Coming This Summer! Follow a Meeting in Outlook

Topic

Meeting invitation response options will soon include a Follow option in addition to Yes (Accept), No (Decline), and Maybe (Tentative). 

Information

Coming soon in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams: We are introducing a new meeting response option called Follow that allows people invited to a meeting to let the organizer know they can't attend but would like to stay informed. Follow goes beyond the traditional Accept, Tentative, and Decline responses. Follow is for busy individuals with high meeting loads and conflicting meetings. Follow is the ideal meeting response option when you can't attend a meeting but still want to stay engaged and have access to post-meeting information in Teams. Meeting attendees can respond with Follow in the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the Web. Follow is not available on Outlook for Mac or Outlook Mobile at this time. Additional Follow features in Teams for meeting organizers are shown in the screenshots in this message.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 154557.

When this will happen

General Availability: We will begin rolling out early June 2024 and expect to complete by early July 2024.

How this will affect your organization

Meeting attendees can respond with Follow to any meeting invitation as long as the meeting has more than two attendees and where the organizer has requested a response.

Follow responses will:

  1. Inform organizers: Follow will let the meeting organizer know you can't attend but want to stay engaged and have access to post-meeting information.
  2. Free up time: Follow will mark the meeting on your calendar as free so you can better prioritize your time. You will still retain access to the meeting and chat.
  3. Stay informed: Follow will remind meeting organizers to record and take collaborative notes during the meeting. You will receive a notification that the recap is available after the meeting (this feature will be available shortly after the GA rollout).

After rollout, invitation response options will be Yes, No, and Follow. Maybe will be accessible through the three-dot menu.

If you're unable to attend a meeting, you can select Follow as your response to help you stay informed of the meeting events. Following a meeting reminds the organizer to record the meeting and alert you to any follow-up items.

For meeting organizers, you'll receive email responses letting you know which of your attendees responded with Follow.

Here is what a meeting invitation email with the new Follow option will look like in Outlook for Windows and Outlook for web. 

The Follow button in Outlook will be available as an option when responding to a meeting invitation.

The meeting organizer's view of invitees who respond with Follow will look like the following.

The meeting organizer will be able to see if someone in following a meeting when they receive the response in their inbox.

The reminder to the meeting organizer at the start of the meeting about people following the meeting will look like the following.

Meeting organizers will be notified to start recording a Teams meeting when people are following the meeting.

 

Note: After rollout, Follow responses are only available in new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web. If meeting organizers are using either of these Outlook versions, they will see Follow responses. However, if the meeting organizer is using classic Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, or Outlook Mobile, the meeting organizer will see the response as Tentative, with a note that the invitee is following the meeting. See the image below for an example.

The information that is displayed will depend on the meeting organizers operating system and version of Outlook. Older versions will display tentative acceptance of the invitation..

Support for users: Follow a meeting in Outlook - Microsoft Support

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