Email etiquette

[bunn]

People have recently started sending me Outlook meeting notifications. I assume that these are generated automatically when they put items into their Outlook calendar, and are primarily intended to talk to other Outlook calendars.

I don't use Outlook, so the notifications just come through as rather curt looking autogenerated messages.

My etiquette question is: does one reply to these messages, as if they had been sent by a person, or does one take them as machine-generated, and respond only if one cannot make the scheduled time?

Comments

[chainmailmaiden]

I only respond if I can't make the meeting or I need to let the person know something relating to the meeting. No-one has told me off for being rude so far...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

In Outlook, you would see reply buttons appear with the meeting request: Accept, Tentative or Decline. If you click on Accept or Tentative, then your name will appear in the meeting details in their Outlook calendar (assuming they are using Outlook's groupware functions).

I think you should reply by sending them an email saying 'Accept' etc, but you should also point out that since you aren't using that particular software, then your details won't automatically appear in their calendars and neither will you automatically be sent updates to the meeting time, telephone number etc.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I agree.

You're only getting the message because they've deliberately included you on the meeting request, so I'd take it as an email to you, which would normally require a response.

They're fairly curt messages in Outlook too, by the way, so don't feel aggrieved :-) Although they should normally only be sent once the meeting has been agreed some other way, which means all you need is an acknowledgement rather than a reply.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Do you think it makes any difference if the message came from a VIP to whom I have never actually spoken, the meeting having been arranged by a third party who is his junior?

I am somewhat loath to begin a new client relationship with a lecture on email client software, but this is supposed to be a teleconference so if he tries to send me the telecon number using some bizarre proprietary Outlook system, I am not sure if I'll get it or not? Perhaps I should respond to the person who actually arranged the telecon?

(before you ask, no, I have no idea if he is the younger brother of a duke, or if his daughter is married to the Bishop of Bath and Wells...)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I can do that if it's Mike, but I've just had one from someone I don't really want to start by lecturing on email standards...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh well, we've already established that you and I are the rude ones in this particular community... :-p

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Acknowledge to the email account that sent the request, but respond in more detail to the person who arranged it.

You may well find that the meeting request was initiated by that person anyway, either using the other person's Outlook or else by using delegated powers.

If you don't respond or acknowledge at all Outlook will show that you haven't done anything about the meeting, so people might think you're being rude and/or incompetent.

[chainmailmaiden]

I have no problem with people thinking me rude, it saves me having to be polite when I don't want to be :-)

I suppose I should add though that I would accept the meeting in Outlook and then not bother with any further response. Mind you I hate getting meeting requests, they usually signal something long & dull which will require me to stay awake and result in more work :-(

[bunn.livejournal.com]

OK, I've done that, thanks for the advice!

I don't particularly like Outlook and I just don't want to pay the absurd price of the damn thing just for this sort of feature - until recently, I was never asked to use it.

I've just recently had a flurry of them though, from people who clearly Know Not of other email clients. Pft.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Ah, now the difference is that I can't accept the meeting in outlook, because that's not a technology my client supports. I have no outlook (and want none!)

[chainmailmaiden]

I only use it at work under protest because they won't let us use anything else. I wouldn't let it near Orac or Slave :-)