This should be easy – but there doesn't seem to be any equivalent of 'Decline and propose a new time' or even just 'Send update' for meetings in the Mac version of Outlook.
The folks at Quora think this feature simply doesn't exist and that it's impossible. Every help page I can find that looks relevant refers only to Windows versions of Outlook. http://office.microsoft.com/ has help pages titled "Change an appointment, event, or meeting", but only for the Windows versions – for Mac, the only remotely related help page I can find is for how to "Create a meeting or appointment".
Edit – just found an Outlook for Mac 2011 page for updating meetings, but it refers to a "Send update" button in the "Meeting" tab that just doesn't exist for me. Here's all I have after editing a meeting:
Surely this can't be impossible? It seems too basic and fundamental to be a missing feature, but the only option I can find is to decline the meeting then create a whole new meeting.
There's a post on MS Answers that suggests that updates are always sent automatically with any change, but this seems to simply be wrong. I've never had updates send when I change a meeting, and whenever I do save changes to a meeting, it warns me that You have made changes to this meeting. If the organizer sends an update, your changes will be deleted.
Details if more are needed:
- Outlook 2011, Lion OS
- Office network with a MS Exchange network
- I'm not using MS Outlook for Mac out of choice… It's a company policy I can't influence. So "outlook sux use sumthin else" won't help here.
- Exact task is: there's a meeting that has been accepted, where the invite was sent by someone else. I'm trying to change the meeting time in a way that sends an update to everyone else in the meeting. I can open the meeting and change the time, but that only changes the copy stored in my personal calendar – it doesn't update the other people about the new time.
- There are no permissions issues. My user account has permission to edit this meeting.
Best Answer
So, it looks like Outlook for Mac 2011 is incapable of proposing updates for meetings sent by other people (or, for meetings sent by Outlook for Windows users), regardless of standard permissions.
Looks like this is another missing feature alongside voting buttons and easy calendar sharing requests. In Outlook for Windows you can propose updates that the organiser can accept or reject; in Outlook for Mac there seems to be nothing like this.
This is based on the fact there are 'Send update' options seemingly only for meetings that you are the organiser of:
It looks like the only possibility is to decline the meeting, then send your own - or, if that's not an option (which will be true any time it's not appropriate to just become the new meeting organiser), you need to email the organiser (e.g. in a 'Decline' comment) and ask them to do it for you.
A bit rubbish because, if they're a Windows user, they'll think you're a fool who can't find the 'Propose new time' button, and they'll think you're wasting their time asking them to do simple tasks for you...