Introduction

IBM® Notes® 9.0.1 improves the user experience related to the Online Meeting feature in Calendar.
Combined with other new features in IBM Notes 9.0.1, it is now not only possible to add Online Meeting information to an already-sent invitation, but also to edit and / or remove Online Meeting details entered in any sent Invitation.

Requirement for the enhancement

1. At times, invitations are sent, and it is later required to add an Online Meeting in the sent invitation, as there may be invitees joining the meeting from different geographical locations.
2. Similarly, if the already-booked Online Meeting is not going to be available, it is currently not possible to remove or modify that Online Meeting information from the sent invitation.
3. In both cases, the workaround is to cancel the sent invitation, and create a new invitation with the required Online Meeting details. This is a time-consuming task, and is not useful if a meeting Chair wants to add Online Meeting information after the meeting has begun.
4. In addition, cancelling the existing invitation and sending a new invitation requires extra work for Invitees to remove the cancelled invitation from their calendar, and accept the new invitation.

Benefits of this feature

1. This feature enables a Chair to schedule a meeting with or without Online Meeting details, and later add the Online Meeting details based upon the requirements and availability in the already-sent Invite.
2. At times, meeting invitations are created and sent by a delegate on behalf of a meeting Chair, though the delegate may not be aware of the Online Meeting options, based on the Chair's preferences. This feature enables both a meeting Chair and delegate to make the necessary modifications/ inclusions of Online Meeting information in the sent invitation, and send updates of same to Invitees.
3. For Invitees that use the preference to automatically process updates, this feature will automatically update their accepted invitation with the Online Meeting details added / modified later by the Chair.

Description of feature

• This feature will be used to add Online Meeting information to an existing calendar entry, and to save and send the Invitation.
• Users can either pick from already-created Online Meetings, or create a new Online Meeting and add the same to the invitation.
• Users can also now remove the Online Meeting information that was previously added to the sent invitation.
• Users can open any sent invitation that has Online Meeting information and edit the added online meeting to change its attributes, or they can choose to select a different Online Meeting instead of the selected one, then save and send the invitation.

Add an Online Meeting

1. To add an Online Meeting, open a sent invitation in Edit mode that does not have an Online Meeting.
2. Click on the link 'Online Meeting' to open the 'Reserve Online Meeting' dialog that displays the list of Online Meetings created by you.
3. Select an online meeting from the existing list, or click the 'New' button in the dialog to create a new Online Meeting, and add it to the calendar entry.
4. If required, update the “Location” field with call-in information for the selected Online Meeting.



5. Save and send the update to all Invitees.
6. Invitees can process the received updates to update their accepted invitation with the Online Meeting details you added.

Edit an Online Meeting

1. To edit an Online Meeting, open the invitation in Edit mode.
2. Click on the link 'Edit' beside the selected Online Meeting. This will open the 'Reserve Online Meeting' dialog that displays the list of Online Meetings created by you.
3. Select an online meeting from the existing list, or click the 'New' button in the dialog to create a new Online Meeting, and add it to the calendar entry.
4. If required, edit the attributes of a selected Online Meeting by clicking the 'Edit' button in the 'Reserve Online Meeting' dialog, and continue to add the same Online Meeting information in the calendar entry.
5. If required, manually update the “Location” field with call-in information for the selected Online Meeting.
6. Save and send updates to all Invitees.
7. Invitees can process the received updates to update their accepted invitation with the Online Meeting details you added.

Remove an Online Meeting

1. To remove the Online Meeting, open the invitation in Edit mode.
2. Click on the link 'Remove' beside the selected Online Meeting. This will remove the Online Meeting details from the calendar entry.
3. If required manually update the “Location” field to remove the call-in information of the deleted Online Meeting.
4. Save and send the updates to all Invitees.
5. Invitees can process received updates to remove the Online Meeting details from their accepted invitation.

Functional exceptions

1. In the “Reserve Online Meeting” dialog the Delete button and the 'Include conference call' check box will be hidden when opened from an existing calendar entry. Thus, you cannot delete an Online Meeting by opening the 'Reserve Online Meeting' dialog from any sent invitation.
2. If you open the 'Reserve Online Meeting' dialog from any sent invitation and select an online meeting that has call-in information, the below dialog will indicate that you must manually update location information with the call-in information for the selected Online Meeting.

SmartCloud Meeting Scenario:

1. When you create a new Meeting Invite, and choose to use an IBM SmartCloud online meeting, or add an IBM SmartCloud online meeting to an existing calendar e, then the details of that online meeting will no longer be added to the “Description” field of the calendar entry. This is a change in behavior from previous Notes releases.
2. You will be notified if you are changing an already-selected IBM SmartCloud online meeting that has Meeting details present in the “Description” field. On clicking the 'Save and Send Invitation' button, the “Description” field will be updated to clean the old meeting details out, and you will be notified by a pop-up dialog box.



3. Similarly, you will be notified that if you are removing a SmartCloud online meeting that has Meeting details present in the “Description” field. On clicking the 'Save and Send Invitation' button the “Description” field will be updated to clean the old meeting details out, and you will be notified by a pop-up dialog box.


4. If you have entered online Meeting details manually in the “Description” field, or if the online meeting URL in the “Description” field has been converted to a hotspot (Live text), then it will not be removed from the description on editing or removing the online meeting, and you will be notified with the below dialog on clicking 'Save and send invitation':

Sametime Classic Meeting Scenarios:

1. If you open the 'Reserve Online Meeting' dialog from any sent invitation by clicking either the 'Online Meeting' link or the 'Edit' link, then the dialog will not include Sametime Classic rooms for selection.
2. When you open any sent invitation that has Sametime Classic rooms, and click on the 'Edit' link to open the 'Reserve Online Meeting' dialog, then only the selected Sametime Classic room and the other non-Sametime Classic rooms will be shown in the dialog. In addition, if you edit the selected Sametime Classic room, then all the fields except 'Meeting Name', 'Place' and 'Room Name' will be editable; 'Meeting Name' and 'Place' and 'Room Name' are disabled.



3. When you open a sent invitation and click the 'New' button in the 'Reserve Online Meeting' dialog then in the "New" meeting room dialog, Sametime Classic rooms will be filtered out. Thus, you cannot create and add a new Sametime Classic Meeting from a sent invitation.

About the Author

Supreet Kaur Bhatia is working with IBM - India Software Labs, as Senior Software Engineer. She is a Notes Client developer and interested in Template development for both Client and Web based applications. You can reach Supreet at Supreet.Bhatia@in.ibm.com.