Create Outlook Appointments for a group without being included?

I have seen a similar request, but it doesn't specifically address my needs so I'm hoping I can glean a different answer by restating the question.

Here's the situation:
I am the manager of a sales team. Since I am not part of the front line sales force there are meetings or tasks that I want my team to be reminded of, but I do not need (or want) to be reminded of them myself. I have dozens of other appointments daily that I need to keep and I don't need the clutter of their reminders in my Outlook.

The solution for others has been to be a delegate for someone else's calendar. But again, this isn't what I want because I need this to reach a large group of people, not just one or two.

I simply want to send a calendar invite to my team, have them accept it so it's placed in their calendar, but it's not included in mine. Can this be done?

Solution 1:

There are several possible approaches:

• Get someone else to create the meeting request ;) The easiest approach!
• Create a special mailbox in Exchange just for meeting requests - seems a bit overkill
• Create a meeting with a specific category and change your Calendar view to exclude that category

The later is the closest to your question.

Adjust your Outlook categories to suit and add a category called Hide Me or whatever you like.

Create a new meeting at assign the chosen category. Don't forget to change the "Show As" from Busy to Free so that your free/busy time isn't taken up.

In your calendar view, select the View tab and click on View Settings.

Click on "Filter...", Advanced, Field, "Categories". Change the condition to "doesn't contain" and type the category to exclude in the Value box.

Now you should be able to create new meetings that you don't see but everyone else does.

Solution 2:

You may also be able to create the appointment, send it, then go back in to the appointment and change to show as"Free". Close the appointment but don't send update. Test it first with a coworker, but it should keep your calendar free and they will still view as busy with a reminder.