Responding to Meeting Invitations

If you have a Microsoft Exchange account set up on iPhone with Calendars enabled, you can receive and respond to meeting invitations from people in your organization. When you receive an invitation, the meeting appears in your calendar with a dotted line around it. The Invitation icon icon in the lower-right corner of the screen indicates the total number of new invitations you have, as does the Calendar icon on the Home screen.

The Calendar screen showing a meeting invitation. At the top of the screen is the title bar showing from left to right: the Calendars button, the title of the current calendar, and the Add (+) button. Below the title bar is the date bar showing from left to right: an arrow button to see the previous day, the current date, and an arrow button to see the next day. Below are listed the hours of the day and the meeting invitation. Across the bottom of the screen are from left to right the buttons: Today, List, Day (selected), Month, and Event Details. The Event Details button shows the number of meeting invitations.

Respond to an invitation in Calendar:

  1. Tap a meeting invitation in the calendar, or tap Invitation icon to display the Event screen and tap an invitation.

    The Event screen showing invitation details. At the top of the screen is the title bar containing a date button to return to the Calendar screen. Below the title bar are the event details in rows from top to bottom: the title and location, the date and time, who sent the invitation, the attendees, alert settings, notes, and Add Comments. To the right of some of the rows is a right you tap to show more information. Across the bottom of the screen are from left to right the buttons: Accept, Maybe, and Decline.

    • Tap “Invitation from” to get contact information for the meeting organizer. Tap the email address to send a message to the organizer. If the organizer is in your contacts, you can also tap to call or send a text message.

    • Tap Attendees to see the other people invited to the meeting. Tap a name to see an attendee’s contact information. Tap the email address to send a message to the attendee. If the attendee is in your contacts, you can also tap to call or send a text message.

    • Tap Alert to set iPhone to sound an alert before the meeting.

    • Tap Add Comments to add comments in the email response to the meeting organizer. You comments will also appear in your Info screen for the meeting.

    Notes are made by the meeting organizer.

  2. Tap Accept, Maybe, or Decline.

When you accept, tentatively accept, or decline the invitation, a response email that includes any comments you added is sent to the organizer.

If you accept or tentatively accept the meeting, you can change your response later. Tap Add Comments if you want to change your comments.

Exchange meeting invitations are also sent in an email message, which lets you open the meeting’s Info screen from Mail.

Open a meeting invitation in an email message: 

Tap the invitation.

A meeting invitation attachment showing a rectangle with an icon of a calendar, the name of the meeting, the size of the attachment. An arrow on the right side opens the meeting invitation when tapped.