Scheduling a meeting for your manager, executive, or a colleague is the core of the executive-assistant job — and it’s one of the most-asked questions in Microsoft’s own support threads. The catch is that there’s no “schedule for someone else” button. In both Outlook and Teams, scheduling on behalf of another person runs entirely through delegate access to that person’s Outlook calendar. Set that up once, and every meeting you create on their calendar goes out “on behalf of” them, with responses routed to the right inbox.

Here’s how to do it correctly in Outlook (new and classic) and Teams, plus how to fix the usual snags — wrong organizer, responses landing in the wrong place, and “I don’t have delegate access.”

---

What you need before you can schedule for someone else

The prerequisite is delegate access to the other person’s Outlook calendar. The person you’re scheduling for has to grant this — you can’t give it to yourself. They need to set you up with:

• Editor permission on their calendar (read, create, and edit events) — or Delegate level if they also want you handling meeting responses, and
• “Delegate receives copies of meeting-related messages” turned on, so invitation responses route to you instead of disappearing into their inbox.

If that’s not in place yet, walk them through how to delegate calendar access in Outlook first — it covers the exact permission levels and routing options for every Outlook version. Everything below assumes that delegation is already set up.

Exchange Online delegate permissions can take up to 60 minutes to propagate across all clients. If you set this up and can’t see the calendar immediately, give it time.

---

1. Schedule a meeting on behalf of someone in new Outlook & on the web

Once you’ve been added as a delegate, you create the meeting on their calendar, not yours. That’s what makes it “on behalf of.”

1. Open Calendar in the left navigation.
2. Add their calendar to your view if it isn’t there yet: click Add calendar > Add from directory, type their name, and click Add. It shows up under People’s calendars.
3. Make sure their calendar is selected/visible, then click New event.
4. In the event form, confirm the organizer. If you have a From option, set it to the person you’re scheduling for. If you created the event directly on their calendar, it’s already organized by them.
5. Add the title, attendees, date, and time. Use the Scheduling Assistant in Outlook to find a slot that works across everyone.
6. Click Send.

Attendees see “[Your Name] on behalf of [Their Name]” as the meeting organizer, and responses route according to the delegate settings.

---

2. Schedule on behalf of someone in classic Outlook for Windows

Classic Outlook gives you the most explicit control over the organizer field.

1. Click File > Open & Export > Other User’s Folder.
2. Click Name, pick the person, set Folder type to Calendar, and click OK. Their calendar opens and stays in your Shared Calendars list.
3. With their calendar open, click New Meeting.
4. Show the organizer field: on the meeting form, go to Options > From if the From button isn’t already visible, then click From and choose the delegator’s address.
5. Add attendees, time, and details, then click Send.

Recipients see “[Your Name] on behalf of [Delegator Name]” in the organizer line. If “Delegate receives copies of meeting-related messages” is on, the accept/decline responses come to you so you can track the headcount.

---

3. Schedule a Teams meeting on behalf of someone else

This is the part that trips people up. Microsoft Teams doesn’t let you reassign the organizer when you schedule from your own calendar — the organizer is always whoever owns the calendar the meeting lives on. There’s no “schedule as someone else” control inside the Teams calendar itself.

So you schedule a Teams meeting on behalf of someone the same way you schedule any meeting for them: through Outlook delegate access, on their calendar. Adding the Teams join link is the only extra step.

1. In Outlook, open the calendar of the person you’re scheduling for (the steps in sections 1 and 2 above).
2. Create a new event/meeting on their calendar.
3. Turn on the Teams meeting:
   • New Outlook / web: toggle Teams meeting on in the event form.
   • Classic Outlook: click New Teams Meeting on the Home ribbon (or Teams Meeting on the event ribbon) while their calendar is selected.
4. Add attendees, time, and details, then Send.

The meeting now belongs to the person you scheduled for — they show as the organizer, the Join link is theirs, and it lands on their Teams and Outlook calendars.

