Microsoft 365 Scheduler was a paid, Cortana-assisted service that coordinated meetings by email. It is no longer a current Microsoft scheduling option: a September 2022 post by Microsoft MVP Tony Redmond reported that it would close on September 1, 2023, and Microsoft later documented the retirement of Cortana features. For meeting scheduling today, Microsoft offers Outlook Scheduling Assistant and Scheduling Poll, Copilot in Outlook, and Microsoft Bookings, depending on whether you are arranging colleague meetings or customer appointments.
What Microsoft 365 Scheduler did
Microsoft announced Scheduler on June 8, 2021, as an email-based service built around Cortana. An administrator could configure a custom mailbox to receive natural-language meeting requests. Scheduler would check attendees’ free/busy availability, negotiate a time over email, send calendar invitations, and handle rescheduling or cancellation. Microsoft said the service could use free/busy information without revealing attendees’ other calendar details.
Microsoft’s launch announcement gave examples such as “Cortana, please find a time to meet next week” and “Cortana, please find us 45 minutes in the last week of the month in the morning for Pacific time and make it a Teams meeting.” These were Microsoft’s sample requests, not independently tested prompts.
Microsoft described Scheduler as “the first artificial intelligence service with human assistance in Microsoft 365 that allows Cortana to work without specific keywords.” The description appeared in Microsoft’s 2021 announcement.
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What Scheduler cost
Microsoft’s launch announcement linked to pricing and purchase information, and a 2021 Microsoft Ignite announcement described Scheduler as a paid add-on to Exchange Online plans. The exact former subscription price is not established in the available dated sources, so a specific per-user fee cannot be stated reliably.
In its 2021 launch announcement, Microsoft also reported that scheduling a meeting took an average of 6 to 29 minutes and that weekly meetings increased by 148%. Those are historical claims from Microsoft, not current or independently verified measurements.
Is Microsoft 365 Scheduler still available?
No. A September 7, 2022, Microsoft Tech Community post by Microsoft MVP Tony Redmond reported that Cortana Scheduler would close on September 1, 2023. That closure date comes from Redmond’s post, rather than a first-party Microsoft closure notice. Microsoft’s Cortana support documentation records additional retirements: Cortana voice assistance in the standalone Windows app ended in spring 2023; Cortana in Teams mobile, Teams display, Teams Rooms, Outlook mobile, and Microsoft 365 mobile ended in fall 2023; and Outlook mobile voice search and Play My Emails ended in June 2024.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Which Microsoft scheduling tool should you use now?
| Need | Tool | How it helps | Check before using |
|---|---|---|---|
| Find a time among colleagues | Outlook Scheduling Assistant | Shows attendee free/busy times while you create a meeting. | Work or school Microsoft 365/Exchange account, Outlook version, room booking, attendee availability, and time zones. |
| Let invitees choose among proposed times | Outlook Scheduling Poll | Polls participants; in new Outlook, optional auto-scheduling can send an invite after required-attendee consensus. | Required and optional attendees, consensus behavior, auto-scheduling settings, and calendar holds. |
| Get conversational scheduling help | Copilot in Outlook | Microsoft says Copilot checks attendees’ calendars and recommends a mutually convenient time. | Availability for your account and whether you need a suggested time or a poll. |
| Accept customer appointments | Microsoft Bookings | Offers a web-based booking page integrated with Outlook, with appointment management and Teams/Outlook app workflows. | Whether the page is public or tenant-restricted, staff and services, notifications, online meetings, and plan-specific features. |
Microsoft’s guidance for Outlook scheduling tools is at Outlook scheduling documentation, and its Copilot scheduling guidance is at Copilot in Outlook. For customer appointments, see Microsoft’s Bookings service description. Bookings features vary across Small Business, Enterprise, GCC, GCC-High, DOD, and Education plans, so check the subscription and tenant before relying on a particular feature.
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