Hybrid Working
Hybrid RSVP in Outlook: What It Does, What It Still Can’t Do
With hybrid working very much here to stay, Microsoft have risen to the challenge in how we now work by delivering us better way to handle In-person Meetings and Hybrid RSVPs.
In this article we’re taking a look at the Hybrid RSVP response in Outlook that allows invitees to indicate how they plan to attend a meeting:
- Yes, in-person, OR
- Yes, on a remote call.
TL;DR?
How does the ‘Hybrid’ RSVP feature in Outlook address the challenges of co-ordinating & facilitating in-person meetings?
It shows promise. This article looks at the benefits and current shortcomings.
What is an Hybrid RSVP?
An RSVP (Respondez Sil Vous Plait) is a request to the recipient of an invitation to confirm whether they plan to attend or not.
Knowing this information allows the organiser to effectively plan a meeting or event, and the resources required to host it.
As many meetings and events can be attended virtually these days, the concept of a Hybrid RSVP (HRSVP) has been introduced so that attendees can indicate how they plan to attend: i.e, In-person or remotely.
In Outlook, the HRSVP request to recipients of a meeting invitation is triggered using the In-Person event (IPE) toggle.
With the IPE toggle switched on, invitees are requested to indicate how they plan to attend when they say ‘yes’ to an event.
A key point to note here though, is that Hybrid RSVP is ONLY an option through the Outlook calendar; NOT the Teams calendar experience
Why is HRSVP so handy?
Here’s just 4 of the potential benefits of having the HRSVP feature in Outlook:
1. It helps avoid the negative impact of commute regret*
I for one have suffered the phenomenon of commute-regret. I turned up to a Teams meeting ‘in person’ thinking it would be a great opportunity to catch up with folk over a biscuit or three, only to realise that most people had opted to join remotely.
According to the urban dictionary, commute regret can go hand-in-hand with a ‘soul crushing’ effect that walking into an empty, ‘ghost town-like’ office has.
The fact is, both scenarios can be detrimental for organisations wishing to encourage their workforce into the office.
In theory, the IPE and HRSVP feature should help avoid such situations. By seeing who is attending in person vs remotely, you could conceivably:
- Stay at home when it looks like you’ll be a ‘Billy no mates’ if you come into the office.
- Come into the office to prevent FOMO and connect with your mates.
See point 4 for the end user experience using HRSVP.
*Commute-regret refers to the frustrating experience of commuting to the office only to find oneself alone and performing tasks that could have been accomplished remotely.
2. It avoids wasting precious resources, time & bacon butties. Probably….
Let’s say you have 20 people in your team and you want to organise a ‘hybrid meeting’.
With the HRSVP ‘piece of the jigsaw’ in place you have a better chance of knowing who’s going to show up in person. The benefits of this are:
- You can book a meeting room that’s more space-efficient. For example, just 10 seats instead of 21.
- You won’t waste coffee and bacon butties by over-ordering.
- If everyone plans to attend remotely (except you), you might as well have a fully remote meeting and save the planet: less fuel, less heating, etc.
There are some gotchas with HRSVP as it stands currently, however:
- You may have noticed from the above screen shot that invitees can still respond with a nebulous ‘Yes’, and not specify whether they’ll be attending in-person or virtually.
- As the organiser, you will need to do the maths on who’s going to attend in person, and change up any room reservations and catering orders accordingly to avoid waste.
This leads us onto the next point around avoiding waste of precious office space and meeting rooms.
3. You can better optimise office space utilisation (with Microsoft Places)
In theory, knowing how many people plan to attend a meeting in person should make it easier to book the right amount of space. If ten people say “yes, in-person” and five say “yes, virtually”, you should be booking a room for ten, not fifteen. The logic is sound, but the reality of making it work fully automatically is more tricky.
When this article was first published, we were testing whether the Hybrid RSVP response could integrate meaningfully with the workspace resource mailbox in Microsoft Exchange – this is a bookable space type designed to enforce a maximum capacity across a shared area.
At the time, we noted that capacity tracking was unreliable. That problem was never fully resolved through HRSVP alone, and the picture has since shifted with the direction of travel towards Places.
