Calendar invites - updating invite status

Calendar offers you the option to set a meeting status as 'tentative', as you send out an invitation, allowing you to gauge interest from potential attendees. Calendar also gives you the option to change the status of the meeting after the invite has been sent, however doing this does not actually update the status of the meeting for any of those invited. 

Currently, changing the meeting status from tentative to busy will not alert attendees of the change, nor will it change the status of the meeting in the invitees calendars.

There are two recommended solutions to this issue:

  • Send out a tentative invite, gauge interest, then send out a separate invite with the busy status when you wish to alert the attendees of the change
  • Set the status as busy on the original invite.

It may be worth changing your calendar invite practices to no longer use the tentative status, if your intention is to change it should a certain number of invites be accepted.

Microsoft are aware if this and have this statement on their website about this.