Ever played meeting tag? It's a popular game: one person wants to set up a meeting with several others. The task is to see how many phone calls, walks up and down the hall, memos, and rescheduling it takes to find and confirm a day, time, and place that works for everyone.

Unfortunately, the loser in this game is the business that wastes valuable employee time and resources on such a simple task.

Businesses that are networked have discovered a better approach: networked scheduling. Sharing calendars on a network makes booking and confirming meetings a one-step process that virtually eliminates wasted time.   

Even a very small business can take advantage of this time-saving solution. A network of personal computers based on the Microsoft® Small Business Server and Microsoft Office enables individuals to not only manage their own calendars, but to share their schedules and view the schedules of colleagues. They can also assign a schedule to the conference room or a resource such as a slide projector so that they can be reserved when needed for meetings.

Microsoft Outlook™ messaging and collaboration client (part of the Microsoft Office suite, and included with BackOffice Small Business Server for networking use) provides an easy way to schedule and manage appointments. When connected to a network, an individual can use Outlook to select the list of attendees and find out the date and time that everybody is available. Once the time is chosen, meeting requests are automatically generated and sent by e-mail to all attendees. After viewing the invitation, each invitee can accept, decline, or respond tentatively to the meeting request. When accepted, a meeting time is automatically blocked out in the invitees calendar.

Network scheduling also allows assistants to view calendars and book appointments for others who are out of the office or visiting with customers. Because these electronic schedules are centrally stored on the server and synchronized on the desktop computer, users can be assured that their information is backed up during the regular automated server backup. And, unlike paper calendars, the company calendar of everybody's schedule on the central server is never inaccessible or lost.

Finally, networked scheduling can help make meetings more productive. Drag and drop a Word document into the mail that you'd like people to read before the meeting, include an agenda, attach a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing the numbers you want to discuss during the meeting. Whatever the information, you can easily send it to attendees to ensure that they stay focused during the meeting