

The user interfaces are similar for the web, Windows, and macOS versions of Outlook and Teams:

On the left sidebar, click the Calendar icon. The Calendar view opens.

In Outlook: Click the New event button at the top left. (In Classic Outlook for Windows, this is labeled New Meeting.)

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In Outlook, click the New event button to start creating a new meeting invite.

Howard Wen / Foundry

In Teams: Click the New button at the top right. (Or, while in a chat, click the + to the right of the message box and select Schedule meeting from the small menu that opens.)

In Teams, you can start a meeting invite from the calendar or from within a chat.

Howard Wen / Foundry

A window to set up a new meeting (or “event”) will open.

Adding your co-workers

Inside the “Invite attendees” field (it might be called “Add required people” or “Invite required attendees,” depending on your environment), enter the names or email addresses of co-workers.

Add the people you want to invite to the meeting, then click the Scheduling Assistant tab at the top.

Howard Wen / Foundry

In Classic Outlook: Click the Required button to open your contacts to select the names or email addresses of co-workers who you want to attend your meeting. Or, in the field to the right of this button, enter their names or email addresses.

In Classic Outlook you can optionally click the Required button and select co-workers’ names.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Now, toward the top left, click the Scheduling Assistant tab. If you don’t see this in your interface, look for a Scheduling Assistant button at the upper right or a Scheduler button to the right of the date and time field.

How to use the Scheduling Assistant

The Scheduling Assistant looks and works similarly across the different versions of Outlook and Teams:

Toward the top of the Scheduling Assistant window, you can select a date and the start and end times for your meeting.
A sidebar along the left lists the co-workers you’ve added to your meeting invite.
The grid dominating the main area depicts your schedules followed by the schedules of the co-workers you’ve invited. You can use this to select a time period for your meeting.

The Scheduling Assistant shows you when your invitees are busy and free.

Howard Wen / Foundry

The time slot grid explained

Each row represents the schedule of the person listed at left. A clear section on a row represents a time slot when the person is available. A colored block means they’re not available. If you hover your cursor over one of these blocks, it may say the person is Busy , Tentative , Out of office , Unknown (or No information), Working elsewhere , or Outside of working hours. (Unknown or No information usually means the person you want to invite hasn’t shared their calendar with others, or they’re outside your organization.)

Each column represents an hour of time. If an entire column is clear, then everyone you want to invite is available to meet in that hour.

Selecting time slots

Click a column to select it. The column will become shaded with a frame around it. You can drag the sides of this frame to the left or right to decrease or increase the time frame in 30-minute increments.

Drag the frame’s edges to expand or decrease the meeting duration.

Howard Wen / Foundry

When you move the pointer over the shaded time range, the pointer will turn into a hand icon. A callout will pop open that lists the date and time period that this shaded portion represents, and how many of your co-workers are available to meet then. Using the hand icon, you can click-and-drag the shaded portion left or right along the grid to see the callout list the availability of your co-workers in other time slots.

You can move the time range selection left or right along the grid to see how many people are available at different times.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Once you’ve selected a time period for your meeting, click Event (or Meeting or Done or Back , depending on your environment) at the upper left to return to the main meeting setup window, where you can fill out the other details for your meeting. When you’re finished, click the Send button. Your co-workers will receive an email invite to your meeting in their Outlook inbox.

Other things to know

In most of these interfaces, there is a Send button toward the upper left or upper right of the Scheduling Assistant window, and you can click this to send out your meeting invite immediately. But you should look over the details for your meeting first, even if you already filled out this information before launching the Scheduling Assistant.

You can select a time slot for your meeting that conflicts with a co-worker’s schedule. The Scheduling Assistant is only meant to help you find dates and times when your co-workers are most available to meet. It doesn’t restrict you to selecting only time slots when everyone is available.

If your organization has the Room Finder feature set up, the Scheduling Assistant will list conference rooms in the left sidebar below the names of your co-workers. The availability of these rooms will be listed in the grid as well.

In Classic Outlook: In the Scheduling Assistant window, clicking the AutoPick button on the ribbon toolbar will trigger Outlook to find the next time slot when everyone you’re inviting is available.

Classic Outlook in Windows lets you zoom immediately to the next meeting time with full availability.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Use the Scheduling Assistant in the Outlook mobile app

You can use the Android or iOS version of Outlook to set up meetings and find available time slots in your co-workers’ schedules. (The Teams mobile app doesn’t have this functionality.)

Setting up a new meeting

At the bottom of the app’s screen, tap the Calendar icon. Then tap the + button at the lower right.

On the setup screen for a new event, tap People and enter the names or email addresses of co-workers. When you’re done adding them, tap the checkmark at the top right to go back to the setup screen for the event.

The new event setup screen after adding co-workers.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Look at the “Find a time” area. You’ll see a few suggested times that you can select, or you can tap either the Date or the Time box just below. You’ll be taken to another screen that lists time slots.

The time slot list explained

On Android: To choose a different date for the meeting, tap the current date in the upper-left corner. The current month appears below; you can swipe vertically down through the months and tap another date in a different month.

