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Scheduling Meetings using the Amazon Chime Add-in for Outlook

Scheduling Meetings from the Amazon Chime Add-in for Outlook

If you are using Outlook this article explains how to schedule Amazon Chime meetings. There are a lot of details provided below to help explain all the options, and most meetings are scheduled in just a few clicks.

Note: If you are scheduling meetings for someone else and you use Outlook on Windows, please see this article: https://answers.chime.aws/articles/188/scheduling-a-meeting-for-someone-else-using-outloo.html

UPDATE 01/26/2023 The Amazon Chime for Outlook Add-in now provides an option to select the meeting invite language used: English or Canadian French when scheduling a meeting. The option will be remembered when scheduling the next meeting.

UPDATE 11/16/2020 If you are scheduling meetings for someone else and you use Outlook on Mac, there was a change to the experience after the macOS Outlook 16.42 client update. You can either ask your delegate to provide you with meeting IDs that you can use when scheduling meetings on their calendar or use Outlook on Windows.

Scheduling meetings

  1. Contact your IT department for instructions on how to enable the Amazon Chime Add-in for Outlook.
  2. Launch Outlook and create a new Appointment or open an existing Appointment.
  3. Select Schedule Chime Meeting found on the upper right of the Appointment ribbon. The Amazon Chime add-in will load from the right.
    amazon-chime-for-outlook-add-in-01262023.png
  4. If you are launching the add-in for the first time you will be prompted to Sign in.
  5. Choose your options listed below and when done click Add to invite. Chime will remember the options you choose and present them the next time you access the Meeting scheduling assistant.
    1. Choose the Meeting type
      Select either to generate a new ID your personal meeting ID. We highly recommend choosing one of the Generate a new ID meeting types. The personal meeting ID was assigned to you when you created your Amazon Chime account and it is best used for adhoc personal meetings.

      If you are scheduling back to back meetings, external, or confidential meetings, choose the Generate a new ID option. Amazon Chime generates a special 10 digit meeting ID that you can use for a single meeting event or for a recurring series. There is no limit to how many new IDs you can generate.

      If you are scheduling a confidential meeting and you want to add a passcode that can be used to start the meeting or share host controls, choose the Generate a new ID and require moderator to start.

      Note: You can give your personal meeting ID a friendly name by navigating to Meetings and choosing My meeting bridge information from the menu and clicking on your Personalized ID.

    2. Decide who can join your meeting.

      The table below describes the options and related controls for who can join and who is locked out.

      Options selected
      Who can join? Who is locked out?
      When no options are checked: Attendees in the same company (based on the Amazon Chime account that the organizer belongs to) can join.

      Registered users whose Amazon Chime account is associated with an email that was invited to the meeting along with meet@chime.aws are allowed to join the meeting.
      Registered users outside the organizer’s company that are not invited, but try to join, receive a message that the meeting is locked and cannot join.

      Anonymous users trying to join receive a message that the meeting is locked and cannot join.

      NOTE: If your meeting attendees are part of a subsidiary organization, they may be considered outside your company. If this is the case, we recommend checking the Attendees outside of my company who are signed in as the access option.
      When Attendees outside of my company who are signed in is checked: Any attendee that has the meeting ID and is signed into Amazon Chime may join the meeting. Attendees who are not signed in to Amazon Chime are locked out of the meeting.

      Anonymous attendees are locked out of the meeting.
      When both the Attendees outside of my company who are signed in and Anyone with the meeting ID are checked: Any attendee that has the meeting ID may join the meeting, including those that have not yet created an Amazon Chime account. Users that don’t have the meeting ID cannot join.

      Organizers, their delegates or moderators may also use the Lock host control to prevent any new attendees who are not invited from joining the meeting.

    3. Decide if attendees can use in-room video systems or dial-in to join.

      In addition to deciding which attendees are allowed to join a meeting, organizers may now determine if attendees are permitted to join from in-room video systems or dial-in attendees with the meeting ID.

      image.png

      In-room video systems

      • When In-room video systems is checked, attendees can join from an in-room system using the 10-digit meeting ID and instructions on how to join are provided in the attendee invitation.
      • When In-room video systems is not checked, attendees cannot join from an in-room system using the 10-digit meeting ID.

        Note: Amazon Chime generates a unique 13-digit meeting ID for each invited attendee when the meeting begins which can be used to join using an in-room video system when the In-room video systems join option is not checked. An invited attendee signed into Amazon Chime may obtain their 13-digit meeting ID by choosing the Dial-in tab when first joining the meeting from a client or by choosing the Switch to dial-in option under the More menu on Windows, macOS or web applications or under the Options menu on iOS or Android clients.

        Dial-in
      • When Dial-in is checked, attendees can join by dialing in to the meeting. The organizer may then choose to select countries from the list of toll or toll-free numbers and instructions on how to join are provided in the attendee invitation.
      • When Dial-in is not checked, attendees cannot dial-in using the 10-digit meeting ID.

        Note: Amazon Chime generates a unique 13-digit meeting ID for each invited attendee when the meeting begins which can be used to dial into a meeting when the Dial-in join option is not checked. An invited attendee signed into Amazon Chime may obtain their 13-digit meeting ID by choosing the Dial-in tab when first joining the meeting from a client or by choosing the Switch to dial-in option under the More menu on Windows, macOS or web applications or under the Options menu on iOS or Android clients.

  6. Choose Add to invite and the add in will invite meet@chime.aws and the pin+<meeting id>@chime.aws to the To: field of the invite and adds meeting join information to the Body of the invite.
  7. Next complete your meeting invite by adding additional attendees, Subject (meeting name), Start and End date and time, recurring schedule, etc.

  8. When the meet@chime.aws and pin+<meeting id>@chime.aws email addresses are included in the invite, the meeting .ics file is communicated to Chime to use to initiate the auto-call and help attendees join.

  9. A minute before the scheduled meeting starts, Chime will "ring" all registered Chime attendees who were invited to start the meeting. Other attendees can use the meeting link, and optional dial-in and in-room video system information to join the meeting.

  10. If there is a problem with scheduling your meeting, (e.g. The meeting ID is not associated with the calendar owner, the calendar is a group calendar, the organizer does not have a Pro license), Amazon Chime will send a scheduling failure email to the organizer.

Meeting Scheduling Best Practices:

  1. If you want attendees to receive auto-call, expand distribution lists.

  2. If you add or remove attendees from a meeting invite, make sure you choose the option to Send update to all. If you don't do this, not all your attendees will receive the auto-call.
  3. If you remove the meet@chime.aws from the invite, Amazon Chime doesn’t know who is invited, the name of the meeting, when it starts, or when it ends. No auto-call will happen and attendees join manually (clicking on the link, or entering the meeting ID). In addition, the security option Anyone in your company or is invited does not include invited attendees outside your Amazon Chime company and external registered attendees may need to be manually added to the meeting by choosing More > Invite others.

    Organizers may choose not to invite meet@chime.aws because they are trying to reduce the meeting start notification from being played on all the attendee's devices (especially if they are in one location).

  4. Once options are set for a meeting ID, they cannot be changed - including during a meeting or on a future occurrence.
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