New Outlook - no Accept/Decline/Tentative button on certain invites from me as a delegate

Question

New Outlook - no Accept/Decline/Tentative button on certain invites from me as a delegate

JennyB 0

I am a delegate to 3 Directors calendars. I have delegate permission and receive all their invites. If I send an invite from one Director inviting the other two, I have no option to accept or decline the invite from the invite itself. The only option I have is 'Edit' or 'Cancel. I have to go into their physical calendar to accept which is time consuming.

If somebody else sends a meeting invite to any of these Directors I can Accept/Decline/Tentative no issue from the invite so the issue is me being a delegate to all three.

Please help?

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Answer 1

Kristen Tran 1,695 Independent Advisor

Hi,

Based on your description, this appears to be related to your delegate permissions for the three Directors rather than an issue with the meeting invitations themselves.

Since you are configured as a delegate for both the meeting organizer and the invited Directors, New Outlook for Windows may be opening the meeting request as a delegate-managed item. In this scenario, the invitation can display Edit and Cancel instead of the standard Accept, Tentative, and Decline options. Delegate users are able to manage and respond to meetings on behalf of calendar owners, and certain delegate-related behaviors can differ from standard attendee experiences.

As a result, although you can successfully accept the meeting by opening the Directors' calendars directly, the response options may not be available from the invitation message itself.

To further investigate, could you please test the same scenario in Classic Outlook and Outlook web then let me know if the Accept, Tentative, and Decline options are available there?

At this stage, the behavior appears consistent with how delegate-related calendar actions are processed in New Outlook. The results of the above checks will help determine whether this is specific to the Outlook client or related to the mailbox configuration.

I look forward to your findings.

Kind regards.

JennyB 0 Reputation points

2026-09-14T12:51:02.76+00:00

Hi it is fine in Classic Outlook but is the same issue in outlook web as the new outlook.
Kristen Tran 1,695 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-09-14T13:51:46.8766667+00:00
Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to test this in classic Outlook, new Outlook, and Outlook on the web.

Since the Accept, Tentative, and Decline options are available in classic Outlook but are missing in both new Outlook and Outlook on the web, the behavior does not appear to be caused by the local Outlook installation. It seems to be specific to the modern Outlook experience and this particular delegate scenario, where you manage the calendars involved and create a meeting on behalf of one director.

In the meantime, you can work around the issue by:

Using classic Outlook to respond to the meeting requests, or

Accessing the director’s calendar directly in new Outlook or Outlook on the web and responding from the calendar event.

I truly appreciate you bringing this to the community’s attention. Your feedback is thoughtful, practical, and highlights a real usability need that other delegates may share. User feedback plays an important role in helping Microsoft understand how Outlook is used in real-world scenarios and where the experience could be improved.

I encourage you to submit this suggestion through the Outlook (new) Community portal. Submitting it there gives the product team an opportunity to review the request and consider it for future improvements.

Once the feedback has been submitted, please share the link in the comments if you are comfortable doing so. I would be glad to upvote it and help bring it additional visibility.

Sharing the feedback link may also help other users who are experiencing the same issue find the request, add their votes, and contribute further details.

Thank you again for your time, your testing, and for raising this important usability concern.