Invitations
Fantastical includes a number of tools to make it easy to manage invitations to and from other people.
Responding to invitations
When you receive a new invitation you'll see an inbox icon appear at the top of the window. Click this icon to view all your pending invitations and choose to set your status to Accept, Decline, or Maybe by clicking the corresponding buttons. If you have multiple pending invitations, you can hold the option key to quickly take action on all invitations with one click.
Click and hold on the Accept, Decline, or Maybe buttons to respond to an Exchange invitation without sending a message to the sender.
Inviting people to events
Fantastical will search the system Contacts when it looks like you're trying to invite someone to an event. For example, typing "Lunch with Beth tomorrow" will allow you to quickly invite Beth to the event.
Fantastical will also search for contacts stored on your Google or Exchange server, providing you've added at least one of those accounts to Settings > Accounts, and that the contacts you want to invite belong to the same account that you are creating the current event on.
If you're creating an invitation on an Exchange calendar, you can choose whether the invitee needs to send a response or not. In the event details, click the invitee's name to choose whether to request a response or not.
Checking contact availability
Video: Invitee and Room Availability
After adding invitees to an event, a check or cross icon will appear next to their name indicating each invitee's availability at the time of your event. A yellow exclamation mark icon indicates that your contact is not available on the server, and thus availability is unable to work. Please note that iCloud does not support availability.
In addition to using the check and cross icons for a quick indication of your contacts' availability, a more detailed availability view can be displayed too. Click Check Availability to open a schedule planner and observe your contacts' availability throughout the day (click the button to the right of the date to open this view in a separate window). In the bottom-left of the availability planner, you can use the pull-down menu to toggle the timeline to either display "All Day" or "Work Hours" (work hours are configured in Settings > General > Day starts/ends at). The Next Available Time command is the quickest and easiest way to schedule an event, with Fantastical instantly performing the hard work of finding a time when you and your invitees are all free. You can also configure a time manually, and if one of your contacts has an event booked for the time of your event it'll turn red to indicate a conflict.
The availability window can also be shown from the Window menu after selecting an existing event. This allows you to see if your invitees' availability has changed, or to quickly reschedule an event to another suitable time.
Proposals
Video: Scheduling with Proposals
The propose another time option allows you to send a proposal to your invitee(s), asking them which time they'd prefer to schedule the event for. After choosing this option and clicking the 'Add Proposal' button, your invitee(s) will get an email asking which time they want to use. When they respond, Fantastical will turn their response into a real event and notify you of any new date proposals for you to review.
When you create a meeting proposal, you also have the option to add a Meeting Proposal Link to your event. This gives you the ability to create a meeting proposal, generate a public URL, and share it with multiple people without having to add them individually to the proposal. When creating your proposal, just enable the option for "Create meeting proposal link" and Fantastical will generate the URL and add it to your event details so you always have access to it.
To customize the proposal even further, there are several settings you can change at the bottom of the event creation box:
Add event: Choose if Fantastical automatically adds the event to your calendar when all responses are in, or if you prefer to add it manually after reviewing the responses.
Add to: Choose which calendar you want the confirmed event added to.
Send from: Choose which email address you want the proposal to be sent from. Invitees will see this email address when receiving a meeting proposal. To use this option, you must add your email address directly to your Flexibits Account on our website under the Account tab.
Notify me: Choose when Fantastical notifies you of responses to the proposal.
Invitees: Choose if invitees are allowed to see other invitees on the proposal.
Once you add your proposal to Fantastical, you can view the proposal details by double-clicking on one of the proposed times that appear on your calendar.
When viewing the proposal, select the Details tab to view your proposal's details.
The Details tab lets you view the proposed times/dates and your invitee list, view or add a meeting proposal link, and change the settings for your proposal.
The middle tab, Invitees, gives you a table view of all of your invitees and their responses. This lets you quickly see which date/time works best for everyone and confirm the event.
The final tab in the proposal details is the Comments tab. Here you can see all of the comments made by your invitees when they responded to your proposal.
Responding to a proposal
When someone sends you a meeting proposal from Fantastical, you have two ways to view the proposal and submit your response: either use the link in the proposal email to view the proposal on the web (ideal for invitees that don't use Fantastical), or view it directly in the Fantastical app.
If you choose to view the proposal on the web, click 'View Event Proposal' in your email to see the proposal details webpage.
You will see a list of all of the proposed dates/times and can select one or more options that work best for you. If you have any comments to pass along to the event organizer, you can add them in the comment box and then click 'Submit Response' to send in your response.
If you prefer to manage the proposal in Fantastical, you will also receive a notification directly in the app letting you view the proposal and submit your response.
Viewing your proposals in Fantastical
To view proposals that you have received in Fantastical, make sure you go to Fantastical > Settings > Calendars and enable the Fantastical Scheduling Proposals calendar on the calendar set you are viewing.
To view proposals that you have created in Fantastical, you need to enable the Fantastical Scheduling Proposals calendar, as well as the calendar you added the proposals to, on the calendar set you are viewing.
Propose new time
If you receive an invitation with a time that's not suitable, locate the invitation on your calendar and double-click it to see the Propose New Time option. Click this option to choose an alternative time and send it to the organizer to review.
If you're using Exchange, then the new time proposal will be sent automatically through your Exchange email. If you're using a CalDAV-based calendar service instead, such as iCloud or Google, then Fantastical will create a special email that contains an .ics file of the new time proposal and any comments you added to the proposal.
Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Webex conferences
Pre-existing Google Meet links created on Google Calendar's website will be visible in an event's details. Click the link to join the call. You will also see any pre-existing Microsoft Teams links that have been created on your Microsoft accounts. Zoom and Webex meetings are also available in Fantastical. Add a Zoom or Webex account by going to Fantastical's Settings > Accounts. You'll then see a "Zoom Meeting" or "Webex Meeting" option appear in your events. Use this option to create meetings directly in Fantastical and the meeting will be set up and sent to your invitees.
