I spend a bit of time trying to co-ordinate meeting up with people and I have started to use a feature in Outlook 2007 to help with this process.

For example, this morning I wanted to send a business colleague my schedule so that we can meet up sometime during the last two weeks of January.

To do this, click on Calendar in Outlook 2007.

Click "Send a Calendar via Email…"

This will start a new email and display this dialog.

I want to meet up sometime during the last two weeks of January so I select the drop-down for Date Range and select those dates. Also, since this is work related I select "Show time within my working hours only".

I click OK and my Schedule for that time period is generated for the email. Note that there are no details about the events – time is categorized as either free/busy/tentative or Outside of Working Hours.

Now my business colleague can check his schedule for availability so that we can meet up.