A few Teams-specific gotchas worth knowing:

• Run both apps. Teams reads delegate settings from Outlook over MAPI. If you’re relying on the Teams desktop app to reflect a delegated calendar, both Outlook and Teams should be signed in and running, on the delegator’s profile as the default account, so the delegate permission syncs.
• Need someone to be able to start/manage the call? Since you can’t transfer the organizer role after the fact, the cleanest workaround is to add that person as a co-organizer on the meeting. Co-organizers can start the meeting and manage it without being the original organizer. (For the general flow of building a Teams invite, see how to schedule a meeting in Teams.)

---

4. Managing calls on someone’s behalf (Teams call delegation)

Calendar delegation and call delegation are separate in Teams. If your job also includes answering or placing phone calls for your exec, set up call delegation:

1. In Teams, click Settings and more (the … menu) > Settings > General.
2. Find the Delegation section and click Manage delegates.
3. Add the person whose calls you’ll handle (or have them add you), and choose whether you can receive calls, make calls, and change their call/delegate settings on their behalf.

To actually route their incoming calls to you, the delegator sets Calls ring me to Also ring and picks My delegates in the dropdown.

Teams call delegation requires an Enterprise Voice or Business Voice (Teams Phone) license. If you don’t see any delegation options under Settings > General, that license isn’t assigned — that’s the usual reason it’s missing, not a bug.

---

Schedule on behalf of someone without the delegate-permission setup

The whole reason this is fiddly is that you’re acting as someone else — granting access, picking the right permission level, getting the From field to show, hoping the propagation finishes. That’s exactly the work an executive assistant does, and exactly what Carly does autonomously.

Carly is an AI assistant you reach by email or text that schedules meetings on your behalf across both Outlook and Gmail — it finds times, sends the invites, and handles the back-and-forth with the other side, without you wiring up delegate permissions or remembering to toggle a From field. For the human-or-AI version of this role, see the best AI executive assistants. Carly starts at $35/month.

---

Troubleshooting

The meeting shows me as the organizer, not the person I scheduled for

You created the event on your own calendar instead of theirs. Delete it and recreate it while their calendar is open/selected, or — in classic Outlook — use the From field on the meeting form to set the organizer to the delegator. Teams meetings inherit the organizer from the calendar the event lives on, so this is the same fix there.

Responses (accept/decline) are going to the wrong person

This is the meeting-message routing setting. In the delegator’s delegate options, the routing needs to be “My delegates only” or “My delegates only, but send a copy” with “Delegate receives copies of meeting-related messages” enabled. If responses are landing in their inbox and not yours, that box is off. Fix it in the delegate-access setup.

”I don’t have delegate access”

You can’t grant it to yourself — the person you’re scheduling for has to add you in their Outlook (File > Account Settings > Delegate Access in classic, or Settings > General > Delegation in new Outlook/web). Send them the delegation guide and have them set you to Editor or Delegate. Then wait up to an hour for it to propagate.

I can see their calendar but can’t create meetings on it

That’s the difference between Reviewer (read-only) and Editor/Delegate. Reviewer lets you look but not book. Ask the delegator to bump your calendar permission to Editor or Delegate.

The Teams meeting button is missing when I’m on their calendar

The Teams add-in only registers when the Teams desktop app is installed and signed in. Close Outlook, launch and sign in to Teams, then reopen Outlook. In classic Outlook, re-enable it under File > Options > Add-ins > COM Add-ins > Go and check Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office.

I just want to send my exec’s availability, not book it for them

If the task is proposing times rather than committing the calendar, you may not need full delegation — see how to send an availability email.

---

Quick Reference

Goal	What to do
Schedule for someone (Outlook)	Open their calendar > New Meeting > set From to them > Send
Make it “on behalf of”	Create the event on their calendar, not yours
Schedule a Teams meeting for them	On their calendar in Outlook, toggle Teams meeting on > Send
Let someone else start the Teams call	Add them as a co-organizer (organizer can’t be reassigned)
Route responses to you	Enable delegate receives copies of meeting-related messages
Answer their phone calls	Teams > Settings > General > Delegation > Manage delegates

Related Articles

Guides

How to Create a Teams Meeting in Outlook (2026 Guide)

Apr 15, 2026

Guides

How to Delegate Calendar Access in Outlook (Every Version, 2026)

Apr 7, 2026

Guides

How to Schedule a Meeting in Outlook (Step by Step)

Jun 24, 2026