Delegate cannot view meetings marked Private by Another Chairperson

[Britonius]

We have a delegate who has access to view and manage her manager's calendar, including his private items; however if another chairperson invites her manager to a meeting and that chairperson marks their meeting as private, the delegate cannot see view it on the manager's calendar. She can see it if the Manager opens the meeting and unchecks the private setting, but that defeats the purpose of the Delegate managing his calendar if he has to manage it himself. Does this have something to do with the fact that the Delegate does not have access to the Chairperson's mailbox & private items, and technically the delegate's manager did not create or enable the private setting? Any other way to resolve this so the Delegate can view all meeting requests sent to her manager?

We are using Outlook 2010 32 bit (14.0.7116.5000) and Exchange server 2010 (version 14.3, build 123.4).

 

[Britonius]

Unless you have an opposing view or another workaround suggestion, I did receive an answer to this question in the TechNet forums. I still question that if she has access to his private meetings, why would she not be able to view this private meeting as well, but then I also do kind of understand that this is an exception and is probably meant to keep it private between those two parties leaving out the delegate.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...-private-by-another-chairperson?forum=outlook

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Like you I would expect that if she has access to private meetings she should have access to those meetings as well. But I understand the reasoning for it because private meetings aren't sent to the delegates, so she wouldn't be able to see them. If you go with the suggestion to open the mailbox using full access permission see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981245 - having a delegate open a mailbox using full access permission is not a supported scenario.

 

[Britonius]

We are not offering Full Access as an option, so that's out of the question. We just explained that it is a feature of Outlook, and the delegator will either have to ask the chairperson why it's private, or will have to manage the meeting themselves, or will have to accept it and remove the private mark on it so the delegate can see it. The biggest issue in this scenario, is that the delegator cannot easier tell that it is a private meeting invitation. The biggest indicator possible is that the meeting invitation stays in this person's Inbox as the delegate won't be able to do anything with it. Otherwise, they have to look at the contents of the meeting request, look at the calendar view in it and the meeting will show a tiny lock icon on it. However, if they are using an iPhone or iPad (standard at our company), there is no indication that the request is private at all.

 

[Britonius]

So here is the entire write up I created to document this situation:

So here is what we had to write up to deal with this feature.
When another person sends a meeting invitation marked as private to the
Delegator, the Delegate does not have access to view these items as it is
private between the chairperson, with whom the delegate does not have access,
and the Delegator. This is a feature, so that the meeting is truly meant only
for the eyes of the parties invited, and others can not view it.
NOTE: The Delegator may not easily notice that the meeting is set as private, unless the Chairperson indicates that specifically within the Subject of the meeting.

• View from iPhone - There is no indicator showing it as a private meeting when viewing it from an iPhone or iPad, even after it is accepted and viewed from the iPhone Calendar.
• View from Outlook - If you look at the contents of the meeting request email, the calendar view within the request will show a tiny lock on the meeting as shown below indicating that it is private. The other key indicator, is that the meeting request remains in your Inbox, since your delegate cannot view or mange this meeting.
  
  

One of the following will need to be done to handle these private invitations:

1. Ask the chairperson if it is necessary for it to be marked as private, since your delegate cannot see or manage it. If not, resend the meeting without the private setting.
2. The Delegator will need to manage this meeting themselves, and the Delegate will have no access to it.
3. The Delegator can Accept the meeting request, open the meeting from their calendar in Outlook, remove the private setting (click on the lock icon), and Save and Close. Then the Delegate will have access to the meeting going forward, unless the chairperson sends an update which may enable the private setting again.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Thanks for the update! I'm sure it will be helpful to others.

If you want the private flag removed automatically, you could use a macro - it would need to be in the owner's outlook and would only run when his outlook was open though, so it's possible some will come in and not get processed.

 

[Britonius]

I appreciate the offer, but most of theses executives are either mobile or don't get in Outlook much, so it wouldn't help much.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Yeah, i figured that would be the case.