An invited guest may have an out-of-office block set up on their calendar. Depending on their selected settings, they may be automatically declining event invitations due to the block.

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When a guest has set an out-of-office block with auto-decline, invitations for events, including any internal meetings (e.g., meetings scheduled directly in Google Calendar) will be declined if the invitation for the meeting start time or end time coincides with the guest’s out-of-office block.

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For any invitations sent to guests via Epoch, Epoch will recognize that the guest has set their calendar to auto-decline meetings, and will notify the guest to RSVP from the calendar event directly if they want to register for the event they were invited to.

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For example:

• Florence has an out-of-office block with auto-decline set up from 12:00pm to 1:00pm on Monday
• Florence is invited to the event Dumpling Making Class that is scheduled for the same Monday at 12:00pm to 1:00pm
• Since Florence has auto-decline set up, her Google Calendar will automatically respond to the invitation for this event as “not going”
• Epoch will recognize that Florence has set her calendar to auto-decline meetings and she will receive a notification to register for from the calendar event directly to RSVP to the Dumpling Making Class event
• Once Florence clicks “Yes” from the calendar to override the auto-decline, she will be marked as going to the event

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Will my event invitation be declined if it is an all-day event?

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Short out-of-office calendar blocks with auto-decline setting (e.g., a one-hour block) will not result in an all-day event being automatically declined. This is because the event start time or end time does not coincide with the block on the guest's calendar.

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For example:

• Florence has an out-of-office block with auto-decline set up from 12:00pm to 1:00pm on Monday
• Florence is invited to the event Volunteer Day that is scheduled for the same Monday; Volunteer Day is an all-day event
• Since the event spans the entire day, and Florence’s out-of-office block is only from 12:00pm to 1:00pm on the same day, the calendar does not auto-decline the Volunteer Day event
• Florence’s RSVP status for this event will remain “invited” until she registers for the event

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