Microsoft has moved away from relying on Exchange workspace mailboxes as the mechanism for desk-level capacity management and have introduced a dedicated desk object: a purpose-built resource that handles availability and conflict management directly within Places, without routing everything through Exchange calendar processing. If you are configuring desk booking for a hybrid organisation today, this is the model to follow. We cover the difference between workspace mailboxes, desk pools, and the new desk object in detail in our guide to desk booking using Microsoft resource mailboxes.
What does this mean for HRSVP and space optimisation? The short answer is that the two things are still not joined up automatically. Accepting a meeting as “yes, in-person” doesn’t trigger a desk or room booking, doesn’t update your work location status, and doesn’t feed into any capacity counter in real time. The organiser still has to review the tracking pane, do the maths , and adjust any room reservation accordingly- especially key if meeting space is at a significant premium.
Knowing who is attending in person before the meeting happens is useful, even if the other actions remain manual. But anyone expecting HRSVP to drive automatic space optimisation will need Microsoft Places configured properly alongside it, and in larger organisations, a third-party workspace booking solution integrated with Places may still be necessary to close the gap.
4. It will be easier to meet in person.
The debate about hybrid work has moved on considerably in just the last couple of years. Hybrid has been accepted as the norm, though different organisations return-to-office (RTO) mandates mean this could be anything from one to four days in the office. Instead the conversation is evolving to consider what kind of work needs to be done from the office- and to reconsider how space is used.
Owl Labs’ 2025 State of Hybrid Work report, which surveyed 2,000 full-time UK workers, found that employees broadly understand and accept the reasoning behind bringing people into the office more regularly. The majority see it as being about reinforcing culture, improving collaboration, and maintaining visibility, and they want those in-person moments to be meaningful, not something to tick a management box. We come for connection, to make progress on a shared goal. Sitting on Teams calls, headsets on doesn’t need a dedicated workplace office; and it’s not a great experience for anyone in an open plan office.
This exactly where commute-regret bites hardest. If someone travels into the office for a meeting and finds that most of the team has dialled in remotely, the trip is a frustrating waste of time and money. The frustration actively undermines the case for being in the office at all.
HRSVP addresses this directly. By letting attendees signal whether they plan to attend in person or virtually before the day, it gives everyone, organiser and invitees alike, the information they need to make a sensible decision about whether the trip is worth making. If attendance is going to be predominantly virtual, the organiser can restructure accordingly. If I see most of my team will be in, FOMO kicks in and I want to be there.
This only works, of course, if people actually use the feature. The nebulous “Yes” option is still available, which means the organiser’s tracking view can still be inconclusive. The feature rewards teams that have established a norm of using it consistently.
There’s a few issues with this approach:
- Not everyone will have set their work hours and locations. In fact I noticed that the status of such individuals comes up as ‘Not available’ in the Suggested times window, even when their diary is clear. I found this UX confusing.
- Schedules can vary, and individuals might not be diligent in updating changes to their usual hybrid work patterns.
In an ideal world, ‘HRSVP – Yes in person’ should also automatically update your location to be ‘Office’ if it’s not already set to this. This way, you’ll show up as available for other ‘in-person’ meetings on the same day.
As far as we can see, it doesn’t do this.
Whilst there may be good reasons not to do this automatically, it would be nice for end users to be given the option or a reminder to flip their status to ‘in office’ for a date on which they accept a meeting in-person.
Conclusion – In Person Events and Hybrid RSVP are great – but..
Understanding where your workforce is – i.e., working from home, or in the office – is important for many hybrid organisations:
- It helps businesses save costs and reduce their environmental impact
- It helps individuals and teams meet in person, with all the benefits of learning, efficiency, idea generation and wellbeing that offers.
- It also helps facilities teams optimise office accommodation and save costs
Whilst the IPE and HRSVP are a step in the right direction, the signs are that Microsoft are continuing to develop at pace around the area of Hybrid Working, with Microsoft Places and Copilot enhanced features.
If you’re getting ready to test or use Places in your organisation, check out our resources on the subject.
