Essential SharePoint

Organizing Meetings

SharePoint provides a special type of site called a meeting workspace, which can be created from meeting requests sent from Outlook. Meeting workspaces are meant to prepare attendees by publishing the objectives and agenda before a meeting is held, and after the meeting takes place, they help record decisions and related documents.Workspaces are used to organize the meeting process like this:

1. Attendees receive a meeting request in Outlook. The request links to the SharePoint workspace.

2. Attendees can click on the link to see details about the meeting and add items as needed.

3. During the meeting a participant can optionally open the workspace from a laptop and make notes.

4. The meeting organizer can later use the workspace to record conclusions, assign follow-up tasks, or add key documents.

Meeting workspaces aren't meant to be online meeting places, but they can be used in conjunction with Microsoft NetMeeting, Exchange Conferencing, or other online meeting services.

The following sections explain how to create SharePoint meeting workspaces from Outlook.

Creating a Meeting Workspace

To create a meeting workspace from Outlook:

1. Select the Calendar in the Navigation pane to choose a date and time for the meeting.

2. Choose Action → New Meeting Request. Outlook displays the Meeting Request dialog box.

3. Complete the fields on the dialog box and click Meeting Workspace. Outlook displays a workspace task pane in the dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-9.

4. Click Create. Outlook creates a Meeting ...