On iOS: You can swipe horizontally through the dates running across the top of the screen and tap a date to select it for the meeting.

The main part of the screen is a graphical list of time slots, with the hours indicated along the left. You can scroll vertically through this list.

Tap a time and it’ll be shaded in either red or green. Red means that at least one of the co-workers you want to invite is not be available at that time according to their calendar. Green means everyone is available to meet.

Red shading means at least one co-worker is not available at the selected time. Green means everyone is available.

Howard Wen / Foundry

On the bottom panel, you’ll see icons (headshots or initials) for your co-workers that indicate their individual availability when you select a time slot: A red “X” means they’re unavailable, and a green checkmark means they are available. A gray “?” usually means the person is outside your organization.

Selecting time slots

You can press the white dot at the upper right or lower left of the shaded time slot and drag it up or down. This will adjust the meeting’s start or end time, making the meeting shorter or longer.

You can also move the meeting’s time slot without shortening or lengthening it: Press on the shaded overlay and drag it up or down the timeline to select an earlier or later time slot. As you do this, the shaded overlay will turn red (to indicate that at least one co-worker is unavailable) or green (all co-workers are available to meet).

Drag up or down on the white dots to lengthen or shorten the meeting.

Howard Wen / Foundry

As you lengthen, shorten, or move a time slot, your co-workers’ icons in the bottom panel will change to reflect their availability.

After you select a time period for your meeting, tap the checkmark at the upper-right corner. You’ll be taken back to the setup screen for your new meeting. Fill in the other details for it, then tap the checkmark at the upper-right corner. An email invite for your meeting will be sent to your co-workers.

Create a scheduling poll to find the best meeting time for most

If you’ve added a lot of co-workers to your new meeting and can’t find any time slots in the Scheduling Assistant when everyone is available, you may be able to email a poll to have your co-workers vote for their most preferred date and time. This scheduling poll is available in certain environments including New Outlook for Windows, Outlook for web, and Teams for web. It’s not available in Classic Outlook or in the Teams or Outlook mobile apps.

In the “New event” panel, click the Scheduling poll button; most users will find this button on the top toolbar. The “Scheduling poll” panel opens along the right, showing a list of meeting times and how many invitees are available for each time. Select a few time slots for your co-workers to consider, focusing on those that you think would work well for most of them. Then click the Next and Create poll buttons.

Setting up a scheduling poll in Outlook.

Howard Wen / Foundry

If you’re using a Mac, the Scheduling poll button is to the right of the date and time field, next to the Scheduler button. Clicking it adds a list of suggested meeting time slots based on invitees’ availability right in the “New event” window. You can add more time slots by clicking Add new option. Then fill out the rest of your meeting details and click Send.

An email will be sent to your invited co-workers, and the meeting will be automatically scheduled for the date and time that reaches a consensus vote.

Have Copilot find a meeting time

Business users who have an add-on Microsoft 365 Copilot license can use Microsoft’s AI assistant to check co-workers’ schedules when setting up a meeting. You can do this from Outlook, Teams, and many other Microsoft 365 apps.

In Outlook and most M365 apps, click the Copilot icon at the upper right of the app. In Teams, the Copilot icon is on the left navigation bar.

The Copilot sidebar opens. In the text box, type a prompt instructing Copilot to find a time slot when your co-workers are available. You can give special instructions for co-workers in different time zones. Examples:

When are [Name] and I both free for a 30-minute meeting next Tuesday?
Find the next available slot for a 1-hour meeting with [Name] and [Name].
Look at the schedules for [Name 1], [Name 2] and me. Suggest the best time for a 45-minute meeting that minimizes late-night or early-morning hours for everyone involved.

Copilot will analyze the calendars of your co-workers and show any available time slots in its sidebar. It may also present a button that you can click to create a new meeting using a suggested time. Otherwise, you can type a prompt instructing Copilot to create one with a preferred time slot:

Draft a meeting invite for the second time slot option and add an agenda based on my last email with [Name].

Caution: Copilot may not be as reliable as the Scheduling Assistant. If a meeting is critical, use Scheduling Assistant to double-check Copilot’s suggested time.

This article was originally published in May 2020 and updated in March 2026.

Related reading:

Handy Outlook keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Mac
Microsoft Copilot can boost your writing in Word, Outlook, and OneNote — here’s how
Use Outlook’s calendar board view to organize your work
8 Outlook add-ins to enhance collaboration
How to filter Outlook emails on all your devices
How to work across time zones in Outlook
Microsoft cheat sheets: Dive into Windows and Office apps

Set up a meeting and launch the Scheduling Assistant

Adding your co-workers

How to use the Scheduling Assistant

The time slot grid explained

Selecting time slots

Other things to know

Use the Scheduling Assistant in the Outlook mobile app

Setting up a new meeting

The time slot list explained

Selecting time slots

Create a scheduling poll to find the best meeting time for most

Have Copilot find a meeting time

Discussion in the ATmosphere